"Kristi Carney" wrote in message

Dennis,

NO! I'm not taking the moral high ground. I take just as much
responsibility for my pregnancy and the birth and raising of my daughter
as
I've ever had.

I think you missed my point. IMO you have spent too much time slagging off
the fathers lifestyle when only a few years ago anyone could say the same
about you. It makes you sound like a hypocrite.

You know what? I hate it when it feels as though 'support'
is more or less like attack.

Touch a nerve did I?

You may be a single parent, but you will NEVER
be a single mother.

Good for me. It means I never get to play the femme fatale.

You didn't go through nine months (40 weeks is
technically 10 months) of pregnancy. I shifted to auto-pilot... so part
of
me wants to say "screw you"... the other part of me wants to clarify.

Go on, screw me :-p

Age 21-22.... who knows what the hell they are doing?! I sure didn't. I
am
admitting that.. here at age 28. YES... I have grown up... 5 years
later..
NO... my daughter's father HASN'T grown up. He was never supportive
during
the pregnancy... and he was never an involved father, period... and when I
finally got tired of being someone's douche bag by all respects... I
kicked
him out... and for that... I got a year of harassment and threats and
panic
and anxiety attacks. So.. if you think that's fair... whatever. I don't
have to explain or justify anything to you... because you don't live this.

And five years later you are still revelling in it. When are you going to
drop all this negative stuff, it is taking up far too much energy that
should be used for more positive thoughts.

It's easy to say I'm on some moral high horse... but you don't know me
well
enough to say that... and that's not a fair statement, period. It's
sometimes rough in these group discussion board settings to intimate
everything that I'm thinking and feeling... and even more difficult to put
in the necessary emphasis and voice inflections...

Quite right. So I say it as I read it and I did not like what I read.

but... in no way have I
hampered anything that's gone on in his life...

I tried to work things out amicably...even took my daughter up to see him
every other weekend for the first year... and when I was still getting
abused...

Well is that a bold generalisation or are you some kind of masochist?

I said screw this and went to court... to have visitation set up
and child support ordered.. does he follow the court order? Not at all.
He
doesn't visit his daughter. He doesn't call to see about her...

[[[Yawn]]]]

and me...
I've been given the lovely task of being civil... being accommodating.. of
"being the bigger person" all the time... and get what? I get flack from
someone like you who just sees black and white... not grey... and the fact
that I AM being a parent... and the fact that HE isn't... period... end of
story.

So your the custodial parent doing the job the court gave you. So what? That
is what most of us here do and without playing the martyr about it.


Do I think people can change? Yes.. I hope that they do and will change
as
they mature... but has it happened in 5 years? Not yet.

Stick with it. It took my sons mother three years to get around to an
overnight and five years to manage a week's holiday with her son.
Part of my job of being a cusdodial parent was to facilite it and do you
know what? I was delighted for both of them and am continually thankfull
that I never wrote her off. And believe me, I could have done so many times
as the regulars here all know.

So.. if I'm on
moral high ground... I have a right to sound that way... when I'm being
both
mother and father.

Then stop, you will fail anyway. By trying to be both you are setting
yourself up for major disapointment when you realise you never can be.

You may not see it that way because you HAVE stepped up
to the plate... but I see it that way when he has not.

Like I said before, stop judging from where you are now. In fact stop
judging, stop whinging, stop playing the martyr and channel all the energy
into something more positive.

Dennis