One of the Ways To End A Relationship

The man was in his late 50's. He and his fiance and their dog were enjoying a peaceful evening of background music and light dinner. The man heard footsteps on the front porch and opened the door before the visitors had a chance to knock. Two male sheriff deputies were on the porch with papers to serve the man. The legal documents were a summons to appear in family court the next month. There were papers explaining a restraining order that had been filed by the man's daughter. The end of a father-daughter relationship had begun.

What prompted this drastic action was a visit to the daughter's apartment the previous month. The man and his fiance had loaded their car with groceries and small gifts and drove one and a half hours to have some time with the daughter. The man cooked lunch and his fiance cut the daughter's hair. Quality time with the daughter was the object of the visit. The five year old grandson was not to be outdone this day nor on any previous visits. He was determined to control all the adults at all times. His mother attempted to ply him with his favorite movie which meant a half hour of adult conversation before the grandson demanded attention. The grandson was shown love by all three adults. The grandson was certainly loved. But the grandson would whine and complain about not liking his food so his mother fixed something else he said he wanted and then he did not want that either. He continually yelled at his mother and then proceeded to punch her, and then kick her, and then he jumped on her when she was sitting on the floor and knocked her over. Then he grabbed her breasts and pinched them. All this time the grandson was hurting his mother and she was requesting him to not hurt her. The man and his fiance were shocked into inability to do anything other than to try to speak reasonably to the grandson about not hurting his mother. You see, the reason the man and his fiance wanted to have a day to pamper the mother was because she had learned she had a brain tumor. This was the man's only child and he hurt for his grown child.

It became obvious that after three hours it would be impossible to visit, and it became more difficult to watch the grandson literally beat on his mother, so the man and his fiance bid their good byes and headed to the car for the one and a half hour drive home. On the way home, the man asked his fiance for her opinion of the grandson's behavior and it was agreed that it was very disturbing to witness such crude cruel manhandling by the grandson upon his mother. It hurt the man so much that he instant messaged his daughter from the car on the way home and told her that it was disturbing to watch his grandson hurting her and that the father would like a few days with his grandson to teach him how to behave.

This request was not taken kindly by the daughter. For the rest of the day there were a few emails and text messages back and forth between father and daughter but there were no threats or any unkind words or rants.

When the sheriff served papers on the man it was unexpected. The man spent the next two days writing an answer to the summons and mailed it to the court but not to the daughter as the man was obeying the restraining order by not contacting his daughter in any way. The day of the court hearing the man and his fiance took off work and drove the hour and a half to where the hearing was scheduled. The judge listened to the daughter and to the man in a closed courtroom. And then the judge granted the five year restraining order.

In his response to the court the man had written that he would not fight the order nor would he do anything to disobey that order and that as far as he was concerned the restraining order should be forever. The things that were told to the judge by the daughter were fiction. The man did not attempt to correct any allegations. He remained quiet and calm. When the daughter read the letter that the man had sent to the judge, the daughter cried. When the judge asked why she was crying, the daughter said it was so sad that her dad did not want to see her or her son. She could not have it both ways, try to hurt her father with the elaborate ruse of the fear for the life of her son and then still want her father to see his grandson. She had started this whole fiasco because she was not willing to see the abuse she was subjected to by her son and she did not want anyone telling her that her son needed training on how to behave to her and to others. No one was going to harm her son. It was the other way around, her son was harming her.

There are many ways to end a relationship. A court order is one of them. This particular manner of ending a relationship was extreme, but it was final.