When I was 5 years old, my mother packed us up and moved 3000 miles away from my father and didn't leave a forwarding address. 25 years later, I found him, and moved in with him and his wife (a wonderful woman, who became one of my closest friends) for a year in order to get to know them as family rather than acquaintances one visits once in a while. My stepmother couldn't get over how alike we were, in temperament, tastes, and a variety of idiosyncratic behaviors. One day, she came home from doing some errands to find us sitting at the kitchen table lunching on thick slabs of his beefsteak tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt & pepper. bread and butter rounding out the meal. Regarding me with a rather dryly amused expression, she said, "I guess I know whose daughter YOU are!" The one food I actually associate with my father in childhood memory is yellow apples. All my life, if I ate a yellow apple, I thought of him, and no matter how good it tasted, there was something missing. After my mother divorced him, he would pick me up on Saturday and find somewhere to take me where we could simply hang out. One of our favorite spots was off a country road, where there was a very old, gnarled apple tree. In season, we would sit there and eat apples together, and discuss whatever weighty subjects children under the age of 5 discuss with their fathers. The apples were yellow, and no apple has ever tasted as good since. Our first meeting when I was an adult, I arranged to have in a restaurant. I was nervous and wanted a neutral ground. By the end of dinner, he convinced me to drive with him a short way to his home, so I could meet his wife, who was waiting up and hoping I would come. I followed him in my car, and at a certain spot, on a dark country road, he slowed, honked his horn and gesticulated wildly over the hood of his car to the right at I couldn't know what. It was the apple tree, and when I told him later that I'd spent all my subsequent years being disappointed in every apple I ate because it didn't taste as good as the apples from that tree, he laughed because that tree had been so old, even when I was young, that the apples had been small, tough and tart, but we ate them together because they were there. My Dad had been a paratrooper during WW2. He didn't talk about it often, but a couple of times he opened up. Once, he spoke of walking down an avenue in Italy, and passing a house surrounded by a low wall, and seeing an elderly man sitting outside at a little table. A young woman brought him out a bowl of olives, a tumbler of wine and a slab of bread. My father ended up trading a pack of cigarettes for a helmet full of those home made olives. I think that he must have been feeling quite lonely and homesick, because he could have bought olives anywhere, and at less expense than a pack of cigarettes, but the elderly man's look of contentment as he ate of the olives his daughter brought him while he sat in his own garden made them irresistible. While I lived with my father and stepmother, I got into the habit of driving a couple of hours down to Boston every couple of months or so, to buy food items I couldn't find in Southern Maine...and I'd stop at a little Italian grocery in the North End to pick up olives and bread for my father.

Probably easier to forgive then to forget the scars. My Dad literally walked away when I was 12, and if he had is way, we never would have found him. I persisted because I loved my Dad. Hi wife, now my step-mom, although deep down, has a good heart, I think (I know, for sure) has some emotional baggage that she will never leave behind. They both are now in nursing home care and neither can take care of themselves. That whole scenario has been impossible, but thanks to another relative, they are safe and are receiving proper care. That said, when things got very tough, when trying to seek care for them, it became a matter of my deciding that I still needed to care, as I always thought I did. That really tested me though. Through the years,although I know he began to feel something for my sister and me, I know my SM would prefer is we weren't in the way. I can't tell you how difficult that is - when I want my Dad, I remember the turmoil I'll have to go through to get to him. And now, even if I could, he wouldn't understand because his altzheimer's is so bad. He still knows who I am, and is still VERY smart, but that's about all there is. That is so hard to get over, no matter how hard I try. That's somehting I think you never get over. After a while, it gets pushed back into you mind, but on some days, it's right out there with "what am I wearing today". I pray you have better times trying to cope with this, and also the loss. HUGS coming your way!! gneegirl

you are correct theotherside, but it's not right to use the support from one father to support another father's children. If both are paying support, then it is should be assumed that the rent comes from both fathers, not just one. But if only one is paying support, then the children of the father that pays should not suffer because the father of the other children does not pay. If the other father does not pay anything, then the mother should pay more toward the housing costs instead of using child support from the father that pays. How can his children share in his standard of living when she averts some of the money that is meant to use on them, to other children, whose father doesn't support them? I think THAT is wrong. I have three kids with three fathers. If I get support for any of them (and I have on occasion, never regularly), I might use part to help with the bills, but the child that it's intended for should get more of a benefit, whether it's a new pair of shoes, outfit, spending money or whatever. I have always given them something from it. Like I said, I've never gotten a large sum... usually less than fifty bucks, but they get some kind of direct benefit from it. I usually would say that kids don't need to know about child support issues, but on occasion, I have told my kids when I get any money from their dad that they are getting X because their dad sent some money. Since they never saw their dad, I felt they needed to know that he was at least contributing, even if it was only here or there. I never complained that I didn't get support. That only makes kids feel bad about it.

I have trouble motivating FDH to parent A__ too... And like you, I think that FDH is just totally unaware of his son. If I'm not home, FDH will have A__ all darn day without feeding him a proper meal. It's easier for him to let A__ play on the computer all day than to think up stuff to do with him. But I just do things my way, and he goes along with it because he realizes that he's sort of a slacker if left to his own devices. For example, right now, FDH wants to watch Trailer Park Boys, and A__ is right here in the room, so I pointed out that there is too much swearing in that show for a 9yo. He changed it back to the ball game. FDH would probably do the same thing with Meet the Teacher night as your DH did... He's the king of "Oh, and we're supposed to be at this place at 6:30" when supper is already on the stove and it drives me nuts. I think it's inconsiderate of him to spring last minute plans on me... But I think it's a Mars/Venus thing: I plan ahead, while he ignores my planning ahead - He makes last minute plans, while I get mad about it. I've found that most men are like that (with some exceptions of course) For things like chewing with his mouth open, it's quite probable that DH doesn't notice. A__ can have his face LITERALLY in his food and be poking it into his mouth with his fingers and FDH looks confused when I remind A__ of his table manners. When I was a kid and I chewed with me mouth open, it was always my mom or my older sister who reminded me to close it - I don't recall my dad or brothers ever reminding me. Maybe that's a Mars/Venus thing too? It puts you in a hard spot though. Either you say "DH, your son is chewing with his mouth open" or you remind SS of his table manners yourself. Option one makes it seem like you're purposefully avoiding interaction with SS and he'll probably react poorly to that. Option two is that you're doing the parenting for DH, which you seem tired of. I guess for me, it comes down to this: If I do the crappy stuff like wiping dirty handprints off the wall and telling A__ to use table manners, FDH gets much less frustrated with A__ and they have a better relationship. The difference between our situations is that A__ has improved from where he was last year (which is a lot like where your SS is now) while your SS is still in a rough patch. I know you're still frustrated and SS is still misbehaving, but it sounded like he was progressing a little... Is he still?