Child custody battles.

[voodoolily]

Mine were married 30 years before my mom kicked the bucket.

[Shockeye]

I must be the real odd-person out then.  My parents will celebrate their 44th anniversary on 1/6...

Mine have the big 4-0 coming up.

[Signe]

Sooo... WE represent the stable family bunch? 

uh oh.

[Shockeye]

Sooo... WE represent the stable family bunch? 

uh oh.

Stability, it seems, is overrated.

[Sauced]

My folks were together for 27 years before they split up.  They tried the "just stay civil long enough to get the kids all grown up and on their own route", so when they finally separated, my brother and myself were quite relieved.

I suppose it was nice to not have to deal with any of it while I was in school, but they wasted a lot of time keeping the charade going, which left them with years of issues to deal with once they decided to end it, and even in our early teens it was obvious to pretty much everyone.  Lots of irreconcilable differences on both sides.

They both still live in the same place, and now that its been 5 or 6 years seem to have a fairly civil, friendly relationship.  My father's is a horrible marriage, but he refuses to get a 2nd divorce (he thinks God will forgive his 1st failure by sticking this one out), and he leans on my mother quite a bit, even if he doesn't know he's doing it.  I'm extremely thankful I didn't have to grow up with his current wife for a step-mother.  *shudder*

[Paelos]

My grandparents celebrated 60 and 55 years married recently.

My parents are 32 years married.

I'm single.

[Signe]

Of course you're single.  You are much too young to be married!  I do wish you would get laid, however.  It's the only way you will become sensible.

[Hoax]

I like him better when he's so crazy horny that he keeps posting nice pictures of racks...

[Evangolis]

My buddy Bob and Terri tried living together after Terri got pregnant with little Bobby, but it didn't fly.  Bob was working as a bouncer, and had just lost the place he was living when I asked him to split an apartment with me.  He found a good, cheap place, and we moved in.  Bob saw Bobby on weekends, when he could, and did what he could to help Terri out, although the two of them can't spend 5 minutes in the same place without sparks flying.  Bob got a good job with the Metro Water District, using some clout with an alderman.  He met a new girl at the club, gave up bouncing, got promoted, got married, and sees his boy regular.  Little Bobby seems pretty cool, no more issues than his old man, anyway.  Sometimes this shit works out ok.

My mom died in February, suicide by cigarettes.  Me and dad shredded her legal files, and in the course of that I realized that people don't go to lawyers because things are going well.  And that was her private practice.  Her county practice was defending crack-addicted mothers who were losing custody of their children.  You don't have to hear too many of those cases before you realize that your life really does not suck.

My parents marriage went to hell before I hit my teens.  The atmosphere was utterly poisonous, and me and my brothers are various forms of walking wounded from that.  They got a divorce, but it didn't work, they just fought in two houses instead of one.  They made a sort of peace, re-married, pretty much in name only, and kept it more or less together until we all hit college, then broke up for good.  Mom took up smoking as a basic 'Fuck You' to our dad and her mother; probably the rest of the world.  Hard to say; I'm not very objective about mom.  She kept smoking even after it caused her to lose several fingers to poor circulation, and caused several strokes.  My brothers and I got to watch her die in slow motion.  Dad has remarried, and is fairly happy.  At least his step-children aren't as screwed up as my brothers and I.  We've mostly reached accommodation with our chaos, but there isn't much left of our family.  With mother gone, I expect that my brothers and I will lose touch with each other.  I expect that I'll remain single for the rest of my life, as I have what are best described as 'intimacy issues'.  I get along with people well, but there is a line that I don't let people come across.  My loss.

Hallelujah

[Strazos]

I'm tempted to ask monkey boy why he is being celibate, but that would probably just railroad the thread to the den.

[Shockeye]

I'm tempted to ask monkey boy why he is being celibate, but that would probably just railroad the thread to the den.

If he wants to reply he can start a new thread about it because it will probably end up in politics. I would hope it wouldn't degenerate to the point of going to the den, but with us you never really know.

[Ironwood]

Reasons for celibacy are political ?  So, religious then.

My reasons for celibacy are marriage.

[Signe]

Good Lord, Ironwood... one of these days your wife is going to look over your shoulder at just the wrong time and you will be in SO much trouble!

[Paelos]

I'm tempted to ask monkey boy why he is being celibate, but that would probably just railroad the thread to the den.

If he wants to reply he can start a new thread about it because it will probably end up in politics. I would hope it wouldn't degenerate to the point of going to the den, but with us you never really know.

It's religious, and no I don't think the forum really cares other than to play the "annoy the nutball" game. So we'll leave it at that.

[Signe]

I care.   

[schild]

I'm tempted to ask monkey boy why he is being celibate, but that would probably just railroad the thread to the den.

If he wants to reply he can start a new thread about it because it will probably end up in politics. I would hope it wouldn't degenerate to the point of going to the den, but with us you never really know.

It's religious, and no I don't think the forum really cares other than to play the "annoy the nutball" game. So we'll leave it at that.

And here I was going to blame the cold air of the mountains.

Ever seen that episode of Family Guy? "I'll give you a dollar if you can find your penis." Yea, that one.

[Nazrat]

I guess that I fall into the stable category also.  My grandparents are/were still married to each other until death.  My parents are in their 38th year of marriage.  My wife and I celebrate number 15 in May. 

We had our own special brand of disfunction as my parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and I am not.  Yeah, the teen years were fun.  So, staying married does not guarantee any exemption from prolonged family problems.

[SuperPopTart]

Wow okay. Short of it.

My mum was married to my "father" or (the man whom I thought was my father until very recently) - for approximately one and a half years before he was sent to prison. She divorced him. He couldn't really do anything considering he lived in Italy and the only problems she had along the years were:

No child support - Well.. $1.00 a year in child support. Go dad.
The "Grandparents" took away a trust fund and gave it to my cousin because I would not do exactly what they wanted. (Arranged marriage to a 50 year old at oh.. 16 or 17) and something else, oh right.. revoked my college tuition.
Never saw any of them except for the random summer when I would be shipped that way.

The man who IS my biological father, she was married to for three years. I never saw him. He never paid child support. He never contested the divorce and he just simply didn't matter and..continues to not matter. This applies to the man above this one as well.

My grandparents (On my mum's side) were married for 51 years until my blessed grand-father's passing in 1995 and on a side note would have taken a baseball bat to the kneecaps of any insane parental figure that tried to take me away from them.

My mother has now been with her current douchebag of a husband for 23 years. They have three wonderfully crazy children and the secret to their warped success is they don't live together. She gets the kids. He gets to make everyone believe he's mentally insane. End of story there.

I'd go into the above a bit further but really, it isn't needed here.

So Cheddar, for whatever you are going through - I don't know your personal situation at the moment but it honestly appears that you absolutely worship those children. It's my hope that whatever it is, you remain a vital and important part of their lives for the rest of yours and far after you are gone.

Cheers.

[Typhon]

Got a girl pregnant when I was 18 (she 15), married and a father by 19, divorced by 20.  Went the "no fault" route, which in Jersey took 18 months seperation.  Spent as much time as possible (which was about 80-85% of total time) over the next two years trying to show that I was the more dedicated parent.  As a part of the custody battle we had two psychologist evaluate who was the more fit parent, the independent flat our chose me, the pschologist that my ex-wifes father hired decided, "no decision can be made at this time, both parents should have equal responsibility".

Got to court, judge listened (ok, mostly, he napped occasionally) to all the testamony and at the end sited the "tender years doctorine" and gave my ex-wife full custody (I went from having my daughter 80% to having her every other weekend).  Two years later that judge got brought up on charges of fraud, had a heartattack and died.  I don't really believe in hell, but I hope he's burning.

Ex-wife has had three other men in her life, with two or three fathers added to the mix (I'm not being vague, the jury is out on wether child number 3 is husband number 2's, or man number 3).  Find out years later that husband number 2 molested (innappropriate touching) my daughter when they took her to Canada to live for acouple years (#2 was Canadian, not that that has anything to do with cause of the molestation).

Up until my daughter was 17/18 I kept my mouth shut about what a terrible person I thought my ex-wife was (and to this day I do not use the words, "your mother" when talking about what a fuck-up my ex-wife is), and I'm very glad I did.  You do the same.  In general women seem incapable of this.  You must absolutely be the better person because it will make your kids life easier.

My daughter is now 22, going to graduate school, and an amazing, wonderful person.  She doesn't have much to do with her mother, but she does have a decent relationship with her mother's parents (which I encourage).  All that up till this point hurt like hell.

The point is, you only get one chance to raise your kids.  It isn't easy.  You frequently can't control shit and that hurts bad.  You can control how much you love them, and how much you let them know you love them.  Nothing is more important than that.  Good luck.