Hissing Sid - Will He Meet His Match?

I have been unwell over the past week and a half, feeling very tired and hugely depressed for some reason.  Am being plagued with cruel headaches and stomach upsets, not sleeping, you name it.   It just occurred to my feeble brain that perhaps the reason behind this is psychological.   Now that is just a guess, so we will see what happens over the course of the coming weeks.

You see, my ex is coming to visit and stay with my daughter.  This is something that has been making me feel bad mentally since I was told of his impending visit.  It is enough to make me wish for a worldwide simultaneous loss of all air communication - so that not one plane can get off the ground for at least the rest of his life.  Failing that, perhaps they can beam me up somewhere, anywhere will do.  I have no preference where, so long as it is on another planet.

Can you tell how much I eagerly anticipate his arrival?  This is the man who has no understanding of children, no empathy or compassion, and he is arriving in the morning to stay for weeks with my precious granddaughter.  Who is not yet 4, and is lively, bright, articulate, loud and (dare I say it?) quite bossy at times. She acts up when she is very tired, and is quite a trial sometimes.

My fears are for my daughter's mental state and for the little girl we all cherish.  After all, he was the one who yelled at his only grandaughter when she overbalanced in her bouncer -  she was only a few months old.  She was just crawling at that stage, and none of us appreciated him yelling at her that she was "a silly girl".   Babies just don't understand consequences, and anyone who shouts at a baby is really beyond description as far as I am concerned.  Why shout and make her cry?

When his own daughter was tiny he would go around packing her toys away every time she turned to something new.  No matter how much I asked he refused to leave her toys where they were.  It got so that when he was at home she would just sit on the carpet and not even make an attempt to get her toys out.  She knew that he would promptly put them away again.  Excellent for a child's development isn't it?   He went ballistic when she dismantled a cheap plastic toy I had bought, and when I objected he shouted that she was always "breaking things".   Eh?  That was the first and only thing I had ever known her to take apart, and I couldn't recall one toy she had broken.  Besides, how many children accidentally break toys?

When she was five and going to school I used to give her pocket money.  Ten pence was to go into her school savings book and the rest she could use to buy something for herself, or save at home.  The grand total was fifty pence a week.   The response to this was that she should be made to do housework to earn the money.   I was so angry.  I disagreed totally.  He was told this, and told also that she helped me with the evening meal, gathered up the dishes afterward, made her bed, emptied and cleaned out the bath after herself and tidied the bathroom.  How much more housework did he want a five year old to do?

 
This is also the so-called adult who was sickeningly jealous of his own mother playing with his daughter at bathtime.  There were squeals and splashing coming from the bathroom, and he was so angry, saying that his mother "never let ME do that".      I found that difficult to believe also.   Somehow I can't see him enjoying his tiny miracle granddaughter - unless, of course, he has an audience.  He is the one who picked up his tired,  crying 3 year old and threatened to hit her ON THE SOLES OF HER FEET if she didn't stop crying.  I was so upset.  I still am.    He threatened to hit her another time and I said stop threatening - if you are going to smack her, smack her and be done with it.  He said (in a RAGE) that he didn't want to hit her in anger.  I said "what? so you will hit her in cold blood?"   He would threaten and rage at her and she would just shake with fear.  Oh he was a good father.

I recall so many instances from my daughter's childhood, and one in particular keeps coming to the front of my mind.  She must have been 4 years old and had quite a lot of Lego which she loved.  She begged him to build her "a castle".   Now, you and I (I would hope) would do something quite quickly and simply and say "there you go!".  We would have a happy child playing with their Lego castle.  Not him.   He spent about an hour or more, making some ornate structure, getting angry when she tried to help - and was then furious because when he had finished she was not in the least interested in his masterpiece.   I still can't believe that he wouldn't even let her help.

He bought a train track and trains, with a little controller.  It was supposed to be for my girl to play with.  But woe betide her if she laid a finger on it.  If we had guests and the track was out then that was fine, she could play with the switches etc.  If there were no guests - no touching.   What was the point?   I have no idea.   Oh, when our marriage broke up?  He took the train set.............   hmmm.  He was only in his late thirties.

So I am sitting here worrying about our darling girls, and in particular our tiny girl.  She is not accustomed to people shouting at her, or calling her names.  She gets into trouble, yes of course she does!  And she gets sent to 'time out'  if she has behaved badly.   But mummy doesn't shout, she is calm and collected and points out where our girl went wrong.   Daddy doesn't shout - he speaks a little louder if she is being loud, but he is also kind, and adores his tiny girl.  My fear is that he can quickly destroy her confidence, as he did with his own daughter.  And sometimes they can never regain that self-esteem.    I also think that even if any of us did happen to shout at her, it wouldn't be a patch on the vicious tone the ex uses.   In his arrogance he thinks he is fully entitled to criticise and complain and correct.   It is not so long ago that he was still trying to control ME.   Thirty years on, he still thinks he has a right to control me.  He never had that right in the first place.

So.  It will be interesting, as I say, to see what the next few weeks bring.   I am afraid, yes.  He is a destructive person, he has been diagnosed as a sociopath, and he really should not be within a few thousand miles of my family.   Oh, did you know that we all call him Hissing Sid?

Please feel free to leave me a comment.  I welcome any feedback.