I have been a divorced mother since September 4th, 1994 and have dealt with many things in my life but none more damaging than my ex-husband not being a father to his son.
When my ex-husband first left me, our son was almost three years old. He was still too young to do a lot of things and required a lot of attention when he was with you and my ex-husband had very little to do with him after leaving, always having one excuse or another why he couldn’t take him for his weekend, or he had to drop him off early on his weekend. As our son got a little older and could do more, he did better about taking him and doing some things with him but still managed to miss a lot of his visitation time for one reason or another. When our son was seven years old I got remarried and we were going to have to move to another State because my new husband’s mother was ill and he needed to be there to help with her, we made a trip to our new home with all of our kids, got things lined up as far as housing and jobs then went back to our home to start the moving process. Our son didn’t want to move, he was so upset, he didn’t want to lose either one of us but more than anything, he had gotten very close with my parents and they lived right down the road from his dad so he just didn’t want to leave. Even though it literally destroyed me, I let him make his own choice and he went to stay with his father when we moved in October of 1998.
October of 1998 through October of 1999 had to be the most miserable year of my life. I loved my new husband, I loved his family, I loved my new job, and I even loved my new home but I was missing my son and nothing was going to help me out with those feelings. I would call him every night, most nights he wouldn’t want to talk to me at all, other nights he would say hello and then drop the phone and go watch television, he wasn’t interested in talking to me and I thought I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life because of this one decision that I let him make, and in all honesty he was just too young to make it, but I didn’t want to traumatize him any more than he already had been with everything that he had already been through. I honestly thought that I was doing the right thing for him even though I knew it was the wrong thing for me.
I would talk to my mom all the time and she would tell me that things were “okay”, that Tim spent a lot of time at her house and that he seemed to be doing “okay. I learned to hate that word, “okay”.
My parent’s brought my son to see me that following June and spent three weeks with us in our new home. I tried so hard to talk him into staying with us, but he continued to tell me that he didn’t want to lose his grandparent’s, not one word about losing his dad, just didn’t want to lose his grandparents. I didn’t push it anymore because I wanted him to enjoy his time with us while I had it. When he left I must of cried for almost two weeks.
The first part of October 1999 I got a phone call from my mother while I was at work, she said that she had Tim and had him with her for almost a month now. She said that my ex-husband had called the local police a month ago threatening to Kill himself and it was just him with all the kids at home. When the police arrived they called my ex-husband’s mother and my mother about the grandkids and my mom went and took our son and his mom came and got the other three children that he had with his new wife. They had put my ex in a mental hospital to be monitored and gave custody of the children to the grandparents. Mom said that she just couldn’t bring herself to tell me, but that my dad had told her that she was doing the wrong thing by keeping it from me and had finally convinced her to call and tell me what was going on. I called my husband at work and we left the next morning to pick my son up and bring him home to me.
When I arrived at my mother’s home, my son came running out and I thought I would hold him forever. My mother and I had papers drawn up the next day and my ex-husband, now back at home and doing much better, signed them letting our son come with me to our new home. By this time, my mother had talked to our son and explained to him that she loved him very much and didn’t want to be away from him either but that his mother really needed him and that it was really hurting her to not have him with her. He finally said that he wanted to come home with me and he would give it a chance as long as I promised that he could come back if he didn’t like it and we promised him that if he hated it he could come back and stay with his grandma, but that his dad wasn’t stable enough to take care of him. Our son had a medical condition, diabetes Type I that wasn’t controlled while he was with his dad and it had completely stopped his growth the entire time that he was there. None of us were aware of what was going on until I started getting reports from the school and his doctor’s to take back with us and I was reading through them. I hated myself for letting him stay and go through everything that he did, but I couldn’t do anything about the past, but I could sure make sure that he had a good life with us and never had to go through that again.
He has been with us since October 1999 and we have all done very well. His diabetes is better controlled and his growth is back to where it should be. He has made a lot of friends and has adjusted well to his new life with his mother and his new family. We have had to go through some pretty extensive Counseling because he has a lot of anger. When two parents split up and go there separate ways it is very important for both of them to stay a part of their children’s lives. My ex-husband went back to court after our son moved out here with me and fought me to have visitation rights with him during the summer and every other holiday, we set it up through the courts and he hasn’t utilized his visitation rights even once. Our son gets to see his father when all of us pack up and go out to visit with my parents, he will call his father and let him know that he is his there and his dad will take him two or three days and then he brings him back to visit with people in my family and we leave and come back home. His father will call him on holidays and his birthday but he always has some excuse why he can’t afford to fly him out to see him for the summer. Our son is older now and has gotten to where he doesn’t care as much anymore. He gets more excited about his grandparent’s coming out to visit every year and doesn’t worry so much about seeing his dad.
I sometimes think to myself how sad it is that his father has chosen to be an “absent parent” like he did because he has missed so much. I hear other ladies talking about their “dead beat” ex-husbands and what they are doing to them and I think to myself, I don’t care what my ex says or does to me, but I really wish that he would take more interest in his first born son and treat him the way that he should.
Our son has gone through a lot and still has some “emotional” problems that we deal with on a day to day basis. The effect that “absent parents” have on their children is great. It is extremely important to make your children understand that they are not the cause of the two parent’s not staying together and even more important to make sure that your children feels love and security from both of you and that both of you stay a big part of your children’s lives no matter what kind of sacrifices that you have to make. Our children are our responsibility and our future, it is important to give them every chance that they can get to have good lives and grow up stable.
It is a lot better to be referred to as the “other parent” instead of the “absent parent” by your children. You should never be the absent parent in your children lives.
