The Princess and the Pea-Brain
The Art of Co-Parenting with Someone you Hate
Part One
It’s 9am on the 22nd of January 2010, the official due date for my daughter. I am lying in the bath staring at a reply to my last text message, asking my Ex if our son can come home from his house if I go into labor during his access time this weekend. The message says one word.
No.
This is further proof, as if I needed it, that my son’s father is let’s face it, an Ass-Hole.
For those of you who may be in the same situation as me, I will commit my experiences, and whatever life lessons I have managed to glean from them and send the out into the blogosphere. Hopefully they find someone who, like me, has at times felt adrift in a galaxy of confusion and frustration.
Here Goes;
After managing to impregnate me at the age of 17, him being 10 years my senior, My Ex – Who shall be affectionately referred to as A.H - hounded me to have an abortion. Unlike the 3 other girls that he had managed to persuade into this in the past, I adamantly refused. We remained in contact through out my pregnancy, me blithely ignoring his dire warnings of my future as a single Mum. In his eyes I would end up fat and alone, wasting my energy on some screaming brat. Luckily for me and my unborn son, I had a loving family and dear friends who loudly and repeatedly disagreed.
His highness attended the birth 0n the 18/7/2005. Effortlessly making my 37 hours of labor pale in comparison to the fact the He was tired and uncomfortable sitting on the floor beside me, holding my hand like the Martyr he is.
His disgust at the cord cutting was clear, although he was the one that severed the link between mother and son. An act he has no doubt tried to replicate through out the years. But it was the day after our son came into the world that he really out did himself. I had been resting up in hospital, trying to come to terms with this incredible change in my life and so high on New mummy hormones that I literally felt like I was on Valium. I had spent the entire day falling madly in love with this tiny little life that had already changed mine so much, and there he was, stinking of cigarette smoke and dressed head to toe in black like some kind of fairytale villain. “Your exhausted, in pain and look like shit” He tells me, making a dismissive gesture towards the bassinet where our baby lies swaddled. “Was it really worth it? I mean, I know everyone told me I’d feel different when the baby was born but I have to say – I still feel nothing for It.”
I didn’t see him again for 7 weeks.
During my little boys infancy he would come and go, showing up for an overnight visit every fortnight or so. He would whine about the lack of edible food in my house (I am a life long vegetarian, he is a blood sucking carnivore). He would sneer at my family, berate me for my choice of friends and pick fights with me if I didn’t have sex with him. I should have told him to get fucked. But I was young, and stupid and our relationship had a twisted power structure. And deep down, I wanted to my son to have 2 parents.
He had refused to tell his parents about my being pregnant, claiming that they had abused him as a child and he was adamant that that would not happen to his son. Thinking that perhaps this was why he was the way he was, I felt sorry for him and respected his wish to keep his family out of it. However, when my son was 6 months old A.H began to speak of suicide. “I want to see my son one last time before I die” He told me over the phone. I panicked and told my mother, a social worker by profession, who had been telling me since the beginning that A.H’s parents should know. She took me to my fathers and we all discussed what was to be done. My mother rang A.H’s brother after finding his number in the phone book and explained the situation. She asked if they had been abused as children? Not at all, was his reply. Next she rang A.H’s mother and had the unfortunate task of telling her that not only was he son in extremis but that she was also and grandmother. His mother just cried and cried.
He was moved into her house by his parents soon after and has remained there ever since.
For the next 18 months it was business as usual. A.H would visit occasionally, offering very little in the way of practical support. His mother and I got on well and my boy seemed t enjoy his new found family members. A.H and I were neither here nor there in terms of being together. Things were kind of peaceful, until we decided to move in together.
I had been living on my own in a cottage in my home time, about an hours drive from his mothers house in the city. It was decided that I would break my lease and move into my fathers tiny two bedroom flat to save up some money so we could rent out a nice place together. Within a week of being at my dads house I realized this plan was not going to work. I had been used to living on my own and being solely responsible for the running of a house. , Living with my dad, there was suddenly someone else to take the trash out and someone else to make sure there was milk in the fridge. It became increasingly obvious to me that if I moved lout with A.H as planned I would be harnessing myself with yet another ‘child’ to care for. No thank you. So I finally broke it off. No moving in. No more sleeping together. No more No-Mans-Land of a relationship status. Just me, the single mother I had always been but now with the title to match it. I moved out with a close friend and began enjoying my freedom.
A.H had assured me that we were fine, that he had also had misgivings about moving in together and agreed that it was in both our best interests to end our ‘relationship’. But we both agreed to remain good friends, and to respect each other as parents. This all went along fine until six months later when I began dating someone else. At first there was a token attempt to overcome this obstacle and make our parenting arrangement a bit more formal. He started taking our son for over night visits (Our son being 2 ½ at the time and he had never had him overnight until then) and we began to bring finances into it. A.H was supposed to be paying my something like $6 a fortnight in child support but had refused to offer up even that pittance as I got a parenting payment to raise our son and he only got half of what I did from social security. Soon after A.H began taking overnights, his mother and he appeared on my doorstep asking for money. The extra time spent with Grand/Son was costing too much and I was asked to fork over the $$$ for the extra food, nappies, etc that he was going through. As diplomatically as possible, I declined by saying we should check with Centrelink as to what payments A.H may now be entitled to. Of course, this task fell to me, but I did it and arranged for $50 to be taken out of my parenting payment and handed over to A.H, as per the letter of the law. When I suggested that as I had arranged for A.H to receive what he was entitled to, perhaps he should do the same in kind and organize for me to start receiving the child support I was entitled to I was met with disdain. “That money is for our son, not for you” he hissed at me. Err, I know Dumb-Ass, exactly where do you think all my money goes? But I took it on the chin and rang up the Child Support Agency and arranged to have it taken out of his payments anyway. This was to be the starting point of a long and glorious battle.
