Check Her Credit Report!

It seems so perfect.  High school graduation is only days away.  Scholarships and financial aid abound.  Future roommate is coming to town.   Then the phone rings mid-day.  They leave a voice message and I listen later on.  It’s “Chase Financial Collections” with an extremely private message… For my college bound?    Or is it the other relative in our family with the same name they’re trying to reach?  I delete the message because I suspect it’s just a ploy of one of my creditors  - using my child’s name to get me to call them back.   Thought nothing more of it..until now.

The thing is.. after two and a half years of years of unemployment – you do acquire creditors.   Like Reliant Energy.  I had a $600+ electric bill that 1st Summer of unemployment.  No way I could pay it, and they would defer it no longer.  Nothing I could do or say to negotiate repayment.  So they cut me off!  I switched providers and hadn’t looked back at what I owed Reliant.  But who would use my minor child’s name to harass me like that?   Who would know my minor child’s name and have my current phone number to get credit from Chase Financial?   Chase Financial?  I don’t owe Chase Financial.  Does Chase Financial buy bad debt to collect?   I need to do some research on this!   Especially since my child is only months away from being a freshman in college.  AND being yanked out of a sound sleep is more than a hint that this thing may not go away on it’s own.  Yep.  I woke up this morning two hours early thinking and feeling…  Check Her Credit Report!

Suddenly, I’m wondering about that email I sent him a couple of months ago with my phone number in it.   Inviting him to contact me in case he wants my assistance in connecting with his estranged daughter.  Or in case he wants to provide additional financial support to her during college.  She dumped him last summer because he had been dangling cars and trips in front of her..  then disappears without a trace when she starts asking him what I told her to ask him….”When?”

I thought, what a time to flip a shit and tell him off!   Just when you might need him!   She was livid when she found out I sent him an email.  I don’t care.  That’s what mothers do.   Many of us have been through this scenario, ourselves with our own fathers, sometimes more than once with out children and friends with children, when he wants to make his way back to the child, he’ll call and write and make promises and as it turns out, he finds an excuse not to follow through.  But I’m the one always holding out hope, for the sake of the two of them.  My daughter on the other hand, doesn’t anymore want anything to do with him.  I’m on her side, but, I would rather her let him burn the bridge, and not her.  -That’s my weakness.

It was my intuition that woke me up and I suspect he has something to do with that Chase Financial debt collection call.  I hate to approach my child with this now, trampling her independence bubble, but she needs to check her credit report.  I’m not sure that he has had access to her social security number, after the enforcement of court ordered child support  kicked in only a little over a year ago.    And what about that supposed “wife” of his?

Could he?  Would she? Stoop so low as to use my daughter’s name and or social security number and not pay the bill, to mess with her credit just when she’s getting her life started?  I remember when we first broke up, I had my mail forwarded from another state, to mine.  We both had accounts at the same bank.  But my bank statements came to my new address with his name on them!   How would a financial institution goof that up?   As it turned out, they didn’t do that….  He did!  And I truly suspect him in this matter of my college bound’s name and Chase Financial.

Research and t.v. judge shows tell us that some desperate parents are inclined to use their children’s social security number and name to get credit and buy things.  And this man in particular may not need to do this, but I believe he’s just the kind of man who would do this sort of thing to  inflict long-lasting financial and emotional damage on his own child.

If there’s anyone out there reading this, please comment if you have suggestions on how to thoughtfully investigate and stop this kind of fraud.  I do not want my college bound to begin her life with this  mess to clean up and be angry and hurt about.

She’s a very mature young lady, but a kid just the same.  I’ll have her order her credit reports and keep tabs on her name, and learn how to protect herself and safeguard her credit.  I hope this call was just a fluke of some sort, and I’m sure they’ll call back if they’re legitimate.  Next time I’ll try to answer.  Especially because they’re calling me at my phone number but using her name.

He is not your karma.. or theirs!

When you meet a man..  don’t make babies with him and don’t marry him unless you know how he handles adversity…

And when you decide to date him, recognize and keep tabs of the moments of comfort and the moments of discomfort, so when you experience more of one than the other, it’s an absolute sign of things to come!

When you go out on dates with him, stay in the moment and observe.. as he is no doubt observing you.   Observe everything from his manners, to what ticks him off, to what makes him laugh, and what brings him to tears..   I don’t mean just see what he does, but feel him out.   And let your reasons to continue dating him be – for some real reasons..not just the good ones.  And a good rule of thumb for me now, is to make sure I go on at least five dates with a man before I make up my mind about him.   During those dates.. No sex.  If I drink alcohol, I sip not indulge.  I let any alcohol consumption be his truth serum for my discernment.. not mine for his.

If you’ve already blown it, so-to-speak.. and you’ve already married and made babies with a deadbeat.. then know that all is not lost.    The universe offers a perfect karmic repayment system.  No debt ever goes unpaid.  Not even the debt a deadbeat dad owes you the mom, and your children.

I love what Deepak Chopra teaches on Karma..   About how karma is neither good or bad.. but conditioned responses that are triggered by people and  circumstances.   And he teaches that being released from good karma and bad karma is a matter of choice.   My 18 year old college bound daughter.. after experiencing yet another season of broken promises and disingenuous sentiment from the checkbook dad, she has actively chosen to not rely on or depend on the person she used to refer to as “Dad” anymore.    She’s chosen to release him to his demons or his gods and make a new history for herself without thinking of him or wanting him in her life.  I no longer feel sadness for him and never for her, as …  he’ll be alright in the end.  And she’s always been.

For her love is loyal and her emotions are extremely sensitive, and she, like all children, only wanted a dad who was ready to love her.   And this particular deadbeat dad was never ready to love her or any of his offspring and their mothers.   He must have always hoped they’d go away and leave him alone.. which is generally what has happened… until now.    I am a persistent motherf******ing pursuer of justice and inexplicably attracted to motherf****ing resolution!

This video offers the better version of Deepak’s lessons on the bondage of karma.  Good and bad.   If you’ve experienced this man or someone else like him or less like him… this is for you:

If you have another 10 minutes, listen.. and take notes.  This is good!

Many blessings, much love!

Yet another Escape and Evasion of a Deadbeat Dad?

Two automobiles arrived, and then another.. and then there was the 10:30pm rush on New Year’s Eve 1992, where people wanted to get inside and get a table to greet the new year with a bunch of strangers, dancing and kissing.  That’s where we met.  I don’t remember the name of the pub, but it was right around the corner from Dobbins Air Force Base in Marrietta, Georgia.  Not at all upscale like most Metro Atlanta hangouts, but quaint and homemade – like you’d find outside many a US Military base on the outskirts of what else is really happenin’.  And very much nearby my garden apartment where I was in bed only a couple of hours earlier, snuggled under the covers watching television when something said… “Get up.  Go out.”  I’d been to the mall, grabbed some food to-go, I’m sure.  But when I heard that call, I got dressed and by 10:30 my car was among the cars that arrived in the lot.   Not 10 people were in the small bar when I found a table for one.. not corner pocket in the back, but up front under low sexy lights.  And the music was live.  Then a few more festive patrons, and a few more, and it was officially almost New Year’s Day 1993~ when I spied him walking through the door.  Not bad.   Not bad.  Air Force?  Or Navy?    By the hair cut.. Air Force.  Definitely not Marine.

A sign of things to come, when he sat at the empty table next to me.  Before the night was over, we danced, toasted.. even kissed a little as the ball dropped ..  A nice posture on the dance floor, he had. A nice voice.  Nice breath.  And we talked and talked and talked and talked.  In my car.  In his car.  In his living room.  On his sofa… On his living room floor.. Fully dressed.  Nothing sexual..  in our party clothes minus shoes, plus Pat Metheny, cheese, and crackers, and wine..  Till sunrise.

I’ve never forgotten, in the rush of 18 years of single motherhood, to ask Heaven to please send to all mankind, understanding and peace of mind, but if it’s not asking too much, please send me someone to love…  so my daughter would know what it really looks like for both parents to love on their child together… the way it’s supposed to be.    And I’m not saying I wanted him for me.   But all children need both their parents, if they can get ‘em!  I guess she’ll have to take my word for it, how a father’s love is supposed to go, or learn from others we know.. or from t.v.?  Oh, but no.   I’ve not found, nor been found by the right dad for her to observe.  And it’s technically, too late.    Yet.  The first thing we’ve both looked for over the course of 18 years was… Can he have fun?  And can he handle adversity?   He always revealed that he didn’t match what we thought fun and love should look like.  Perhaps our perspective ruined by my faulty hookup with the one who said he didn’t want to be a check book dad back in 1993.

Never the less, there is light in the sky when we quit bashing him and just -let God do it.  However it is.

But I do intend to not just let this go with the silent treatment.  I believe there is still enough in me to make a good book.. and better blog for helping other single mothers.   Especially ones forced to contend with ex-patriot escape and evasion deadbeat dads.   If you’ve been reading since the beginning, you might realize something’s missing.   I’ve hidden many posts once published.  Many posts more revealing than a good lawyer would want me to disclose.   I don’t know.   When I get a bit more time, I may go back and repost – But edit.   Yes.  I’ve been really pissed sometimes when I write.  but it’s been very therapeutic.

For the record, as a result of this blog, I’ve made contact with two others from his past.. Or.. rather, they’ve made contact with me and I’ve responded.  One, who also has an adult child a few years older than my child.  A mother who wanted no more to do with him after he wanted her to have an abortion, and she opted to dump him instead!  And the other??  I’m not so sure.    Though he never asked me to abort and I’m not at all sure why.  I suppose he was too busy proposing and I was too busy rejecting.  For a while I felt that is what  pushed him over the edge..  to disappoint my child.  And as I learned more about him in 18 years of deadbeat dad-dom than I did in a 3 month tumultuous relationship, I realize I had nothing at all to do with his character flaws.  Nor did his mother.  Nor his father.. Nor his god.. Nor his demons.  He alone is his own worst enemy.  Lost in his own masquerade.

And from these others, have I realized there are seemingly more.. several.. masses and crowds perhaps of other mothers, women, torrents of estrogenous humanity pouring against this one “baby daddy.”   What a trip for him!   What a Life Time Movie!  Then rejoice!  He gets found and made to pay this past year..  But for less than 1 year the checkbook dad being held accountable by “a judge?”  Always never enough..  Always too late.. to restore faith to the one person it matters most to.  His daughter.

But now again?  Like the first time, when instead of delivering on the daddy-hood, he walked over the ocean to the other side, another country, evading, avoiding, betraying.   He’s done it again?  Moving on……..

Or has he?

I’ll let you you know what I find out.

Daddy’s whatever; Mommy’s forever:

She’s 18 and on her way to college in a few months.  We’re having fun … deciding where.  And the court ordered child support stopped coming just before her 18th birthday.  The Attorney General of the State of Texas didn’t consider him delinquent until he was 30 days delinquent.   He also knows I could pursue him for court ordered child support for my daughter through college.  And so it is.  He’s disappeared without a trace?  Again.   Another of his power gestures:  ”I don’t want a judge telling me what to do and when to do it.”   And a brief money crisis for my daughter and I..   resolved, after I asked the Universe for and find a better paying job and started a home based business to get us through senior year in high school and to the college of her dreams.   Her migraine episodes are less severe with the right medications and lifestyle management..  It took us a year of trial and error meds, ER visits & doctors to figure it all out.  And the checkbook dad aware… helps not once throughout the entire 50 emergency room trips and 50 morphine and Dilauded drips – episode!!  Not a card nor bouquet of flowers did she receive.  And I asked him to do this for her, at the very least.  All I got was a cease and desist email from his lawyer on behalf of him and his wife.     To that I responded…. “Get a life!”  And.. some checkbook dad history.. and  ”If you think you can tell me to do anything at all…  Tell it to a judge!  Let her tell me!”

But then… I wake up this morning to an email from yet another who knew/knows of the check book dad.  Hallelujah!  I knew I wasn’t crazy!  Thank you!  Thank you!  How sick!  To further realize his sickness is actually real.  That his demons are known to yet another.  But I did not start this blog to get acquainted with any of his past wives, lives, lovers..   I started this to meet my own Goddess — so to speak.  To write and read back my own thoughts  -and perhaps his mother would show up and ask to see and bless her grand-daughter with some other side of the family -love..  The sweetest revenge!

I prayed for him recently…  My daughter asked “Why?”  Because he’s a person; and there’s something the matter with him.  He’s afraid and operating out of fear.  Fear that he’ll be lacking something.  And when he gets in that mode he’d rather run scared, looking over his shoulder for another 18 years, rather than turn around and face the responsibility of fatherhood and be blessed and graced by the trials and treasures of it.. Like a normal man would.

Let me linger no more over this checkbook dad, except where he still needs to be confronted.  There’s nothing more to say.  Or is there?

She doesn’t want his money or anything to do with him.  ”I’ll be fine, mom.  And everything that he’s attached to, and that’s attached to him has so much negativity energy attached to it.  I don’t want it.  I have let it go.”

At this point, he is damned to a life of separation from his own flesh and blood.  Not by his will, but by hers.

As I mom, though.. I’m not sure that I have let it go!!  I’ve got my spiritual chops down!  And my dukes are up! And my eyes open for a family lawyer… in Delaware.

I will contend with him that contendeth with thee

I have always been a positive, constructive thinker.  But when I became pregnant in 1993, it became obvious to me that I was going to have to put on my steel toed constructive thinking shoes and hit the ground running!

Emmet Fox says in his book, Power Through Constructive Thinking, “Every student of Truth must understand that God always acts through us by changing our consciousness.   We learn in divine metaphysics that God never does anything to us, or for us, but through us.”  The day I officially found out I was expecting, was a day of Truth.  God’s Unlimited Power of Wisdom and Love was my refuge from this difficult relationship with this check book dad.

From Lessons in Truth, the chapter on Denials:  God says, “I will contend with him that contendeth with thee” (Isa. 49:25).

And I believe that this man.. is being contended with.  That’s my only hope for justice!  BUT.  I’m not preoccupied with that thought!
I thought I could post here regularly.  Daily, even.  The problem with that is, getting caught up intellectually and emotionally in this checkbood dad’s sickness and trouble with doing the right thing by my child is draining.  Often a conflict of interest is created when I think about all of this, and I want to avoid all the negative feelings that this sometimes generates.  Then I remember my vow to tell the story.

It’s actually been over a year since I have written anything here.  I’ve been busy with my life and preparing my daughter for her life.  She’ll be off to college in another year, and we’ve done very well, thank you!

 

But a year ago, in late October 2010, we finally received a court order for child support.  Back pay is minor, as he kept every receipt for every penny he’s ever sent in the past 17 years.    They tack that extra $50 dollars a month on for sport!

 

NOW my daughter is about to turn 18 and would you believe the Attorney General of the State of Texas is on me like white on rice.. sending me letters to prove that she’s still in high school!  And I just got a follow up letter over the weekend asking for proof from her school showing her prospective date of graduation?!!! — They are really looking out for him, aren’t  they?  NOT like anything they’ve done or not done for my daughter in the past 17 years.  And they won’t even enforce the order for him to provide her with medical insurance.   (shaking my head, rolling my eyes)

It’s laughable.  But it’s not funny.

This past summer.. he was in touch with my daughter.  Offering to buy her a car, and even suggested she consider college in his home town.  Not.  Kidding.  Next sentence he spoke was about his lay off and having to have money to live off of.  But didn’t he also mention a couple of email back, that he was making the summer jazz festival rounds?

 

Anywhoo!

She hasn’t seen him or have barely talked to him in 11 years.  And she doesn’t trust that he’ll do anything to make a difference in her life now.  She doesn’t hold out hope.  I was hoping she would give him a chance.  In her mind and heart, she already has.  And he blew it.

And.. He’s nuts.

His loss.

 

TTYL

 

A Tale of Two Contentions

I always have to start out my writing here -by remembering to keep things positive.  I know this checkbook dad thinks that I’m bitter.  But I’m not.  One of the main things I remember about him from the early days, and what seems to still hold true of him to this day is.. Well, this statement will say it better than I can:  “To be afraid is to have more faith in evil than in God.”

Here’s an example of this checkbook dad operating out of fear…

By mid February 1993, he and I had moved in together.  I cared for him deeply, but I don’t remember that I was in love with him.  We were behaving like we loved each other, and like we were going to spend eternity together, naming our children and such!  But between me and my best friend Alana, he wasn’t the best thing for me.. Especially after this.  I was talking to my mother long distance one night and expressed how I’d been feeling tired and nauseus.. I can hear my mother saying across the wire, “Sounds like pregnant, to me.”  Bobby was in the other room, but I swear he was like superman.. Super sonic hearing and he was in the room where I was in a single bound.  Trembling.  I remember he went to the drugstore and bought one of those pregnancy kits.  The results were positive.  The next morning was a Saturday and we’d decided to get an official confirmation of pregnancy from a doctor.  We used the Yellow Pages to find one of those neighborhood emergency medical clinics.

Feeling terribly nauseus as we drove into one where there were lots of patient people waiting for their names to be called.  After about an hour of waiting, I told him I wasn’t going to wait there any longer, that I didn’t feel good.  I think they gave me some apple juice and crackers, but that didn’t help.  I asked him to take me home and I remember having an arugument with him.  He was very controlling and liked arguing about everything, it seems.  We went to his car and I remember begging him to take me home.. He took me home and he went someplace – I don’t know where.  I got in my car and drove to another clinic where there was less of a wait.  I was all alone, and I distinctly remember the nurse telling me, “It’s a very strong positive.”  There’s no mistake that I was pregnant.  OK!  So, I drove back to his place, and he wasn’t there.  I don’t remember exactly what I did and in what order.  I must have called my mother, my best friend, and I no doubt I prayed.  I don’t remember feeling much fear about being pregnant or even the logistics of it.

I do remember taking the phone book and plopping myself on the floor in his living room.. sifting through the pages of listings for “Prenatal Care.”  Taking notes, writing down numbers, names, info.. Making a few calls to figure out which doctor would be best for me.. Knowing I’d discuss this with Bobby when he returned from — wherever he was.   I remember him returning home, standing over me, and asking what I was up to.  I told him I was looking for prenantal care.  I told him what I was told about the costs of care and the cost of the delivery of the baby.  He said to me, standing up, never coming down or even kneeling down to my level – in this matter of fact tone of voice, “I don’t have any money.”

What happened next was a heated discussion and an argument I’m quite sure, about the responsibilities of two working, able bodied people bringing a baby into the world.  I no more than a couple of weeks on a new job at Morehouse College, and my benefits had not kicked in yet.  He knew this.  But told me that I could file for welfare and get it.  But to be sure to not tell them that I know who the father of the baby is, and especially that I was living with him.  I was appalled.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I couldn’t believe it!  This educated, professional, black american, Air Force veteran, and Air Force brat, who had told me lots of stories about his up bringing and had shown me examples of his good nature and faith, was banishing me to partake of the system that’s clearly designed for people who had far less advantages and means.  I was taken aback by this whole thing.  And even to this day, it’s hard for me to  grasp that he was serious about this.

I had no knowledge of the welfare system and how it worked, but he did.  I knew that I was totally unqualified for welfare.  But he seemed to know better.  Back then, ninety-nine percent of welfare families were headed by women. Which meant, there is no man around. And if an “able-bodied” man was around, there could be no A.F.D.C. (Aid to Families With Dependent Children), and then you can’t be on welfare.  He was willing to go along with my lie, or he was willing to abandon me and the baby.  For a little bit, I was in denial that he knew what he was talking about.  But the fact is, he was sincerely wanting me to go through with lying to get welfare, made me sick of him.  This was around March 1, 1993.  On March 31, 1993, I was on a plane to Dallas to be pregnant and on my own.  Due to our constant arguing money, and his not having any, and not wanting a judge telling him what to do and when to do it, and other superfluous b.s.. he’d decided it would be better for the baby that we not be together.  I certainly didn’t have any feelings for him any more, that’s for sure.  But it was painful and shocking to see how this had evolved.

My  next post, I’ll share the more appalling in-betweens of March 1st and March 31st, and then some!

Divine? Karmic? Or Something Else?

In retrospect, it seems divine.  Or .. karmic… or maybe something sinister… Considering how I met him.  For the life of me, I just don’t understand.  Beautiful on the outside, but fudged on the inside.   Never the less, my daughter was meant to be, for sure.

The paradox of my relationship with this man is dumb-founding.  Everything that was attractive about him, was a total lie.   His personality.  His aptitude.  His countenance.  Rule of thumb to the ladies:  Just don’t have unprotected sex with someone you do not know!  Equally.. In the words of a popular radio personality, “Don’t you dare marry that man unless you know how he handles adversity!”  Listen, I love my daughter more than anything in the world.  But if I knew then, what I know now, I would spare her the hurt of his derelict deliberate distance.

You know? I was unknowingly already in the family way, when I first started to change my mind about him.  I was in Atlanta and there were pa-lenty of fish in the sea.  One day, he said something something very “ghetto” that totally indicted him as a person lacking authentic sophistication, throwing me for a hugh loop.  It was my first, instantaneous, freeze frame moment with him.  I don’t remember exactly what it was he said, but I do remember that we were in his living room, the dull light peeking through the un-curtained window blinds; when he spoke with animated gestures and Jersey intonation & passion aka true colors showing through – what ever it was he was saying..  Made me stop and think and feel scared, for a quick moment.  But of what?  I had no idea at the time.

In hind sight, I know there were two varieties of of his demons at that time. The first was his down to earth seduction which lured me into a false sense of security and assurance that he was a good black man.  But everything was not as it seemed.  I insisted on protected sex with him, and he resisted.  After a previous nearly 3 year relationship with someone I couldn’t get pregnant with, why did it happen with this dude? I was in denial even, at the result of the unintended consequences of my actions thereby creating this self proclaimed “checkbook dad” and my daughter’s growing up without a father.

The second of his demons, was his saboteur who served to sabotage (with yet “another nail in the coffin” he would say) any and all efforts he claimed he was trying to make to preserve our relationship.  By this time, he wanted to be with me, more than I wanted to be with him.  He began picking fights with me.  More-so after I moved in with him – as a result of having my car broken in to and being harassed and stalked by .. the creepy man that was my downstairs neighbor.

Paradox being what it is, I’m leaning more toward this thing being karmic… But for me?  Or for my daughter?  I’m done with him.  Or am I?