Need some opinions on a dead beat...

[angllady2]

Whew hon!

This is a lot to deal with for you. I am sorry you have such a difficult situation. Decisions like your are never easy to make.

I have given a lot of thought to your dilemma, I didn't want to post a knee-jerk reaction.

I don't think you should send your son to your ex for the Holidays. Let me try to explain why I think that. It's not so much a "revenge" thing or a "I'll get you back for this" thing. I just don't think a man who makes no effort to support his son whatsoever really cares about him. And if he doesn't care about his son, he doesn't need to see him. Period.

Right now he has everything his way. He can sit on his bum and do nothing, has everything handed to him, including time with his child. He has none of the responsibility of raising a child, which any parent can tell you is a FULL time job in itself, and best of all he can enjoy time with the boy without worrying or caring about food, clothing, school or any of the myriad other things involved with having a child. He has all of the positives with no concept of the negatives or for that matter the reality of raising a child.

Tell him it is very simple, you want to spend time with your son, then be a man and take an active part in caring for him. If you don't think you should help care for him, then I don't think you need to spend time with him.

Now indulge me a moment. When my now husband and I were engaged but not married I got pregnant and the only way my parents could take care of what myself and the baby needed was to get state help. I'm not proud of it, but there it is. The state said I could have insurance, food stamps, etc, but he HAD to pay child support. Even though we were not married, we both said it was his child. I was very angry, I refused to sign the papers. He was doing the best he could, going to school full time and working a lousy fast food job. I knew he would give me whatever he could, and I didn't want the state to order it. But they refused. In the end I signed the papers, I was so very sick at the time I couldn't fight any longer.

Now, my now husband was just 19 years old. In tech school all day every day, he worked all night every night. He wanted to buy me a wedding ring, but well over half of his check went to the state every week, it he wasn't making much as it was. It would have been easy for him to quit his job and stop paying the child support, but that thought never crossed his mind. He worked himself to death for the child he didn't even have yet, because he was a man and he knew it was his responsibility.

If a 19 year old just out of high school can be man enough to face his responsibility, then your ex has no excuse. Don't withhold his child as a form of revenge or punishment. But DO withhold the child he seems to care nothing about, for just that reason. If he truly loves the boy, and truly cares about him and what happens to him, then it's high time he proved it. End of discussion.

I wish you all the best no matter your decision. But darling, if you continue to let him walk all over you, soon your bitterness and resentment will grow too much to hide from your son, and when that evil day comes he'll be forced to choose sides, and no one wants that. If you force your ex to do the right thing, then you all benefit. If he decides he doesn't want to get more involved with your son, then he has only himself to blame when the boy comes to him and asks, "Where were you ?"

Gale