Yesterday, I received an email from Ben, Lyla's father, stating that he would be signing her over to me. I broke into tears immediately. As much as this decision would make my life so much easier without the hastle of court, visitation, and splitting everything for the rest of our lives, all I could think of was how? Just HOW can you give up on her?
A little background...
Ben and I live over an hour away from each other. And to be fair, we would share driving on visitation days by meeting in a town that was just about mid-way between us. Ben's visitation days were a mess, because he had 2 different days off from work each week, making a stable schedule impossible. So, at our most recent court visit, he was ordered to call or email me his work schedule one week in advance. This would give me significant time to plan ahead for driving, as well as potentially book massage clients or get things done that are much easier without Lyla with me. However, even with constant reminders from me, Ben was not keeping up with his end of the court order, and never once let me know a week in advance. My lawyer said that I did not have to allow the visitation, but I did not want to stand in the way of him seeing her. So, I made the decision to allow the visitation, as long as he was fully responsible for the commute. Ben was not happy about this, and refused to see her on days where he would be making the full drive. And after 8 visitation days went by and no phone call or email was made from Ben with his schedule, my lawyer made the decision to have Ben be 100% responsible for driving from that point on. In his opinion, Ben was not doing me any favors, so why should I accomodate him? Not to mention, Ben had a pretty easy task of simply making a phone call.
3 weeks went by without any contact from him. I even called to let him know Lyla was developing what we thought was chicken pox, and he never showed any concern. At this point, I feared the day where he would call and want to see her, because Lyla rarely did well with him; he saw her so infrequently that he was nearly a stranger to her. But again, I wouldn't stand in the way of his visitation, and would allow it. I think that's what scared me the most. But instead of a call for visitation, I got an "I'm giving up" email.
His explanation was ridiculous; He said that it was me he never wanted to see again, not Lyla, and that this was the only way to do that. He blamed me, yet again, for never letting him see her (when, again, he could have made the drive anytime he pleased). He asked me why I turned his little girl against him. He even went so far to say that I used him for a child and a place to live for a year; this one, I just had to laugh at. My opinion? These are all excuses. And there's not one that justifies you giving up the rights to your child. No matter what I could say or do to him should never prevent him from having a relationship with his own daughter.
Never once have I spoken poorly about Ben to Lyla.
Never once have I prevented him from seeing her.
His head is filled with all these thoughts and accusations that are not true. And his mind ran wild with these ideas, far enough that he would give up seeing her completely to save himself some hastle and money.
On the bright side, Lyla will be better off without a father like this in her life. I do worry, however, about the day she asks about him. How do I explain that her father just didn't want her? That it was too hard for him? That it cost him too much money? How do you explain these things to a child? Hopefully, the wonderful job Eric, my fiance, is doing raising her with me will show her that she doesn't need her biological father in her life.
We used to joke that he was just a sperm donor, but now, he made the choice to be just that.
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