How things came to be with me, my son, and my ex.

[jester7707]

Hi everyone. Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I have decidedto try to take the first few baby steps to make my life overall better. I’dfigured that a good way to start out with this is explaining the various pastand present situations I’ve went through to hear your general opinions on itand perhaps some advice on what I could do to better the situation and my life. I’ve been thinking of starting this journeyfor weeks now  but have been afraid topost out of (what I believe) to be a fear of rejection.

 

Well, I’m 24 with a 3 year old son that currently lives with his motherthat has been my ex for a year and a half now. Me and his mother’s pastrelationship was your typical teen relationship were it was good for the first6 months to a year then went down from there. I’m ashamed to say that therewere plenty of signs in the beginning of how we were not compatible together.

 

She was open about her depressed state and open about why she was thatway. She told me she was pregnant with a previous boyfriend. Her mother wasvery upset and embarrassed by it and forced her to get an abortion. She wouldalways say she wanted a baby. Pretty much every day. In the beginning Iexpressed that I would like to wait until we were more financially stable. Ofcourse that made her sad and depressed. Needless to say after a year or two ofthis I agreed with her that we should have a child.

 

Eventually she became pregnant and in the coming months things gotworse. She became cold shouldered to me and much less affectionate. She wouldtake her anger out on me and started arguments on a daily biases about thedirty house ect. Her faveret words used tawords me in these arguments were Asshole,lazy, and jerk. She constantly thought I was cheating on her.  Even slapped me a few times while holding ourinfant son. well I was tired of the constant accusing of me cheating so Ijokingly said one time "Yes, I have nothing better to do than sleep with said woman."

 

  During this time I was at a fast food job were the managment was very verbally abbussive too. She honestly wondered why I didn’tfeel motivated to wash the dishes or help her clean the house.   By the time my son was born I remember cryingmyself to sleep almost every night because I felt like I didn’t matter to heranymore. She got what she wanted out of me and the only reason I was there forwas to provide money. I didn’t notice the whole extent of the abuse untilrecently when I watch Stef’s video titled “Why Men Don't Want To Get Married”The speech he made about “the apology that will never come to men” fitperfectly into how I felt about that situation I was in with her.

 

As you can tell we didn’t last much longer after our son was born. Ileft her a few times then came back to try to “fix us”. But it never workedout. I mostly stayed with my grandmother during this 2 month time period. I wasa too much of a coward to break up with her and didn’t want to be alone so I mistakenly tried finding anotherperson before breaking up with her. so i did different things that I believed would overal better myself. For instance I started a diet and lost 30 pounds. She found my online dating profile and inone last argument it was over with.

 

 It’s been a year in a half nowand she allows me to see my son but only when she is present. I can’t take himwith me without her because she doesn’t trust me with him. And when I’m withhim she sometimes makes comments that make me feel angry. For example recently myson was enjoying me lifting him up and together chasing my nephews around thehouse. After about 10 minutes of this I felt sick and needed a break and satdown. My son wanted me to continue this and I tried to explain to him that Ifelt ill and needed to sit down for a while to keep from getting sicker. My ex chimedin saying something (In front of my family) along the lines of “Get up and playwith him. When you have kids you don’t get a break.”

 

I try to keep in contact with her and try to be a friend of sorts everyonce in a while but she doesn’t reply back to me in texts or just gives me oneworded answers. We haven’t gone to court over custody yet. She is probably frightenedthat I’ll get part-time custody of him. The reason I have not done that yet isthat he gets extremely upset when he isn’t by her. He cries for hours. I feelit would be abusive for him if I used to courts to forcibly take him away fromher. Am I wrong for thinking this way? Should I use the courts to try to get visitation with my son?

 

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

Your son cries when his mother isn't nearby because he fears abandonment/emotional neglect. He didn't fabricate that fear, either, he learns from experience. With that and the other information you've shared about his mother's emotional stability, I cant' think of anything more important for you right now than to get your child in a household where he isn't neglected emotionally. I understand it will be hard to do but the reality is that he is nearing the end of his most critical emotional development stage and he desperately needs to feel secure with a parent.

 

In the short term it will be hard on him and you but his long term health and happiness are the goal. Not to mention, perhaps his mother will seek therapy, heal from her pain and be able to fulfill her parental responsibility to him.

 

Best of luck to you all.

[SteveRG1]

My sympathies for your situation, this one hits close to my heart because it's so much like the story of my parents. My mother divorced my father when I was around 5, out of, from what I deduce, vague dissatisfaction and boredom. It was the beginning of a long and nasty struggle for my father to stay in our lives. My mother did all she could to keep him out of our lives, and for many years we could only see him every other weekend, etc. My mother moved us around several times to different states, once not even informing my father. He showed up to pick us up one weekend and the apartment was empty. My mother even had my siblings and I convinced that he was insane and everything he did (constant court battles, etc.) to try to stay in our lives was making our lives worse. His committment was unwaivering, though, and by the time we got to high school he was finally able to get half-time with us when me moved to a new jurisdiction. It's only been in the last couple of years (I'm in my mid 20s now) that I learned to see through my mother's bullshit, and can fully appreciate what he did for us, and have a father that I actually respect and look up to, as a role model. My relationship with him now is stronger than it's ever been. I shudder to think what type of person I might have become if he had simply given up all those years ago and I did not have him in my life. It makes me very emotional to write this.

Don't underestimate what a powerful force you are, and can potentially be, for your child! You are his single greatest asset. Don't ever doubt that.

[jester7707]

I feel relieved and hopeful by both of your responses. Thank you for the imput. I'll take it to heart.

[jester7707]

There is somthing that my ex recently has been doing on facebook that troubles me.

She has made a facebook account for my son and added me as a friend. She updates the statuses about what he is doing everyday and it's her typing from his perspective. She then post on his wall sayinghow much she loves him and she needs him in her life ect.

I feel both slightly happy because it's nice to know what he is up too and that he is being loved by many. I also feel anger tawords her (from what I believe to be)because it's like she's pretending to know how he feels and it's like saying "I'm happy without dad in my life."  I'll share the link with you so you can see for yourself what she says ect. "https://www.facebook.com/haydon.nicholssmith?ref=ts&fref=ts"

Another thing that I feel irritation tawords is that she hasnt added me as his father to the family list, even after I requested it.  Again, thank you for reading.