# Husband, counseling, CPS, Courts, all have me at the end of my rope (Sorry real long)



## AJ7720 (Jul 31, 2020)

Hi, first I wanted to say that I hope this is the correct thread to post in. My issue could easily fit in this thread or in the family and parenting thread but since the root of the issues I face seem to stem more from physical as well as mental health issues I figured that this was the more appropriate thread to post in. 
I will try to briefly explain my circumstances to give you (readers) more of an idea of what has been going on. All I ask is that please don't judge before hearing all the details and trying to understand my side of things. I welcome constructive criticism, friendly advice, or even spiritual advice. I and my family are baptists and I often turn to my pastor for advice as well. Though I admit I don't go to church as often as I should but there are reasons for that which I think will be understood as I go on. 

First off, in February of 2020 I called the police because my son was beaten up on the way home from school. The police came to my house, talked with me and my son, then went to talk to the mother and boy that beat up my son. They were gone maybe 20 to 30 minutes then came back and asked to speak to me in private. (_Informative note* the mother of the son who beat up my son has been a problem for the past couple of years. Her issue with us is that she claimed my husband was on the sex offenders registry and not permitted to be around young children so when he brought our son to the bus stop this woman called him out and told all the other parents that he was a child molester. She told him not to return to the bus stop or she would call the police. I went up that evening and confronted her, I informed her that my husband was not now nor had he ever been on the sex offenders registry and that she was obviously mistaken. That caused her then to verbally threaten me, saying that she was not mistaken, and that she was going to see to it that both my children were taken away and that my husband end up in prison for life. I dismissed her as being neurotic and I admit I said a few nasty things such as accusing her of being a meth head and a dealer and probably a prostitute as well. She has a red porch light and I mentioned that usually only prostitutes have red porch lights. Then I told her she needed therapy and I walked away. After I took my son home, maybe 3 hours or so after, the police showed up at my door and said they were responding to a complaint about my husband being on the registry and that he was not to be around children and was seen at the bus stop. The police office spoke to my husband, ran all his information, found out that he was not on the registry and since I told him that I knew who called, I'll call her Ginger, he said that he would speak to Ginger and assure her that my husband wasn't a threat to anyone. I should mention here as well that Ginger is well known to our police department because she's an informant and has a lot of friends on the police force. Also, we live in a very very small town, the kind where everyone knows everyone and is in everyone's business.)_
So, the office that wanted to speak to me privately told me that after speaking with Ginger, there were a couple of red flags raised that had him concerned. The first was that Ginger informed him that I had been in trouble with CPS a few years earlier because of suspected abuse to my children. _That actually wasn't entirely true. I had been investigated by CPS when my daughter was seven and my son was five. My daughter has autism and I had left the kids in the care of a neighbor for about an hour while I ran to the store. At the time my husband was staying with his parents because his father was dying and so my husband and his siblings were taking turns being at the house and taking care of their parents. They did have aides coming in for about 3 hours a day but the parents needed round the clock care and their daughter who was the one in charge of everything, refused to put them in a nursing home. Eventually they did end up going into a hospice center but for over a year my husband had been splitting his time between his parents and me and our kids. His parents passed within six months of each other. 
Anyway, while at the neighbors house one of the four of five kids she was watching ran home and told her mom that my five year old son took off my seven year olds diaper and touched her private area. So, CPS and the police were called. The neighbor woman said that she took my daughter in once to change her diaper because she had pooed, but while they were outside playing her clothes were on and either the neighbor or her 18 yr old daughter were out watching the kids and they never saw anything bad happen at all. CPS ended up dismissing the case after about 3 months stating the claims were unsubstantiated but they did insist I take parenting classes and I was informed that I could not, legally, leave my daughter in the care of anyone who was not specifically trained in caring for autistic children. 
I never did find out who the mom was that reported me in the first place but I have always wondered if it was Ginger. She has four kids and I don't know all of them but two of them are close in age to my children. _
The second red flagged that was raised was, according to the police officer, how I would come out on the porch to speak to him, and appeared to be shielding the front door from him so that he could not see inside my house. At that point he requested to come inside and I refused at first and when he asked me why I admitted that my house was a mess and I was trying to clean it up but kept getting interrupted with everything that had been going on. 
He finally told me that if I did not allow him to enter my home, that he would call CPS, the kids WOULD be taken away, and that I would be taken into custody for failure to cooperate with law enforcement. So, reluctantly, I agreed to let him inside. 
Now this next part I take full responsibility for. I admit that my house was a mess. It was beyond what a normal mess would be. I won't go into great details but I will say that there were no bugs, or rodents, but it more like dishes piled up, toys, clothes, and trash all over the floor. We did have a bad problem with gnats but no roaches or anything I'm deathly afraid of roaches and would have had the place fumigated. The main area of concern though was my daughters bed room. There were dirty diapers all over her floor and honestly I didn't even realize how bad it was because at one point I just closed both the kids doors out of frustration and refused to look in them anymore. That was my mistake. 
My only explanation, not an excuse, but the only reason why I can say that it got so bad was because around October I had a mental break down. I went into a severe depression, I stopped cleaning the house. I stopped doing laundry, I stopped going to my dr appointments, I let the kids appointments lapse, I missed IEP meetings, teacher conferences, I stopped paying bills and almost had the utilities shut off, I failed to reapply for the heating and electricity program that we were on, failed reapply for food stamps, medicaid, etc....All I wanted to do was stay in my bed and sleep. I had to force myself to get up each morning and get the kids ready for bed. I ordered out a lot, pizza or went to Mcdonalds to feed the kids because I didn't feel like cooking plus the kitchen was such a disgusting mess I didn't want to go in it. I didn't want to come down stairs frankly, it was all too depressing. 
Around December I started coming out of the depression. My therapist called and had concerns because I'd missed the passed three appointments. I wasn't taking my meds and I was just a mess. 
From December on I started getting things back on track. I had to reapply for all the services I'd missed. Reschedule dr appointments for myself and my kids, my mom helped me pay off my bills, and I was slowly trying to clean up the house but there was just so much on my plate I couldn't keep up with everything. My husband is on disability, my daughter has I said has autism, also she has epilepsy and mild retardation. My son has ADHD. I had worked for many years as a nurses aide but had to quit my job to care for my daughter full time because I couldn't find child care for my daughter. My husband was able to watch her for an hour or two but after that he started having severe anxiety and would call me at work about every 30 minutes and my employers were getting upset. 
So, by the time this all happened I was basically taking care of my husband and our 2 kids, doing all the cleaning, keeping up with all the bills and finances, making and going to all appointments whether medical or for social services, and at one point I just couldn't do it anymore. I broke down and stopped functioning. I should have let someone know that it was getting that bad, I should have kept taking my meds. There are a lot of things I should have done but I tried to do it all myself and failed miserably. 
Anytime that I have asked my mom or sister for help I was always met with annoyance and distrust. They claimed that I was feeling sorry for myself or just trying to get attention. I was told to grow up, stop throwing a pity party and be a parent. So, yeah, I stopped asking for help. 
So, the officer came in, saw the complete atrocity that had become my home, called CPS, called in more officers. Within a short time there were maybe ten officers in my house. Then they called in a detective who demanded that we allow him to look through my husbands computer or else he would confiscate it. We agreed and of course he found nothing. They asked us if we had drugs in the house. I said no because we don't do drugs. We don't even drink. They searched the house for over an hour, questioned us about all kinds of ridiculous things. Do we hit the kids, how do we discipline the kids, do we have sex in front of the kids. I laughed and told the detective we haven't had sex in years let alone do it in front of the kids. That's just preposterous. 
In the end they called my mom and she took the kids and my husband and I were handcuffed and arrested. They took us to the police station and we were separated. I ended up spending the night in the suicide watch room because of some stupid comments I'd made. That was a horrible experience. They strip you naked, and give you a thick mat to lay on that has a small wing on it that you can use to partcially cover yourself. There wasn't even a toilet it the room, just a grate in the floor that you had to use which was just disgusting. 
In the morning, after seeing the police therapist, they let me out and I got to wear a jail jump suit and sit in a cell across from the desk. Around four PM they let me out. I didn't get a phone call or anything they just told me to get dressed then walked me to a door and said see ya later. No explanation or anything. I stood there a while and wondered what to do. Was my mom coming to get me? Was my husband still in jail? I decided to walk to a local deli and called home, my husband answered so I asked him to pick me up. I was still confused. I had refused breakfast, and lunch, didn't have any of my medications, and hadn't slept all night. I was kind of out of it but once my husband picked me up I started to clear my head a bit. 
We got home and I checked my sugar which was incredibly low so I ate something then took my meds. I waited a day till I was back to myself then I looked at the CPS report and started going through the list of complaints and cleaning everything that had been listed. I rented a dumpster and just started cleaning the heck out of the house. A week later CPS came back and looked through the house and said it was like a new house. It was in such great shape she was actually shocked that I had done so much in such a short time. It still wasn't enough to get the kids back though. There are other things besides cleanliness they want fixed. Holes in the walls that my daughter made in her tantrums, they want the carpets replaced, a weak area on the floor that they feel is unsafe needs to be fixed. Our CPS worker said that she is trying to get some grant funding for us to help with the repairs. In addition to that we have to go through individual counseling, marriage counseling, parenting classes, and of course there is the whole court thing.
So I was charged with felony child endangerment. I was arrested again awaiting sentencing, spend 2 weeks in jail till my mom bonded me out. I was ordered to have no contact with my husband or my children. That lasted a month. My husband was finally allowed to come home, and I am allowed supervised visitation with my kids which really doesn't happen at all because I am under house arrest and they are not allowed in my house. 
My mom had them about four months, she still has my son, but she couldn't handle my daughter. My daughter was trashing her house, breaking things, throwing tantrums (Shes now 14), screaming, hitting, biting, kicking and my mom was calling me daily crying and tell me how terrible her life was that my daughter was ruining her life. So now my daughter is in a group home for autistic people and I most likely won't ever be able to see her again. CPS has custody of her and after my house arrest I will be on 2 years probation and not allowed to leave the county. My daughter is over an hour away. I talk to her on the phone but the facility only allows me five minutes a day while they listen on speaker. Everything I say gets reported to the courts. Anything I send her gets held for three days while they make sure it's safe and appropriate, and I am not allowed to visit at the facility per their rules even if I weren't on probation. 
Apparently they are afraid I'm going to beat her or something, even though there was never any charges of abuse, just neglect. 
I do get to see my son for about 5 minutes once a week when my brings him over and he sits on the front porch with me but my mom stays in the car and then after 5 minutes gets bored and wants to leave. So, that is where I am currently. 
As to my current problem, When this all first started my husband was trying his hardest to cooperate and help me around the house with cleaning and such but now it seems that he's falling into old routines. We have the marriage counselor come to the house once a week and talk with us. We've been working on communication between my husband and I, sharing feelings, and trying to come up with a good plan for cleaning and maintaining a clean house. We have a cleaning schedule and chores divided between us and when we talk to the counselor my husband is on board, he says yeah he can do this and do that but as soon as the therapist leaves it's back to me doing everything again. One thing that really irritates me is the fact that his desk is such a mess. He throws trash and dishes on the floor and then his mess begins to creep under my desk and junk up my area. We've discussed this and he says he will clean it up but I end up doing it. Today I got so angry that his trash was under my desk that I picked up the chip bag and dumped it all over his chair and threw the rest of the trash on his desk top. He brushed it all on to the floor and that was that. Now I get to clean it all up. 
He wont follow the cleaning schedule and when I ask him to do a chore he puts it off hour after hour until I finally do it myself. I brought this up to the therapist this week and my husband got angry and said that he's not making the mess, so he doesn't know why I'm complaining about it. I said oh, so I'm the one trashing your desk, throwing junk on the floor, putting garbage in the sink, putting cigarette butts in the sink and pop cans and wrappers and what not. He said he doesn't know how that happens. Well the kids aren't here so It's not them. 
In the recent months and I literally mean about the last three months I have heard nothing, not a word from CPS. No word on the funding shes supposed to help us to fix the issues she says are dangerous. No house inspections, no updates on the case, nothing. I have heard that we have a new case manager, then back to the old case manager and then back to a new one but the new one is on quarantine. I don't know what to think anymore. 
The facility where my daughter is won't let anyone come up and take her out for the day or a weekend, and my mother has been calling off an on today and no one is answering or returning her calls. She was told that if she comes to visit that it must be outside and that she is required to stay 6 feet away from my daughter. I'm sorry but that is bull. Being autistic my daughter needs more socialization than that. She's going to think no one loves her anymore. 
I know my husband is frustrated. He feels like CPS doesn't care anymore and has no intention of ever letting us have the kids back no matter what we do and so he doesn't feel obligated to cooperate with the therapy and other things. He doesn't participate in the parenting classes and just plain acts like he doesn't care anymore. 
Honestly I have a lot of work ahead of me. I worked my butt off cleaning the house to have it pass inspection but it's falling into the same trash and clutter as before. 
The next thing I post I swear is the truth. I'm not making this up even though it sounds like a poorly written soap opera. But, I have diabetes, high blood pressure, GERD, COPD, Edema in both legs, and last month I was in the hospital a week after having a heart attack because of a blood clot that formed in my artery. I had just started recovering from that and able to do more around the house when I ended up with a serious staph infection that resulted in another weeks stay in the hospital. This was 3 weeks ago. I was on antibiotics for a month, was taking pain meds, and for about 2 weeks I could barely walk, the swelling on my right leg and lower abdomen was so bad that I had trouble even going to the bathroom and had to wear adult diapers, plus I have had a lot of drainage from the wound on my leg and have had dressings on my leg that had to be changed every hour to 2 hours. Within the last week I've been able to get around better, can finally bend over, and so have started cleaning the house back up. It's an on going battle though because I have to clean up after my husband as well as the regular cleaning and then there are all the repairs that need done that I am more than likely going to have to address myself. 
I'm off house arrest next month at which time my husband has 30 days that he has to spend in the local jail as part of his sentencing. I know he's depressed, his disability makes it difficult for him to move around, but I keep telling him that he can do things from his office chair. I think honestly that he's just given up and I don't know what to do about it. 
Before I had the mind set that everything is my problem, I have to do everything that no one is going to help me and that was what caused all of this to happen to begin with. Now I find myself in the same situation and I don't want to fall into the same rut as before. 
At this point I'm seriously worried that we will never get the kids back, that my situation is hopeless. When I ask my husband for help he goes upstairs and takes a nap. I'm so worn out and frustrated that half the time I don't even know where to begin. I feel like I spend all day just cleaning up after my husband and then am too worn out to do anything else. I just want him to help. To clean up after himself. But I see now that it's never going to happen. I just don't know how I am going to keep doing it all myself when there is literally no one willing to put in the effort to help me. Maybe I would have been better off spending 2 years in prison. I certainly don't see things at home getting any better. I know that I need to find a way to fix things but I'm at a loss. How can I fix something that is beyond broken? I just need some help.


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## bobert (Nov 22, 2018)

So, first off, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. You're not going to get any judgment from me, and honestly, I've heard similar stories many times. So if anything, you're not alone. 

You said your husband is going to jail for 30 days? That is your time to see what it's like without your husband. You will get a good idea of what it would be like living without your husband and without having to clean up after him. I hate to say it but if he's such a problem, and it sounds like he is, you may have to divorce him. If it's between keeping him in the house and having a shot at getting your kids back... I think the choice is obvious. 

On this:


> I ended up spending the night in the suicide watch room because of some stupid comments I'd made. That was a horrible experience. They strip you naked, and give you a thick mat to lay on that has a small wing on it that you can use to partially cover yourself. There wasn't even a toilet it the room, just a grate in the floor that you had to use which was just disgusting.


I'm very skeptical about that being allowed. If it is, it shouldn't be. Generally, the cops would have to call around to hospitals and see who has room for you. Then you would be sent to the hospital and an officer stands outside of the "suicide watch room" 24/7. They do sometimes get people to strip and strip search, but they at least give them scrub-like clothes that are made out of paper. Which isn't a fun experience but it's better than being naked. You shouldn't have had to deal with that.


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