Sasha1972

Hi all,

I'm trying to collect the strands of thoughts that have been going through my head since last week, when ex attempted to take daughter from after-school program while very drunk (staff and other parents stopped him, police were called, I came and got daughter, daughter is now with me). The thing that I worried about the most (ex endangering daughter by drinking while she was in his care) has happened and now I have to move forward to keep her safe. Here are some of the feelings I'm grappling with, if anyone has any insights, I would welcome them.

1. GUILT. He was staggering and slurring his words according to parents, staff and police. He drove to the school. If they hadn't stopped him, he was going to drive Kid back to his place through heavy rush-hour traffic. That's how people die.

He was picking Kid up because I was trying to make shared parenting work and we had agreed she'd spend the evening with him. He swore up and down that he'd been abstinent since February and I believed him. I also believed that he loved Kid enough to keep her safe. I feel like I risked her life because I was dumb enough to believe her father.

2. Needing to be strong to stay the course. It's clear to me that she can't stay with him again. I will probably need to go to court to give this legal weight. However, I also know that I am vulnerable to ex's minimizations, rationalization and emotional arguments ("you're trying to turn Kid against me, you can't destroy her relationship with me, you're making a big deal out of one slip, I only slipped because I was stressed and it won't happen again", etc etc).

I know intellectually that drunk driving with a kid is one of these things where you don't get a second chance, but my challenge is going to be to not listen to all the arguments ex will muster for why he should still have Kid staying at his place (including, I expect, "I bought her a puppy! She'll miss her puppy!").

3. How to talk to Kid about it. I am concerned that Kid could see how drunk her father was but got in the car with him anyway. She is 12 and pretty clued in about alcoholism, but didn't or couldn't refuse to go with a drunk driver. We had talked about an emergency "x-plan" for situations where she was uncomfortable, but she didn't use it - the police called me and that's how I knew what had happened.

How do I address this with Kid - that she doesn't have to do anything that someone who's been drinking tells her to do, that she has to put her safety first? I don't want to make her feel like it was her fault or interrogate her ("Why didn't you refuse when your dad told you it was time to go?") but I want to talk more with her about safety.

That's all I've got on my mind right now ...