27.
“We weren’t even married, but the karma on this one was real. Our child wasn’t even two years old when I ended my relationship with my ex. Not only did he have a huge drinking problem (which I discovered while on maternity leave), but he’d admitted to his best friend that he ‘wasn’t ready for the responsibility of being a parent.’ After the baby was born, he stayed out of the house as much as possible, was always pawning the baby off on his parents when he was off, and I was working. He always had money for beer but none for the baby’s expenses. It got to the point where my savings were nearly depleted, and I had to take money from family and a loan from my 401(k) to cover everything. Not to mention, he’d leave the baby in a diaper so long there’d be terrible rashes, and wouldn’t feed or dress him properly. One night, I’d had enough, and after he came home from work four hours late and drunk, I ended it.”
“Long story short, things happened, he called the cops, and he ended up getting arrested (he’s a cop himself, lol).
I’m guessing he realized that there was the possibility of child support, because ALL OF A SUDDEN, he was interested in our child and wanted full custody. And he tried every trick in the book. He filed for temporary emergency custody and lied to the judge to get it. He insisted that I was unstable and required a psych evaluation before I was able to see our child unsupervised, and once I was cleared, he dictated when I could have the baby. I suspect the lawyers I’d gotten knew him, because they definitely weren’t fighting for me, and even gave me the wrong time for court one day when I’d called the office to double check. I switched lawyers, but he still pulled crap. He’d taken my address book and called all of my friends, family, and coworkers, telling them that I committed various types of fraud and was stealing their identities. Friends were followed and threatened. I’d moved in with other friends until I got my own place, and they were the ones who told me he had a PI on me — I’d gone to spend the weekend with another friend, and the PI called the ones I was staying with, asking where I was. SO MUCH MORE I won’t get into. He did everything he could to try to prove that I was unfit, and to break me, and made my life an absolute hell. He and his lawyer dragged things out to where this ended up taking two and a half years; his goal was to make me run out of money.
The karma: I was awarded custody; he was given the basic visitation. He was ordered to pay $14K of my legal fees, for which he was to set up a payment plan with my attorney, until I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign in his window, literally a week later. A lien was placed on his condo, and the full amount came out of the sale, as well as the two years of retroactive child support that I’d been awarded. In our state, support continues until the child finishes college, so that was an additional 19 years.
The best part: at least a couple of times a year, I run into a friend of his, and they are very happy to share information with me. Early on, he’d gotten into a relationship (with a former friend of mine, no less, who tried to help him take my baby), and they *really* pushed the relationship during the court case to show that he was ‘more stable.’ I’ve been told that she is awful, he hates her, is absolutely MIS-ER-ABLE, and wants to divorce her but can’t because then he’d have to give her half, and he will not do that. Meanwhile, I have a great life and am as happy as a clam.”
