I was involved in a nasty dispute with my ex immediately after my son was born. Seeing as her previous child was born under the same circumstances and being much less generous than I was previously, I consider that this was part of her income strategy.

Court ensued, the typical “I am scared”, “I think there may have been inappropriate behavior with my daughter”. No real accusations, those could be refuted, just implications.

Added to this, she was taking classes and not working; therefore, she received free legal representation because “a woman can’t lose her kids because she can’t afford to pay a lawyer, that’s a women’s rights issue in our patriarchal society”. I find it interesting that the reverse is simply not true, men can lose their children due to lack of money, I guess it isn’t a big deal.

Court came and went with her getting the expected “complete sole custody”. Thankfully, I received normal visitation not the “supervised access”, at my expense, that had been sought.

Even before the court date, it was clear that there was no way for a male parent to have any reasonable representation of parental interest in this system. The only times that happens is if the female parent is absent, obviously mentally unstable, or a very bad drug addict.

From then on, I folded. I didn’t have any power, so I worked with that as best I could. I swallowed my anger. I accepted that she insisted I couldn’t have any member of my family look after the child, even if I only wanted to run to the corner store as that was my “time with my son, if I wasn’t spending it with him, then I shouldn’t have him”. That he was sleeping was irrelevant. I put up with blocked visitation whenever she was unhappy with me over something.

I listened to comments of “I don’t have any support here, I should move to England where I have family to help me”. Considering that her family isn’t close, she speaks to her brother and sister, who live here, at most twice a year, some years not at all. The moving comments were code for don’t piss me off or I will take your child away.

Completely manipulative but at the time, I believed it, or at least worried about it and swallowed even more.

However, I had an advantage. My ex really didn’t like being a parent, so I did what was required. I canceled any plans on a moments notice because she would call me up and ask me to take our son since “something came up for her”. That this seemed to consistently happen when I had something planned that she knew about was an interesting tidbit but easily dealt with as she didn’t need to know most of my plans anyways.

Time moved on, from about 3 on, I had my son every week-end. She would have him less then 5 week-ends a year. Since “she was a full-time single mom, the break was necessary”. We’ll ignore the fact that I took him to all his activities (and paid for them) as “she was too tired and couldn’t”. At 10, he lived with me full time for a year. That this corresponded with my purchasing a new home, a stressful busy experience, while taking night classes, and working long hours, wasn’t coincidence in my opinion. It was a form of sabotage that I preferred. Oh, I was also volunteering at my son’s activities, taking him to activities, helping him with his homework (which she doesn’t do, his older sister helps him when she is able - actually his older sister became his de-facto mother a few years ago as my ex essentially had a complete nervous breakdown. Remember, you can only get custody in the evidence of “OBVIOUS mental instability”. If the mother can present well in public, it doesn’t matter.

He now lives with his mother, although since 11 that means 3 days a week to my 4. Since she has full custody though, that means that I pay full child support. If I disputed that, you can bet that my access would be limited to the court ordered amount instantaneously. Then by the time the court date rolled around six months later - it would be disruptive of the “established schedule” to make any changes.

I tend not to explain or comment on this whole thing much, the anger is too deep. Has it negatively affected my mental health? Unquestionably. I suffer from depression and stress. Has it affected my social health? Absolutely, being single for 10+ years wasn’t really in my plans, but I made my choices based on my priorities, and only have a minor sense of loss. (That situation really ended a few years ago, but I had made myself too busy to really change by then, and, hey, would you believe that I have some trust issues?)

Ah well, only another decade to go.

“Smile and nod, boys, smile and nod”

Believe me, I can understand those who can’t do it. I sympathize with those who don’t even get that chance. I had friends that would come and sit with me when I was too angry, to give me an outlet for impotent rage. To tell me that what was going on was wrong. Even they couldn’t grasp why I was willing to sacrifice again and again and again, though. I was young, and my friends were single and childless at the time.

Your blog is important. To me personally. No person should have to endure what I did.

Keep writing.

Oh, on the off chance that my comment will be seen and recognized, although I doubt it, I will sign as anonymous to give me plausible deniability. I have also left out many identifying details that I would like to have shared.

Such is life, you can’t speak, even anonymously, for fear of retaliation. The family law situation is more oppressive than a totalitarian regime. (For those that would argue a totalitarian regime would kill people - I offer that losing my son would do the same to me).
–Anonymous