(Step)daughter's father can't wait to see us in court

As some of you know, the eldest Princesscreole is not my biological daughter. I met her and the Queen when Princesscreole was 21 months old.

Her father is a piece of shit. I've tried my best to leave what he did prior to me entering my wife's life in the past. He is never a constant in his daughter's life and he doesn't pay child support despite making at least four times what I do. But now the fuckhead has me on the brink of exploding.

Took the Queen to dinner tonight while the Princesses were at Wednesday church activities. She told me that her and the Princess had a little fight last night. Not much, she said, especially for a 10-year old girl and her mother.

The Princess was later talking on the phone to her best friend, who has a deadbeat dad too. The Princess later started crying, saying she missed her dad and sister. (They live about four hours from us. He came to our state last week for Thanksgiving but never called to see if he could see his daughter. Hell, we would have let her go with him for the weekend had he called. But of course he didn't.)

So the Queen and the Princess sat down and talked for awhile. Apparently, the Princess' other sister (same dad) called earlier this week and told her that "Daddy says he can't wait until you turn 12 so you can tell a judge who you want to live with."

The Princess cried that she wants to make her real daddy happy too, but she wants to stay with us.

I'm so fucking tired of this shit. So fucking tired. I've done everything possible to be a true Daddy to her. She calls me Daddy, and I tell everyone I have three kids. If more information is necessary, I tell them she is not my biological daughter, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm Daddy to her. Now this cocksucker is telling his daughter to tell her sister that she can come live with him when she's 12. All she has to do is tell a judge.

I'm so pissed about this it makes me sick.

 

King, she knows you love her. And the horrible truth is that she also knows her biological father doesn't or, at the least, not enough. Is it possible that he could get her to say two years from now that she wants to live with him? Maybe, because she wants to find love in him. BUT --

It's not at all a sure thing that he'll go through with seeking custody (my guess would be not).
If he does, there's a good chance she'll choose to stay with you and her mom.
Even if he sues and she wants to try it, that is not the only factor the judge will take into consideration. All his failings up to that point will be fair game.

I know that if I were in your shoes, I would borrow trouble. But the combination of facts and human nature are so strongly in your favor. Try to remember that.

 

Sorry, King....I feel for you.

Is that the law in your state, at age 12 she can decide?

Does the Queen have paperwork ordering this douchebag to pay support? If so, he may well be on the hook for big bucks......see if you can get that order enforced. Even the threat of having such an order enforced may be enough to get him to stay even further away and make his contacts with the Princess less frequent.

Hell, you could possibly even use it to buy him away from her. "Sign over your parental rights, Knave, so the King can formally adopt the Princess, and your debt is waived. Now, begone with you!"

In the meantime, you can try to tell the Princess that she doesn't have to live with her father when she is 12 years old and it's not fair for him and her sister to put that kind of pressure on her. You should also take steps to try to limit the phone contact if this kind of shit continues. Yeah, the Princess will miss her sister - but as her day-to-day parents, sometimes you and the Queen have to make decisions that are in her long-term best interests even if they hurt her now.

Bottom line - you've already stepped up to the plate, and bless you for that. The Princesses and the Queen are lucky to have you in the lineup. But now you need to crowd that plate and challenge that fucker on the mound to come inside on you. He's trying to come into your house - if he does, you step into that pitch and you crush the motherfucking thing.

Good luck. I'll be pulling for you.

 

There may, I hate to say it, come a time when she decides to go test the waters there for no other reason than because she can. She'll be 13 or 14, all teenager-y and rebellious, and she'll do it just because she can.

But, speaking as someone whose sister did exactly the same thing, she will realize -- and quite quickly at that -- that the grass is not in fact greener on the other side of the fence. Granted, my dad's not a piece of shit like this guy is, but it still wasn't the right situation, and my sister found that out pretty quickly.

But please, please, please, don't turn it into a reflection on the job you're doing as her dad. It isn't, and it won't be. Whether she comes out and says it or not, she knows who her father is and who her dad is, and she knows they're not the same person. But even kids whose parents are nothing but loving and caring and decent and good will chafe against those parents at some point. Unfortunately, your daughter is going to have an outlet to relieve that -- or so she might think. But if she does leave, and I don't think there's any guarantee she will, she will come back, and I'm guessing fairly quickly.

Just don't allow this to affect anything you do for her, positively or negatively. If she needs something from you, don't hesitate because of this. If you need to discipline her, then do it. And when you do, if she says, "I wanna go live with my dad," don't take the bait. You let her see that you're going to love her the same no matter what, and then more importantly, you do it.

 

I was in a similar situation to your daughter growing up, King. My "father" left when I was nine months old and mom remarried when I was about 20 months to the most amazing dad ever.
My father tried to get me to hate him, including getting me to come off the plane the first time I flew to see him at 4 and refuse to hug my dad and then inform him "You're not my daddy. My daddy lives in Texas." (Yea, I still tear up when I think about how my dad must have felt).

He also tried the "When you're 12 you can come live with me thing," but at that point I knew better. By then, I'd quit crying when I had to leave and was excited to come home, by then his aunts had told me what really went down with the divorce and by then he and my stepmother's marriage was on the outs and it was obvious even to me, who saw them twice a year.

I don't have any advice about what to do with your daughter, other than make sure she knows you love her.

 

My dad tried the same crap with me when I was 9 or so.

And then I didn't see or hear from him for three or four years, until I was in seventh grade. He wrote me a letter, saying how sorry he was and that he wanted to be in my life.

I called him that day, but that was the last I heard from him until my senior year in 2003 when my sister, step-sister and step-mom wrote me letters for my graduation.

Two more years passed before I decided to find Bethany on MySpace.

I found her and got dad's number. Cont.

 

Called the next day and talked to Beth until 5 that morning. Few days later, I call and my dad answers.

Part of me wanted to hang up on him, but I didn't.

We wound up talking for four hours, and our relationship now is great.

So King, I wish Princess all the best. It won't be easy, but she'll make it through this OK.

 

I think the Princess is realizing who/what her father is. It bothers her, and like her mother, wants to please everybody.

If we could waive all child support in turn for him turning over his paternal rights, we would do it, but his disdain for Queen is pretty strong. He's always threatened her with court battles, etc. I too never think we'll see the inside of a courtroom. Although it would be neat to see him explain to a judge why he doesn't pay child support, never calls his daughter, sees her once or twice a year despite coming through the state, etc.

We live in different states, so laws vary, which makes this all stickier. And it's not him saying "see you in court in two years" that bothers me. It's that he is now telling his daughter to tell my daughter this shit.

Gawd, I wish her father wasn't 6-5, 280.

 

People who use their kids as pawns against their ex-spouses are sub-human. And, really, that's what the ex is doing by manipulating the girls like that. He doesn't give a shit about the kids, he's trying to hurt his ex.

 

Makes me realize how lucky I was as a kid to grow up with two biological parents in the same house ... even if my dad did fuck it up after I moved out.

 

One of my brothers had three children, then got divorced.
The ex- is now remarried to a guy with three kids.
Six kids, total, now in that household.

Well, the child support was steep as hell for my brother and he found out that the new guy is sending one of his kids to expensive tennis camps in Florida.
Those things cost thousands to participate in.

My brother was furious as this trend continued. He went to court and got the support payments reduced, after showing a judge what was happening.

I mean, both his ex-wife and her new beau are school teachers. They can't afford to do what they were doing.

Good for my brother.

Good luck to you in your scenario, too. That's a bad story to hear.

 

king,

Don't lose sleep over this guy. You're doing the right thing.