Single Daddyhood

Hopefully this came out halfway decent.  This is a rough draft of smething I worked up.  Enjoy.  Actually its a pretty serious topic...I guess enjoy anyway.


                                       Single Daddyhood and Whatnot

　

　

I can’t think of a bigger headache to deal with in life than divorce. Somewhere along the way
either you or your spouse decides there’s love lost, or maybe that there wasn’t love to begin with, or you

caught them in something, or whatever, and so whammo, half your stuff is gone. In the midst of all that

you’re trying to find some reason to go on living, and if you have kids, you’re trying to find a way to

shield them from some of the things that.

Divorce can be a mixed tragedy of loneliness, despair, and the joint bank account. Sacred vows

are suddenly forgotten for the all too familiar, “I can’t believe I married you. I’m going to my mother’s.”

I think the statistic is about 50 percent of marriages go the way of the dodo. And let’s not forget about

your friends. Well, let me just share about that. If you’ve got married friends, they tend to side with the

wife, because your ex is friends with the other wife, and the husband doesn’t want to start having

problems of his own for being friends with you.

If you happen to be the ex-husband, its automatically assumed you’re at fault for everything that

went wrong in the marriage. You’re wife could’ve been a liar, a thief, or Hitler’s sister, and still it’s the

husband who ends up racked over the coals. Just ask yourself, who gets the kids, because it’s not the dad

the court usually sends the kids home with. At the beginning, you get the idea you might be able to get

your spouse to change her mind, as you’re hopeful there’s some affection for you left over. You might be

able to convince her, plead with her, anything, something can change, things can be better. Of course it

not going to work, but you don’t know that at the time.

So after picking myself up off the floor, where you spent the night in the fetal position, somehow

you get up, and try to figure things out. So I call her. She’ll talk to me sometimes, and other times we

yell at each other, she even manages to slip in “I love you”, from time to time, but I eventually realize

she’s just stringing me along. There’s definitely some love lost, as you miss being with your wife, \

and kind of miss being the man, and protector of the family. At some point I was wondering if I needed to

die. Heaven at least would at least take the pain away. I didn’t have the courage to end my own life, but

I’d thought maybe God could do it for me. I just wanted the pain to end. Somehow I tried to hold it

together, not sure how, but I’m still here.

You get love letter from the county if you’re behind on child support, and one that comes every

month when you make a payment. When the court originally ruled, they had no idea I had a case for

separation before she filed for divorce. So when I get hit with child support they back dated it to when she

first filed, and suddenly I owe for 6 months of child support I knew nothing about, and getting nasty

phone calls. At some point things are supposedly fixed, that is till they take my tax returns. And if that

doesn’t sound bad, the government never corrected the problem, in a way. After I was caught up, they I

was still getting a letter that said I was behind every month, and every month the amount was bigger.

Somehow the state knew I was paying in one part of the office, but the records never reflected it.

And in case you think I was behind, I document my support payments three different ways to show I send

a payment. I had a checking account set up for myself, and one I opened for my daughter so she could

maybe have some money for college. That made me feel like they were stealing from my then, two year

old. I went a year having to cash my checks at the bank my paycheck was drawn on so the county

wouldn’t keep emptying my account for a bill I was never behind on, and the bank took a $5 fee for every

check since I didn’t have an account with them so its like a $5 dollar robbery every time. I wasn’t about

to open an account with those guys. The county’s worse than a credit card company, they mind ruining

your reputation and credit over it… Needless to say, it was eventually cleared up. I guess with all of that

its like you’re paying to not see your kid grow up. And that’s really infuriating, because you are trying to

do your best to make sure child is looked after.

You never really about that type of thing though, they’re not quick to call the cops on mother, but

on a father they will. I’ve heard and seen plenty of things in my time. And I’m not saying that there

aren’t some real losers out there. A deadbeat parent whether a mom or a dad, is really a tragic thing for

the child mostly, but also for the parent. I can’t imagine all the damage that is done by a child not having

a parent in his or her life. The only thing I can tell you is that as a single father, I’m doing everything I

can to be in my daughter’s life, to make sure she grows up to be a great lady, and even a mother and

somebody’s wife, or whatever it is she wants to be. Folks need to open their eyes and look at individual

people, not case file numbers. I’m tired of being punished for not being married anymore, like it was my

choice to leave my wife. I didn’t leave, she did. I try to obey the law, and even more important, try to make sure my child is provided for, and I’m constantly looked down either by government agencies, or by

other people. I suppose that’s the way this will play out, at least till she’s an adult, but if nothing else I

know who I am trying to be, if no one else does.