"Is it true your wife came at you with a golf club?" The Child Protection Services agent had asked me this question as soon as she identified herself to me. The funny thing is that my wife had actually came at me with a golf club a few weeks earlier when we were at a party and I had said something she was not happy about, but my kids were not there, so how had this lady heard it?
When I asked her how she had heard this, she just said to answer the question. I told her she could ask my wife herself as she was sitting right next to me and handed her the phone. My wife told her that we had gotten into an argument at a party and she had grabbed a golf club but hadn't attacked me with it. She then told the agent that the kids were not there and why was this a concern of CPS. The agent said they had some concerns and that they would be in touch to investigate further and hung up the phone.
A complaint a week.
This first call from CPS came about 2 weeks after the incident at my Mothers on Halloween when we got into an argument and I threatened her about her scamming for child care she was not really doing. After the first complaint call, we received roughly a call every week from that point forward. Needless to say, this just added more stress to our relationship that was already rocky and argumentative, but again, not violent.
I had a feeling it was my Mother that was calling CPS on us, but I didn't have proof. We were in a bad situation as we needed my Mother from time to time for child care, but we had several talks regarding her desire to take custody of our children. The calls kept coming, but they did not really have any evidence to come to the house, until things finally came to a head one night in late November.
The final straw.
One night, I decided I was going to get some dope and asked my wife to drive me. We had our roommate watch the kids and went for a drive to get the drugs. On the way we started arguing and it escalated quickly until I finally got out of the car and started walking home. Unfortunately, I left my cell phone in the car.
When I got home, my wife and kids were not there. I asked our roommate where they went, and she told me she had went to my Mothers house. I immediately called her and asked her to come home. I told her that my Mother was looking for every reason she could find to take the kids, and that I would sleep on the couch. My wife said she just didn't want to argue anymore and she was staying, there was nothing I could do to change her mind.
Worst mistake of my life.
The next morning I got up at 8 a.m. and called the school to see if my daughters were there. I knew my wife had a habit of just letting the girls miss school when they were late instead of taking them in, and I knew that CPS was probably checking their attendance. Sure enough they were not at school.
I got into my car and went to my Mothers house. I knocked on the door until my step dad answered and went into the house where everyone was still asleep. I woke my daughters up and had them brush their teeth and get their backpacks. My wife told me that she was not going to let them ride with me as I did not have my license. I told her I didn't care who they rode with as long as they got to school.
She got into her car with the kids and I followed her to the school to make sure she didn't just go to her Mothers and go back to sleep. When we got to the school I never even got out of my car. I hugged my daughters through the window and told them to have a good day and learn something new. They walked into the school waving to me.
What I didn't know...
When my wife went into the school, the janitor locked the door to the building and escorted her to the principles office, where my oldest daughter's teacher was without the principle. She then told my wife that my Mother had called the school saying that her schizophrenic son was on a violent rampage and on his way to the school. I was diagnosed with schizo affective disorder, but I was far from on a violent anything. The teacher then called the Ingham county sheriffs department and tried to get her to press charges on me for domestic abuse. She refused because it just was not true, and eventually they let her leave.
She came home and started packing a bag, but never said anything about what had happened at the school. I tried to get her to stay, telling her I loved her and all of that, but she kept saying she was not sure if she wanted to be with me anymore. I was never the type to get physical, and besides, what could I do? She left and I thought that was the end ogf it for then, I was wrong.
About an hour later, my parole officer kicked in my door and took me to jail for terrorist threats at an elementary school...
Please read...
I will be continuing this narrative until I finish telling what happened. I want to be clear, my wife and I did argue, and I was drinking and using drugs when this whole thing happened, but I did not use in front of the children. They were not physically or sexually abused, and the arguments they heard were not physical, or really more aggressive than what you might see on T.V. The CPS agency was aggressive in how they dealt with our case and had a predetermined outcome planned when they began the case against us. My Mother planned on having custody, and that is exactly what happened.
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