Hello Friends,

I don't like to talk about it much, but my first husband, my child's father was an addict.  Addicted to street drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, sex...you name it and he was addicted to it.

He was my childhood sweetheart and high school boyfriend.  He was a big football star in high school, and I knew nothing about his recreational drug use during high school, as I was as my friends said "a goody two shoes" who never even tried drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes.   He knew I woudln't approve, so kept it from me, which was easy since we didn not run with the same crowd.  He came from a "good" family, wealthy and from a nice home.  Back in my teens, I never thought to look past the surface and thought everyone was raised in a traditional "Leave it to Beaver" home and family like I was.  I thought familes with drug addiction were only on TV, not in my small home "Mayberry" kind of town.

After high school I wanted to go to college, but he pressured me BIG time to marry him, so, reluctantly, I agreed.  The dumbest mistake of my life, especially since it postponed college about ten years, not to mention making it THAT much harder to graduate from college (which I finally did!) with a small child in tow.

Anyway...once we got married, his parents gave him a good job in their family business and he began to make a lot of money.  That is when his recreational drug habit became a full fledged one!  He was like a kid in a candy store where everything was free, he took everything and anything anyone offered him. 

He had, what I can only describe, as some sort of  psychotic break, I don't know what else it could be, because he "went crazy" and has never been the same again.  By that time I was pregnant unfortunately, and he became extremely abusive.  His motive was to "make me miscarry" so he would not have to pay child support, he wanted all money for drugs.  He actually SAID that.  I quickly moved out, before either me or my baby were killed with that level of abuse.  I moved in with my parents, down the street.  After the baby was born, he broke and and nearly killed me and hit our baby, who was only 3 weeks old.  I am glad her arm was not broken, she had a huge welt on her arm!  It was then that I knew I had to leave the state and I did.

I gave him a few years to solidify his relationship with his girlfriend he was cheating on me with, or find someone else, before I filed for divorce.  Before then, I had no contact with him.  He made the divorce very difficult, trying to win me back and stop it.  But I was not hearing it and the divorce went through.  Afterwards, he told me that the only way he would pay his child support was if I went out to dinner and shopping with him, and he would spend the equivalent on me.  Sure...right...no amount of money was worth spending time with that super creep so I said no thanks.

What nerve he had.  He never paid even one penny of child support, not even the first payment!  He told me if I didn't go after him, he would not visit.  I said "DEAL"!  My daughter was better off not knowing him and his yucky family. 

Well, time marched on, my daughter grew  up not knowing him and him not paying a penny for her support, and I remarried.  I am forever indebted to my parents, my brother, my sister, and my husband for helping me make it possible to get by without child support, although it was a rough ride.

Eventually, as my father got older, I moved back to my small town, where he still lived, ick.

I saw him occasionally, and always left the store or movie, or wherever  saw him, even if I lost money on the movie, or I had to leave my cart full of groceries at the cash register, better safe than sorry.  My daughter saw hm occasionally to, but she didn't know him, so didn't know it was him.  He would stare at her and scare her, she would come and ask who the big scary man was staring at her, sigh.  Word occassionally got back to me, through old high school classmates,  about how he was bragging all over town about how he "put me in my place" and so got away with not paying child support.  This will give you an indication of his moral character, BRAGGING about not paying child support. 

This used to annoy me no end, but I put my daughter's safety first, he had told me that if I ever tried to collect his child support, that he would kidnap our daughter and murder her and I would never find her body...some father...like I said, she was better off not knowing him.  It is very sad though, I have known him since elementary school and before drugs ruined his mind, he was a very good person, well liked, and kind.

Years later, while our daughter was still a minor, I found out he was in state prison for felonious assualt.  My husband and I looked up his case and I found out that he had beaten his girlfriend (ONE of the ones he cheated on me with) with a lead pipe, when one of their daughter's tried to help her mom, he beat her up too.  He put his own child in intensive care and his GF nearly died.  Scary...that could have been me and our daughter!  Thank goodness I knew to get away!  It was at this time, when he was put away and coulnd't cause too much trouble, that my husband adopted my daugther with him. 

Eventually he got out of jail and I did not speak to him for 15 years, I never had a reason to, had nothing to say, until two years ago.  By this time, our daughter was over 21 and I had no reason to really fear him. 

What made me finally speak to him was finding out that he had started a VERY successful area business and had a fleet of trucks which bore the name of his two daughters with his GF.  Once again OUR daughter, his FIRST child, borne of a marriage, was left out and slighted.  I also found out that he was paying child support, VOLUNTARILY, for his GF's two children, but never had for our daugther.  This REALLY annoyed me, so badly that I simply coulnd't get past it, so I decided to talk to him about it next time I saw him.

I ran into him at the grocery store a few months later.  It was funny in a way, I had not spoken to him in SO long that he thought I had a gun in my purse and was going to shoot him, LOL.  Oh the irony!  That he was afraid of ME!  He ran to his truck and got in and cracked the window a tiny bit and told me the windows were bulletproof, LOL.

He asked me why I was finally speaking to him if I was not going to shoot him.  I told him about his trucks and the company name leaving out our daughter's name.  He told me to look for a heart in the middle of the two names, that it represented our daughter, and he didn't want to put her name there because he was afraid of what my husband, now her legal father, would do to him. 

I had my answer, although I didn't believe him, and was done with the conversation, and done talking to him.  He begged me to just listen to something he had to say to me.  I debated keeping walking away, but I decided that after fifteen years, I could at least hear him out, if it was bad I could still walk away.

He told me he was sorry for everything he had done to me, and the biggest regret in his life was losing me and his child, and that he would never remarry unless it was to me again (FAT chance of that ever happening!) and that was why he had never married his GF, despite having two kids with her.  He said that going to prison was the best thing that ever happened to him, since he was forced to get clean and sober, and now had more financial success then he ever dreamed of.

I then asked him why he had not paid his child support, since he would well afford it.  He said that he did not want my husband to get his hands on it, sigh.

Well, the converstaion continued to disintigrate, with him eventually showing his true colors and I walked away.

Since then, I have reconsidered going after him for back child support.  Now that he is clean and sober and a successful business owner with two underage children to support, I doubt he do anything crazy to me to get me back for going after him.  It just bothers me that he got away without paying, and is still bragging about it.  That just doesn't seem right.  AND, I really could use the money to put my daughter through college, I can't pay for hers myself since I am still paying off MY student loans!

My husband now is against it, (he is a raging dry drunk) saying that if my EX husband comes around here he will happily kill him, as it will be a legal excuse to do so (trespassing and all of that).  This is not an empty threat, as my husband is a body building martial arts master, with over two decades of serious training.    That is why my EX husband and everyone else (including me) are so afraid of him.  My husband now says that if my EX husband comes to try and see our daugther, and he kills him, it will be MY fault.

Well, I feel like I will not fully heal from all of the abuse I have suffered from EX until I right at least ONE of the wrongs done me and get that back child support.  It will help my daughter a lot also, and may heal her a little also.  She has been deeply hurt by her father's indifference, she knows no other kid of divorce whose dad NEVER paid attention to them, not a penny, not a single card,  barbie, or ice cream cone.  That has always hurt her a lot.

Does anyone have any ESH to share regarding a situation like this?  I would greatly appreciate it.  I have spoken to a few close friends about this and BOTH are in full support of me going after him, especially since he can well afford it. 

Thanks!

MP