A Phone Call from the Ex

To give you all a little bit of history before I get into the meat of this, I have been married and divorced twice.  90% of the things I say about my ex are actually about my second ex, who is a drug addict and a career criminal.  We have the on son together, Sam, who is 8.5 years old.  My ex left us going on 5 years ago now, when Sam was just not quite 4 years old, and has been in and out of his life on a very sporadic basis.  I have full legal and physical custody of Sam, which as my attorney puts it is "the closest you can come to terminating parental rights while still holding him financially responsible."  There are many reason I chose to do it this way: one is that you can't legally terminate all parental rights unless you have someone else who is willing to become the child's legal guardian, usually a spouse who would adopt the child or a family member willing to take over in case you die. And as I have no spouse, nor a family member who I totally trust, it hasn't been an option up to this point.  Another reason is that I want him (the ex) to have hanging over his head the fact that he abandoned a child.  I don't EVER want him to forget that he couldn't be a man and walked out on his responsibilities.  Don't worry, I am prepared for the backlash of THAT comment, but I will only ask that you don't make assumptions about me based only what is written here.  There are so many other reasons that it would take me the rest of the say and too many pages to even begin to list them all.

Anyway.  Despite the custody thing, which says I never have to let him see Sam if I don't want to, I have made every effort to encourage a relationship between the two of them.  I have made Sam accessible to him so far as humanyl possible.  I have encouraged him to visit, make phone calls, etc...and even allowed Sam to stay the night with him and his girlfriend twice.  However, what he has done is totally take advantage of that, and has felt like Sam is just always there when and if he wants to see him.  This has resulted, for Sam, in a lot of uncertainty and confusion and pain.  The last time we saw him was in May, just after Sam's birthday (which his dad neglected to even acknowledge!  In fact, when his dad said that he couldn't get to a phone to call him but that he would bring his present next time he came, Sam said 'I am still waiting for my Christmas present!' so you see what kind of a reliable person he really is), and then it took me three more months to even find out where he WAS.  He quit his job and therefore quit paying child support in May as well, and prior to that was just about $9000 behind on child support already.  Now, after not having paid any since May, he hit the $12,000 mark.  Which is almost what I MAKE in a year!  I had heard rumors, talked to people we both knew, did some top-nothc investigative work (meanig I did Child Support Services' job for them), and found out where he was living.  With his mom, in Oregon, attempting to file for disability for a truck wreck he got into, while high, for an employer who had no work comp, and Casey was working under the table anyway.  She told me on Friday that she had to kick him out, that his girlfriend left him and told him if he didn't quit calling her she was going to file a restrainign order, his doctor in Oregon refuses to treat him any longer because he has been abusing his staff and lying to get drugs...and "by the way, he is on his way back to Idaho."

So he called yesterday.  And I wasn't home, so he talked to the kids.  When I came home, Sam was crying, saying, "He says he wants to come see me but I don't want to see him because I never know if he is going to show up. I hate him!"  So I called him back, and he said he wanted to come see Sam.  I have been thinking for the past six months that I wasn't going to let him back into Sam's life because of the damage he has already done, but was uncertain as to whether that was the right thing to do.  However, coming home to hear the eerily adult pain in Sam's voice, I knew without a doubt that I was not oging to allow this to happen again.  When I talked to him, he started the conversation on a bad note by saying, as if he had every right in the world,"Are you going to be a bitch or are we going to talk about me seeing my son?"  And you know, I just said, "I think I am going to be a bitch, because you walked out of your son's life for the last time clear back in May."  He told me to serve him with papers and hung up on me.  The old part of me, the one who is still scared of him and just wants to make peace, the old one who thinks that even a terrible relationship with a father is better than none, wanted to call him back and apologize, but the sight of Sam's tears and pain stopped me in my tracks.  No, it can't happen.  And I don't need to serve him papers, because he has already signed away all his rights save the obligation to pay child support.  If and when Sam ever says,"I think I would like to see my dad," I will gladly help pave the way for that to happen.  But right now, he doesn't want to, and I will not allow Casey to hurt Sam again.  Can't do it, won't do it, hate the idea of even thinking about it.  I fully espect some nasty phone calls, which is him MO.  SAldy, though, that is ALL I can expect of him.