Skyblossom
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Ha Chris. You are so funny.
Neither my husband or I were virgins when we met. I still had something very special to give to my husband when we got married. He gets to spend the rest of his life with me and vice versa. The first time you have sex is so absolutely irrelevant compared to shared values and having fun together and raising children together. Sharing a life is huge. The first time you have sex is trivial to the point of irrelevant.
CHEEZUS CRUST Bacon Mistress.
CHEEZUS CRUST with sad resignation that despite being repeatedly noted for a rude and abrasive tone and manner you keep making rude and abrasive comments over and over and fail to see the pattern and do it all over and over again. You don’t need to be coddled. Maybe comments like this will wake you up a little bit.
CHEEZUS CRUST. Maybe the third time is the charm 🙂
Now you will be kind and thoughtful and give actual constructive guidance in a warm and friendly manner with a touch of humor. Everyone will love to read your comments and be impressed with your sage advice. You will be a joyful person beloved by all.
Everyone is missing the fact that she is working and has a $6000 tax return. She is not lazy. She just needs to escape the abuse and she will end up on her feet. She is trying to provide a safe home for her children. She is asking how much of her money she should give to her mom’s abusive girlfriend when giving that woman money takes away from her own ability to move out. She is asking a moral question. The girlfriend probably knows that the $6000 is enough for the LW and her mom to leave. If you want to control people you try to control their money.
LW It is okay to keep the money. Use what you need to get you and your kids in a safe home. If I understand you correctly you are saying your mom was paying your expenses so you don’t think you owe her girlfriend anything. If your mom was paying your way you owe the girlfriend nothing. Do you think your mom was saying to pay because she is being pressured by the girlfriend and paying is the easiest way to get her off your mom’s back. Your first priority needs to be a safe home so if you need to keep the money to escape an abusive place to get to a safe place keep the money and use it to escape.
You should also have your workplace change your taxes so that you aren’t paying in so much extra. Make sure they know that you have three kids and when the baby is born make sure they know you have four. Use the extra money each month to pay your own expenses.
It would be fine to live with your mom if she leaves her abusive partner and doesn’t bring another abusive partner into your home. Your mom seems to have a history of picking abusive partners. If you can’t trust her to do better you need some rules about no partners in the home. If you don’t think she would follow a rule like that then you need to find a better roommate than your mom. Your mom has made a series of bad decisions. You can do better.
It is always okay to use your own money to provide you and your children a safe home.
If the LW gains control of her life that will include control of her fertility. She has never had control of her life but with access to the services available she can gain that control. Helping someone become independent is the best way to help them and their children. Having access to safe shelter is critical. Then there needs to be enough food and clothing to get by. Then she can look at things like education to earn a better income and hopefully someday not need assistance.
I think everyone needs to keep in mind that the average 21-year-old in this country isn’t independent. My age group has kids becoming independent and none of my friends had kids independent at the age of 21. Our kids were lucky enough to grow up in safe, stable homes and to go to good schools and to have parents who sent them to college.
This LW has come from two unstable, abusive homes. Neither parent has provided what she needed. Girls who come from that situation often escape the abuse by moving in with a boyfriend. Part of living with your boyfriend is having sex. When you are scraping by every day trying to feed yourself you don’t have the extra money for birth control. Then you end up pregnant and there is a baby that you can’t afford and the financial and living situation gets even worse. You need the boyfriend for food and shelter for you and the child even if the boyfriend is abusive. Meeting the most basic needs on any given day prevents you from meeting long term needs like birth control and education.
The best way to help the LW and her kids is to help her find out how to get help. She hasn’t ever had a safe home so it is hard for her to recognize an abusive boyfriend. She hasn’t had a safe home so she doesn’t know what it is like to have a safe home or to provide one. Giving advice on how to obtain the basics in life to survive day to day then allows her to make long range plans like birth control and education. Providing a safe home and enough food and enough money to provide basics like diapers and clothing will help considerably.
Shouting at someone to get sterilized ignores the reality of the cost of a surgery and the fact that someone who is struggling to feed their children and keep them off the street doesn’t have the money for that surgery. It is so easy to take medical care for granted when you have medical insurance and an education and an income. Reality is that she probably doesn’t have health insurance. Pointing her toward agencies that can provide health care for both herself and her children will go so much further than just shouting at her to get sterilized. Getting her food and shelter will begin to put her in a situation where she can meet those other needs and enable her to get birth control so that she is able to have a pregnancy if and when she wants it rather than because she is having sex with the boyfriend who is providing the roof over her head. Sometimes day to day survival requires making decisions that harm you over the long run but in the day to day there seems to be little choice but to make that decision. Screaming at her to get sterilized does nothing to help her current kids and does nothing to prevent future pregnancies. It really does nothing useful.
The other thing to do is to prioritize what you need. First you need a safe place to live for both you and your children. Safety is always first. It sounds like neither of your parents provided that for you and you grew up not knowing what it was to live in a safe home. You can change that for your children. Tell yourself safety first. Ask if any housing situation will be safe and if the answer is no ask yourself what else you can do. That’s where the woman’s shelter comes in. They will take you and your children and provide all of you a safe place to live. If you mom will leave her girlfriend that’s okay. You need to ask yourself if you got an apartment with your mom would she then move the girlfriend in with you in a month or two. If she would then you can’t move with your mom. Safety is always first.
Then you look for stability. Can you find a safe place where you can stay for a while. Especially as your kids reach school age. They will do much better in school if they can stay in the same school as much as possible. Of course, this is second to safety so if the situation becomes unsafe you move. Part of providing stability is finding a job that can pay the bills. Did you finish high school. If not search for information about getting a GED. Your local library can help with this. Also look into job training in your area or just jobs. See what you can do that will provide you the income to provide a stable home.
Get a bank account and deposit your check in it. Keep the account private. Don’t let anyone know about it. Don’t let them know how to access it. Don’t let anyone near your debit card. Protect your account so that your money remains your money.
Your older kids probably qualify for Head Start. Head Start will provide them with preschool. It should be safe and provide transportation to get there and provide them with a meal while they are there. I think they also provide health services.
You need to figure out how to become independent. Contact your county and see what services you can receive and what kind of waiting time that involves. Also talk to a local woman’s shelter. They will take women with children and can put you in touch with all of the local services. Also see if you can get long term birth control like an IUD so that you don’t have to worry about more babies as you try to become independent. See if you qualify for any job training that can help you make a higher income.
If you don’t know who to call at the county see if there is a number for your local county offices. Call that number and then ask them to direct you to the correct office. Get the name of the office and the phone number. In my county it is called Jobs and Family Services. There will be something similar in every county if you live in the US. They should be able to help with everything, including housing, jobs, health care, WIC and getting child support from the fathers of your children. You will want the child support to be automatically deducted from their paychecks and direct deposited into your account.
The local woman’s shelter can also point you in the right direction for help and since your mom’s girlfriend is abusive they could provide you and your children a safe place to stay. You can have their help whether or not your mom leaves her girlfriend.
Let the tax issue be a lesson learned the hard way. Don’t give your personal information to anyone, let alone someone you can’t trust. Keep your information private. We all learn some things the hard way.
If you don’t know how to find the numbers for your county services you can call your local library and ask. The reference librarians will find the information for you. You can also go in and use their computers. I think every public library now has public computers with internet and you can use them. Just go in and ask to use a computer. They will direct you to the correct spot and help you log on.
The emotions are hard. It’s okay to let them go. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t love him or that you don’t miss him. It means that as you deal with your grief you pass through those emotions and hopefully find some peace. He will always be your firstborn and you will always love him and always wish that things had turned out different but you can accept all of that and still find peace.
Your granddaughter is the good that happened in spite of all of the bad.
carolann proved the point that children are better off without their drug addicted parents.
It sounds like neither of your sons would have been a positive influence in your granddaughter’s life when she was born. You may have lost some years with her and that is very sad but she needs stability more than anything else in life. She needs a dad who isn’t a drug addict. If having children cured addicts of their addiction having children would be encouraged. It doesn’t work that way at all. It’s nice to think he would have turned his life around if he had just known but that is doubtful. That’s a nice dream. Reality is that he was an addict and couldn’t have been there for her either financially or emotionally. He couldn’t have done the bare minimum necessary of a father. If having a mom that loved him didn’t make him not be an addict having a child wouldn’t have done it either.
Don’t blame the mother for keeping her child safe. That’s her job. It will be bitter sweet meeting this girl but how it goes will be a matter of your mindset. If you choose to see the situation as something that was stolen from you the bitterness will come through. If you see the situation as a gift where you get a grandchild you never expected the happiness can come through. If this girl has a safe, loving home then she has the most important things and her mom is doing a good job with limited resources.
You also can’t assume that your son knew nothing about this little girl. He may have known there was a baby and didn’t care to ask about her or wonder if he was the dad. He may have avoided the mother because he didn’t want to be a father or to pay child support. We don’t know and you can’t know. All you can know is that she is here and you get a chance to have a granddaughter. Few people get such a beautiful chance after losing a child. You can let something positive come from this. You can choose to have a granddaughter in your life.
If it is important to the grandmother and the uncle they could easily go to court and request a paternity test and find out. Why stress and stress about it and hate the mother but act helpless to do anything. If it means so much to them they should go ahead. She says it means a lot but then takes no action. If her son thinks he is the father he can easily go ahead and file for a court order for a paternity test. This isn’t on the mother of the granddaughter. This is on the son of the LW who is conflicted but doing nothing to sort out the conflict. There is no reason to be so angry with the mother if the son won’t do anything. If he thinks he is the father he should step up and ask for a paternity test and then they can quit blaming the mother for all the things that have gone wrong in their lives. If you do nothing you can’t blame her for your lack of action. That’s on the living son.
@Carolann They have an avuncular DNA test that says there is a 99% chance that the brother of the deceased is the uncle of the girl. The court accepts that as proof of paternity when there are only two brothers. Unless there is another brother who could possible be the father the deceased brother has been proven to be the father of the girl. That isn’t fraud. She has gone the legal route to do this properly. It is just that the grandmother and uncle want to think about how it might be different.
I guess they could ask if the company would certify the living son as the uncle if he was actually the father.
