"Any man can be a father but it takes a real man to be a Daddy"
As I had mentioned in a previous post Prince Charming is not Riley's biological father. Let's talk about his biological father. We will call him J.
We are going to rewind all the way back to July 2003. Riley was 4 months old and admitted to the hospital with a blood infection. After not leaving the hospital for 3 days the nurse told me to go home and get some rest. I called J and asked him to come up so I could go home to shower & nap. He told me he couldn't because he had to work the next day and needed to get to bed. He only came up for about an hr each day to see him to begin with so this was like asking him to cut off his right foot. After listening to his excuses I decided to just stay at the hospital. Later that evening one of my best girlies came up to visit and after the nurse assured me they were quite capable of looking after my baby boy, I decided to get out for a bit with Kim. I stopped into my apartment to grab some things and realized J was nowhere to be seen. To make a long story short I found him passed out drunk on one of his buddies couches. The end.
For the 1st year of Riley's life J was in and out. He was a Dad when it was convenient to him, when it worked well with his schedule. I had to fight for child support, we were in and out of court and he was eventually put on maintenance enforcement.
The dumbest thing I could have ever done was give Riley his "father's" last name. J used that against me whenever he could. He was very emotionally abusive and the whole relationship failing was my fault...I was a rotten mother...I kept him away from his son...blah blah blah.
The last time J came to visit Riley was when he was 3. He has called MAYBE twice in the last few years, he does not write or send gifts for any occasion.
In August of 2008 he called to tell me that he was doing something with his taxes and because he was in arrears with maintenance enforcement they were going to garnish his whole refund. He begged me to take him off maintenance and I told him if he would sign the papers allowing me to change Riley's last name I would HOWEVER I still expected a child support payment every month. (insert "how stupid can you be" comment here) I got 2 payments. He is almost $4000 in arrears now and I can't wait until they can "find him."
I sent him a message on FB concerning child support and this is his reply copied and pasted from that conversation (this was copied and pasted...I am not responsible for the grammar & spelling mistakes :)
"we had a oral contract about the child support that will hold up in any court and i intend to follow through with this i have al ready sent a letter to maintenance and im sure they will have no choice but to react as the courts would,i no longer have anything to do with riley because of this he is a (our last name) and that is a form of adoption this was stated to me by a lawyer .if i have to take this to a court i will ...you made your choice for him to be a (our last name) can take care of him"
He does not even have a lawyer and our oral contract was this: "I will take you off of maintenance if you sign the paper to change Riley's last name, however, I still expect child support payments every month."
Changing his last name was done through vital statistics, not with a lawyer. No this is not a "form of adoption." If every man who had kids got off the hook that easy there would be no such thing as child support. How many women remarry in the run of a year?Don't get me wrong, Prince Charming is the best thing that has ever happened to Riley. He is so much more of a father than J could have ever been BUT just because he is a great step-father does not mean that J should be cleared of child support.
Riley has been asking a lot of questions and it makes me sad. He has asked me why "J" doesn't like him, why he doesn't send birthday/Christmas presents and it breaks my heart. I cannot wait until I do not have to sugar coat him to Riley. All we tell him now is that he didn't know how to be a Daddy so God gave him a new one. Sometimes I wonder if he would benefit from talking to a child therapist. I know this has to hurt him but he won't talk to me about it.
J now has 5 kids. (4 different women) I wonder if he has heard of this new procedure they do now. Seems to work wonders, it's called a VASECTOMY!
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10 comments:
from my own experience...
I think if you signed off of the maint. and did not have anything in writing(signed & dated by both of you)your chances of getting anything are slim...especially if you did not act immediately...a verbal agreement will not stand up in court and it's your word against his...
I also signed off of maint., but was advised by a lawyer to put in writing what both parties agreed to...both needed to sign & date...and that way if payments did not show I had proof to present in Family Court...wrote the agreement myself...did not have to pay for lawyer...and it's considered a legal agreement which can be used to have maint. kick back in, if need be.
I am not sure what you mean. I did sign off but then had him put back on. He has been back on maintenance for a couple years now so once they can locate an employer I will start getting my payments. They just contacted me in Jan to tell me they have located him but can't find an employer but now that they have a federal garnishment in place any gov't money etc will come to me.
Sorry, I misunderstood...did not read that you'd gone back with the maint.
Good Luck!
:) No prob!
Thank you!
Good luck Kristy!!!! I hope you are able to get the payments that are owed to you. I have no idea how a man can walk away from their own child. Children are the greatest gift God has given us. How can someone just walk away??? I don't understand. :*(
I don't understamd either Sarah :(
I guess to some men they are just an inconvenience :/
I am familiar with this situation and would just like to let eeveryone know that this Sperm Donor already had a reputation of being a Dead Beat Loser when this lovely lady hooked up with him. He already had a todler that he avoided and didn't pay for. So I think someone is not accepting as much responsibility as she should be in this messy situation.
Granted he is an ass but she really should have learned from his priors.
Now there are 4 of these unlucky ladies. When will anyone learn? So many broken families.
:(
Dear Anonymous, (although I really could insert your name here :)
I guess "love" is blind. When I 1st started dating "J" he saw his "toddler" on a regular basis. We had the "toddler" pretty much every weekend and then it came to the point where I even babysat him through the week. The only responsibility I take in this is that I was a little naive, we didn't plan for it but we had a child, one who I loved enough to break off the relationship with his father when I realized what a deadbeat he was. How could I have known what kind of father he was until I seen 1st hand how he was with MY son? He played the "good Daddy" card pretty well with his 1st boy when we were together!
Just a little update, after 4 years I finally received a child support last Wednesday through maintenance enforcement :) Just in time for our mini vacation to the city!
I am glad! And I know ALL the kids had fun!
Hang in there, I personally had to dead with a dead beat mother! Raised her child for 19 years with NO support! Oh well....all I can say, is one day they will know just what kind of jerks their parents are, around 15 yrs old in my experience.......
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