equipoise Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 A couple of years ago I met an American tourist who was visiting Australia on a 12 month work/holiday visa. She was good company, funny and pretty smart but had a dysfunctional childhood and a recent young adult history of drugs, alcohol and petty crime back in California. She had violated a probation order issued in California and absconded to Australia. As I've said I found her to be good company but she very quickly took up with people in my neighbourhood who use ice and heroin. She got herself pregnant to a guy who uses heroin, works in a bar/club thing and seemed to be a victim of christian fundamentalist parents. She seems to have been thinking that she could rescue herself and this guy by having a baby. Getting a "green card" or maybe gaining immunity from prison if she was to return to the states. It was a crazy drug fuelled fantasy of course. She and her dubious partner left Australia when she was about end of second trimester and sought refuge with her mother in Turkey. She and her mother are American born and both dual citizens of the US and Turkey. She now has a son a year old, walking and talking. The asshole father is gone. She and her mother gmail me pretty much daily and have done since she went to live with her mother in Turkey. She now wants to return to the US to "face the music" of breaching probation. She just doesn't like living with her mother in Turkey. But she risks a custodial sentence? if she returns to California and will be separated from her seemingly so far happy and healthy little boy. I don't want to give her advice and prefer to offer speculations and ideas. I'd rather she stayed put in Istanbul for the time being. I'd be prepared to join her and help her raise her son. But she now wants me to write a reference or travel to California to speak in her favour if she goes back to be served a warrant for breach of probation. What should I do?
RCali Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 OK, hold on. I was going to ask about how she was good company to you, even if she has problems with drugs and crime, but then you said she's meaning to go back to California and face her criminal charges, and is willing to maybe be separated from her son? Am I getting that right?
csekavec Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 I'd be prepared to join her and help her raise her son. Don't. 4
Copper_Heart Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 Please tell me, why do you thin are you involved and what options you yourself see as viable.
Guest Gee Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 What should I do? Have you considered calling in? 1
Troubador Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 Forgive me for ignoring the majority of your post but who are you? And what do you want out of life for yourself? These are important questions, just as you are important, in fact you are the most important person in your whole post, and I get so small an idea who that is you say almost nothing about yourself. This woman clearly represents something to you in your mind, but ANY parent who can countenance leaving a one year old without either parent is not right in the head. This should be setting off warning klaxons audible enough to wake up people who happen to be asleep on the international space station!! The $64,000 question is what on earth is possessing you to want to hitch your life to this omnishambles? And is there anything I can at all do to help? 1
equipoise Posted February 9, 2016 Author Posted February 9, 2016 Thanks guys. @RCali. You've got it right. By good company I guess I mean that I enjoyed her company. It wasn't a sexual relationship. I'm a straight male and she's very attractive but she was too messed up (and still is) to have sex with. But she is pretty smart and a lot of fun to do the stuff we both like to do. @csekavec. But it wouldn't totally kill me if it didn't work out. I'll learn from it however it goes and if I travel and tour Europe or the US that'd be ok. I think her mother is the cause of her problems but she's ok company as well. She visited me in Australia last year and we did a little touring around my home state. @Copper_Heart. I'm involved because I want to be, but that may change. Viable options... well I would prefer that they remain in Turkey. I would have been there already but have had to stick around here for a couple of reasons and need surgery in a few weeks that will keep me here for about another month for recovery. @A.F.K. Yes I have and I might. I'd love to chat with Stefan. And if I do travel I'd want to attend some FDR meetups. @Troubadour. Who I am isn't really all that relevant atm and I've only made one introductory post a few months ago. But you've nailed it in your para 2. She's clearly not well. Turning herself in is not a noble act when it is almost certain that she will seperate herself from her son for at least six months. The authorities will likely be more than happy to lock her up but I doubt that they or the prison staff or other inmates will be much impressed by a mother that would leave her child. This is the opinion that I am wanting to canvas. I don't want her to do it. And she may well be an incurable omnishambles but I'm pretty tough and there are many other things I can do with my life. Thank you for your offer and you have been a help.
Troubador Posted February 10, 2016 Posted February 10, 2016 Apologies I really didn't make myself clear, the situation is an omnishambles, I don't know this woman enough beyond what you have disclosed. A point I wish to raise which may be entirely down to my own bias (full disclosure here: I dated a single mother who had a child I very much bonded with and well essentially because I didn't pay attention to warning signs on account of not wanting to let the child down. Long story short I'm now a single father!). If you bond with her son it can very much complicate matters beyond what you may initially anticipate. Grand scheme of things you are relevant, very relevant. I have no measure of how strong you are hence my attempt to find out. No reason why you can't be platonic friends with this woman, and be a great support but in general she sounds in a lot of ways like she's adrift and drowning, and people who try to rescue people who are drowning without training and knowing what they are doing can and do get dragged down to drown with them. She may not be a lost cause but she needs professional therapy and a lot of work she needs to do herself. I am sure you can counsel her to and point her at the road she has to walk down, but she will have to do the work and walk it. Best of luck in any case and the offer is still open if you wish to talk further.
equipoise Posted February 11, 2016 Author Posted February 11, 2016 Thank you again Troubadour. Wow, yours is an interesting outcome. I hope you and your son are happy enough. I'm pretty certain that I would bond with and love the little boy. His mother and grandmother have sent me hundreds of pics and movies of themselves, their neighborhood and the child. I'm way older than this girl but atm don't look or feel "too old" for her. In ten or fifteen years I would be too old to be seen as a lover or husband. I'm thinking that five years woul be enough. If she was emotionally healthy enough to find and want a quality man more her age I could deal with that. When she was staying with me in my home city in 2013/2014 I considered that she may have thought she was using me. Using the luxury of my apartment, cooking, laundry, generosity etc. And then she'd disappear for a few days (having said she'd be right back) to use drugs and have sex with the dickhead. Then reappear embarrased and a little unkempt. And I'd say virtually nothing about it. So by saying nothing she knew that I was saying, "You're back you silly bitch". What I might really speak straight away, " I'm doing eye fillet with paté in puff pastry. What do you think? And will we go and get some ice cream". She was smart enough to know that my very cool welcome back was my expression of anger but she couldn't say so. Because to do that would be to admit her awareness that she was behaving badly but doing it anyway. Maybe a glitch, seemed I couldn't continue that post. I could rattle on way more. But yeah. I've stopped just short of begging that she and her mom have therapy. And they haven't. Atm I'm just frustrated that I haven't been able to visit and that she seems hell bent on going to face prison and of course another term of probation. Despite us both enjoying Orange is the New Black I don't think it's going to be quite as much fun.
Walter E. Strong Posted February 12, 2016 Posted February 12, 2016 About 99.99% of the time it's a bad idea to get involved with single mothers (i.e., those who've had a child out of wedlock) and this whole story has big red flags jumping up all over the place. I suspect you are a severely beta male who wants to "rescue" this woman. DON'T DO IT! Do a google search for "The Red Pill" and educate yourself.
equipoise Posted February 13, 2016 Author Posted February 13, 2016 Thanks Walter for your reply. But its unlikely that 9,999 cases out of 10,000 result in a negative outcome. I'm far from being a simpering beta male. And if a person was to attempt to slot me as alpha I may well break their face. 1
Copper_Heart Posted February 13, 2016 Posted February 13, 2016 Please, write later about what was your choice and how it all went!
equipoise Posted February 24, 2016 Author Posted February 24, 2016 Thank you Copper_Heart. (And I was a little embarrased over my bad joke and annoyance expressed in my last post). I've hand written, scanned and gmailed a reference that I can live with but may have to explicitely defend if I wish to further cultivate a relationship with this quite beautiful young woman and her mother.
Jan_SVK Posted February 24, 2016 Posted February 24, 2016 It seems to me that you want to make airplane out of a car. I know it because I had the same problem.
equipoise Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 Hi Jan_SVK. Yeah, I may well be wishing that. I "take stock" several times a day but so far remain optimistic. At worst it gives me a reason to travel and I'd have free accommodation, pay for what I use of course, but making it so much easier to visit the US. And it serves as a "way out", so as not to appear needy. And it's been 18 months since I've been with her so...?
Recommended Posts