not sure what to do here......

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2003
not sure what to do here......
5
Fri, 02-04-2005 - 1:00pm

Hi everyone,

A little backround...

My H left when I was 4 months prego with our second child. We got married in February, we planned and conceived our second child by April, in July almost August, he left me for a 19 year old girl. I filed for divorce in May.. it was FINALLY final last month. He has been in and out of the kids' lives.... his girlfriend doesn't want to be a mom. In the beginning while I was still pregnant, he visited often, that slowly stopped as she got more and more involved in preventing him from seeing us. ( I'd rather not get into the how's of her preventing him, just know that she did ) When I filed for divorce, he ran from the server for 3 weeks, then stopped paying money and stopped seeing the children for 3 months, almost 4 months. He began to see them again after our first court date in August and he started paying again. He would call me everytime he had the kids to bring them home early. Sometimes he would not even include our daughter, who is just a baby. Then he stopped seeing the kids again. Mostly because of HIS plans. He still paid though.... he just cancelled visits. Then, he came to and started seeing them again. every other weekend, as we planned. Then he lost his job just before Xmas. He stopped seeing the kids again, because of his plans. He went 5 weeks without seeing them. In the meantime he had gone to a court date alone ( I was not there because I was very pregnant ) he went without an attorney, agreed to me having sole custody with reasonable visitation, he agreed to pay me the same as before regardless of his job status and how much he made. Now, the divorce was final 1/18. After that date he HAD to pay me what he said he would... I have seen NO MONEY. NOT A PENNY. He still gets to see the kids though, I wouldn't put them through not getting the chance to see him because of his own selfishness.... I know, your saying... he doesnt have a job, the law won't make him pay.... well your right, but he agreed to it on the stand in court regardless of whether he is working or not. Now, he cries poor every chance he gets..... but, he just went to Florida for vacation and plans on taking our 5 year old to see the Lion King for 70.00 a ticket ( and leaving our 1 year old at home with a sitter or bringing her home early ) I DONT GET IT.... he has bills to pay... including child support. He doesnt have credit cards ( his first marriage messed that up for him ) so HOW THE HELL IS HE PAYING FOR THIS STUFF???? How is it, he can afford to pay 400.00 round trip to fly to Florida and I don't get child support??????

AND THEN.... we have a 1 year old daughter together and a 5 year old. Well. Our daughter turned 1 in December. Our son is having a birthday 2/7. Our son gets a big party... our daughter didn't even get a phone call to say happy birthday let alone a party of any kind. My son tells me how he and daddy go out and do things, but the baby stays home with the 20 year old who doesn't want kids and has no idea how to handle kids.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM?

What should I do here.... I would LOVE for him to sign over his rights to the kids. I am so done with playing games with him.... He has had his phone OFF for over a week now, and by off I mean, turned off, not disconnected. If it's not his weekend, he doesn't care and if he does care, its only about our 5 year old.

Does anyone have any advise? The anger is killing me. I just want to shake my X and tell him what a terrible father he is....

Please help.

Angelena

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Fri, 02-04-2005 - 1:33pm

Having him sign over his rights as a father will hurt your 5 year old more than it will help anyone. Your ex's behavior is horrible and he sounds like a candidate for bad father of the year, but he's still their father.

A similar thing happened with my father. I was 3 when they divorced, my sister was only 1. My dad was not around much the year before the divorce, so he missed most of the first year of my little sisters life. In fact, when my mom went into laber my dad just dropped her off at the hospital and spent the day with his girlfriend. Because he was around when I started walking and talking, he bonded with me and I felt that. Because he wasn't around my sister much, they did not bond and she felt that too. It's not an easy thing to cope with. There have to be some books out there you can read up about this type of thing and what you can do to help your children come to grips with it (and also with their father being so inconsistent) as they grow older and start to realize it.

But cutting him out won't help. My father killed himself when I was 11, and I would say I have more issues from that (his permenant disappearance from my life) than I did coping with not seeing him much or his general lack of good parenting skills up to that point. I would much rather have had a father that was there sometimes, than no father at all. Those times we couldn't be with my father, that all we had was a phone call (he did call regularly, every sunday) or we couldn't be with him due to his drug use (we only saw him in the summers and one year he was in a mental instituation so it was a really long time between visits) my mom always encouraged us to write him letters or cards, and talk to him on the phone. We easily accepted that he had a small role to play in our lives. It was his death, when we knew he would never call again, never see us again, that was the thing I could not cope with or accept - not until I was an adult and I still struggle with it. I just could not accept he *chose* to be out of our lives forever. And if my mom had done anything to cut him out - I would have blamed her.

I am not sure if you will relate to my story or not. I just felt it might give you a different perspective to think about this from.

My guess is that he's having the girlfriend pay for his trips and tickets and such... even if she doesn't have much money, maybe she has a credit card she has let him use. Hopefully you have filed through the state so they are computing arrearages on the child support and can garnish his wages when he does find a job. That is what I would do.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2004
Fri, 02-04-2005 - 2:22pm

OOOOOhhhhh girl!!

Stuff like that makes me soooo mad. My ex does pay child support, however, he acts like the measly 70 a week is killing him. He and his gf live in a shop apartment with no rent paid. They have no home phone and only one cell between them. They have no car payment, but bless their little hearts they never have money. He makes more money now than when his child support was figured I know for a fact. Just try to do what is best for your children. I would, however, pursue the help out there to get your child support. Children are expensive and while he is out there "playing" you are trying to provide.

When my ex and I were together he had two affairs that I knew of and emotionally abused me big time. The second affair was a 19-year-old college student. She was so great he would say and they never fought. Of course they didn't when he was with her he was working out of town in another state. They lived a life of no kids, no bills, etc. Heck if I had all that I would get along with anyone...lol. Your ex sounds like he is being totally selfish. I hope he realizes his children are his children and they come first.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2003
Fri, 02-04-2005 - 3:41pm

Thanks everyone for your response.

The thing is.... his girlfriend threatens me with taking our 5 year old. They don't care about our daughter, she just insists on threatening me.

I have 9 of her email addresses blocked and all of her screen names blocked I also had text removed from my cell phone plan and she still finds ways of contacting me. I called my lawyer today and know my rights... but jeez. WHY do they have to be like this.

All it does is hurt the kids. When I see him, him and I are fine... we even joke with each other.... when he comes to get the kids without her, we are fine with one another.... for the kids, of course. When she is there, you can cut the tension with a knife. She puts off so much anger for me...... i dont understand it at all.

Im sorry we have to go through this... no one should have to. My ulcers are back because of this situation... I worry WAY too much, but how can you not worry about your kids?

ugh.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Fri, 02-04-2005 - 4:05pm

Hey... I'm sorry that your EX is being such a poop to deal with.


As much as you'd like for your EX to sign over his rights so that you don't have to deal with him anymore... it's RARE that ANY judge would do that unless you've got a new Mr. Wonderful that's willing to step up and take on the responsibility of dad (financially forever and ever even if you split from him).


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2004
Sat, 02-05-2005 - 1:04am
I agree. I know it is hard. My ex's current GF butts in way too much and I finally told him he needed to be responsible and I will deal with him only on negotations and such. He needs to be responsible. I would tell him that you would prefer he pick them up as stated by himself at the door(she can be in car but no need to get out I would think) so as to not cause any problems. You will have to talk to her if they are together but like was said bite your tongue. I talk to the GF and am civil I just will not make any arrangements with her. Things were getting so mixed around. He and I would agree and she would try to change it around on me sort of thing. Just hang in there and hopefully it will get easier.