Not All Ex's Are Bad...
>> Thursday, November 12, 2009
Sometimes, the problem isn't the ex but the dad.
I was in a live-in relationship with a man for a couple years who had a little girl he rarely saw. He blamed his ex for all of it. I didn't know any better - didn't know his ex at all (never met her) - and took his word for it. When he finally did see her, it was only for a few hours a couple of times and only at his parents' house. She played while they drank. I spent time playing with her there while everybody else worked on getting sloshed. Obviously, I saw a completely different picture at that point.
His ex wanted him to give up his legal rights because she was remarried to a man who truly was "dad" to this little girl and he wanted to adopt her but the biological dad refused to give up his rights even though he had zero relationship with his daughter. He was "dad" in name only and he wasn't giving that name up. It'd make him look bad. To all his colleagues and friends, he could lie to them and blame it all on his ex, leaving him the poor, forgotten father when it was the daughter who was forgotten by dad.
Well, I left that relationship with the biological father when she was eight years old. It was after that when I had my first conversation with his ex. I saw this little girl once after the ex invited me to see her at her basketball game she had a couple years later and this little girl and I wrote letters back and forth a couple times with her mom's blessing.
Guess what? Her mom continued to keep in touch with me over the years too personally. She sent me pictures so I could see how she grew up, holiday cards and even xmas gifts. I loved that little girl and was thankful that her mom did that. That "little girl" is now 26 years old with three babies of her own and we keep in contact through Facebook (I'm friends with her mom on FB too).
Tonight she took one of the many quizzes FB has and this one was a social interview type quiz that asked questions about people on your friend list. It asked her if I had ever done anything nice for her. She wrote: "She continued to care about me long after she didn't have to anymore." Definitely brought tears to read that.
Not only did her mom keep in touch with me, she let her daughter know that I cared about her too. I'm glad she had a great mom and the man who raised her. Sometimes, ex's aren't bad even though they're made out to be monsters.
4 comments:
Thats a really great story. So glad you stayed in touch, I am sure that meant a lot to her.
I agree with you ex's are not always to blame and in this case that seems very true. I think my BM wishes the BF was a bad parent, he keeps proving her wrong and she can't get sympathy from others anymore now that they know what all he does for his son. Sad to watch that she doesn't think about her child but only thinks about herself and what is easier for her.
I think that's true for a lot of dads. Some BM's seem to actually WANT dad to be bad so every bad thing she's done and said can be justified. It makes playing victim so much easier for them. DH's ex actually wanted him to walk away from his son - not acknowledge him. He refused and she made him pay for his refusal to walk away from his son year after year.
I think some of them also want stepmoms to be as wicked as the fairy tales show them. The more love my stepkids got from me, the more she hated me. I felt, on so many different occasions, that she would have preferred I neglect or abuse them so she could justify her hatred and behavior.
Why is it that none of us got stuck with the normal BM's?? I dated someone before H that had children with and ex as well. She was as nice as could be. She would occasionally pick up her children from me and we could sit and talk for awhile. The thought of doing that with the Ex now, makes me want to vomit... why do we get stuck with the crazy ones??
I think the ones who didn't get stuck with bitter ex's aren't online looking for support so we don't hear about them enough. It takes a secure bm to be able to open up and accept a step-parent into their child's life without hostility and to WANT, EXPECT, and ENCOURAGE dad to be a big part of the child's life too. They exist, we didn't get lucky enough to fall in love with guys who had past relationships with emotionally healthy women, lol.
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