Spiteful ex scaring kids over my job as paramedic
Q: I’m a man, 39, father of two children, separated from their mother for over two years.
I’m also an essential front-line worker during this pandemic, putting in long hours as a paramedic.
I’m involved in countless emergencies, but grateful for the years of training and medical courses that make it possible for me to try to save lives.
My problem isn’t with my job, but with my ex. Out of spite, she tries to upset our children (ages six and eight) about my exposure to people who have COVID-19.
We have a legal separation and shared custody that grants me two days a week and every other weekend with the kids.
My ex’s “spite” comes from the fact that I live with my girlfriend of over a year. We moved in together last October, months before the pandemic.
She’s been very helpful with my children on days when they’re here and I don’t get home until late. The kids obviously like her despite loving their mother.
We live in a townhouse. When I return from work, I enter through the basement, leave any clothes that I wore for work in the laundry, which is in the basement, and shower in the adjoining washroom.
Yet my ex claims the children are at risk from exposure to the virus, through me. She’ll call my girlfriend and coldly ask, “Is he back yet?” Then she’ll ask to speak to the children, and sometimes cries, making them feel guilty though they don’t understand what it’s about.
How do I stop this nasty undermining of my kids’ comfort and trust when at my home?
Ex-Wife’s Spite
A: It’s a very unfair tactic, given your exhausting efforts helping people when they’re most fearful and vulnerable because of the coronavirus whose outcome is often unpredictable to the patient’s last minute.
She’s demonstrating no trust in you as their father, to assure their safety.
Few people besides other medicallytrained personnel, know the precautions to take as well as you do.
Also, while your ex doesn’t have to become close friends with your girlfriend, she should respect the efforts being made to put your kids at ease when with her in the home you share.
If this situation of distrust from your ex persists, even as the lockdown opens up further, there’s an obvious need for “joint-custody counselling.”
You and your ex have the agreement, but she’s chipping away at it by showing distrust and sowing unclear worries in the kids’ young minds.
Your girlfriend’s direct involvement with the children when they’re at your home, should also be considered as part of the counselling.
If your ex rejects this approach to discussing your custody arrangement, speak to a lawyer about it. If you didn’t have one for the separation, you may be wise to consider getting one.
Though you’re extremely busy during the pandemic, your children’s mentalhealth comfort will soon need attention.
Reader’s Commentary: It’s very difficult for older couples (we’re 75 and 78) dealing with the coronavirus differently.
One, with asthma, accepts isolation due to fear of COVID. The other, who also has health issues, is restless, impatient to get back to “living” and work.
The first sees this time as a coming together after years of having a spouse whose work has been unrelenting and stressful. The other’s confused and afraid to let go of business and become a “vegetable.” It’s become a push-pull nightmare for both.
Ellie’s tip of the day
Don’t let pandemic be an excuse for spiteful tactics regarding shared custody of children.
The “big man, little kid” comedy genre is a time-honoured tradition and a seemingly required rite of passage for any professional wrestler making their way into more mainstream Hollywood roles. The trend was popularized with Hulk Hogan, in the likes of “Suburban Commando” and “Mr. Nanny,” and almost every current wrestling-turned-movie star these days has done their duty in these kiddie comedies, which are an opportunity for easy, size-based laughs and a chance to appeal to a broader fan base. Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson had his turn with “Tooth Fairy,” John Cena did his time in “Playing with Fire,” and now Dave Bautista has “My Spy,” coming to Amazon Prime Video after its theatrical release became one of the first cinematic victims of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bautista is an interesting actor, far more serious and stoic than the silly Cena or the charismatic Johnson. In “Guardians of the Galaxy” Bautista’s stoicism was put to good use as the vengeful warrior Drax, and he turned in a stunning dramatic performance during a brief appearance in “Blade Runner 2049.” But his last few films, including “Stuber,” have wasted that inherent quality of quiet devastation he carries so well. It adds an undercurrent of tragic poignancy to the lightly entertaining bit of formulaic fluff that is “My Spy,” which is far more fascinating than the lame comedy the film privileges.
Bautista plays JJ, a former special ops Army Ranger superstar, current terrible CIA spook. He’s excellent at shooting and blowing things up, terrible at negotiating and reading people. After he fumbles a mission, his boss (Ken Jeong) demotes him to a boring surveillance gig with tech-nerd Bobbi (Kristen Schaal, who practically saves the whole movie single-handedly). They set up in an apartment building, bugging the new home of the sister-in-law Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley) and niece Sophie (Chloe Coleman) of the big bad guy, who has nuclear weapon plans, or something. It’s quite the tortured setup to get brawny tough guy JJ to cross paths with the precocious Sophie, and it’s definitely a bone-chilling dramatization of government overreach in surveilling private citizens. Cute!
But the unlikely relationship between JJ and Sophie is where the film finds its moments of resonance, though they are few and far between. New kid in school Sophie has just lost her dad and wants to fit in and make some friends, while the gruff JJ is seriously lacking in people skills. But the two find something they need in each other, even if it is predicated on the illegal surveillance of her family and the subsequent blackmail that Sophie uses to turn JJ into a father figure, or at least a special friend.
But anything that touches on the trauma and tragedy they’ve experienced is papered over with mediocre and well-worn comic bits, like Bautista awkwardly dancing to Cardi B while on a dinner date, or receiving a makeover from the gay couple next door. Jeong and Schaal are quite funny in the limited time they’re given, but one can’t help but think the story would have worked so much better as a drama, or some kind of “Man on Fire” actioner, with Coleman’s chops and Bautista’s brooding presence. Hopefully a director can figure out what best to do with him as a leading man, and soon.
‘MY SPY’; 2 stars; Cast: Dave Bautista,