Lisa - thanks for the play-by-play. Your little Hussy sounds like such a character! Congrats on the five new blues!

Dear Deb, My heart goes out to you as you try to belileve in a life after this one. My faith was stringhtened by being with my Momma when she died. Not because I was just with her. But because I witnessed something I can not explaine, to myself or to others. I was sitting on the sofa that day and I noticed that my Mom's breathing was odd. They call it 'fish out of water breathing'. It went on for a while and we could not get her to rouse up or respond in anyway. We knew it was her time to pass and my sister and I sat on either side of her, each holding a hand. Just before she died she opened her eyes, focused on something over our sholders and shook off our hands, and raised her arms, then in weakness her arms fell down, once more before her very last breath she shook off our hands and reached up her arms, like a small child asking to be held, her eyes opened and tears sprung into them, she had a look of complete surprise, then she smiled a small smile and exhaled. That was it, she was gone. I looked at my sister and said 'did you see that too'? And my sister said she had. I was stunned. My Momma saw something or someone I could not see. I remember looking back over my sholder to see what she was looking at. I know she was reaching up to hold someone, she was happy to see them. Was it my Dad who had died a year before, or her parents who had been gone many years? I guess I will not know who came to get her until I see her again... I only know without doubt that my Mom died in front of me and she went from our hands into the arms of someone unseen by us. I believe it was my Dad. That expierence changed me and gave me a stringth in my faith like nothing else I have expierenced so far in my short 50 years. So I can tell you without doubt, I know there is another life beyond this life. I hope this can help you. I do not tell this to many people because in the retelling with just mere words, I can not convey the awe, or magnitute of the expierence itself. I pray that you will find comfort soon. For me, grief has been like the sharp edge of a knife that cuts away at my soul, and time has been the only substance that has been able to dull the edge of the knife. I send you love and positive energy for healing.

I totally agree Kathline. My SD's mom does not blame my husband, she tells SD (and everyone who will listen) that DH is the nicest guy and would NEVER do any of this if I wasn't making him. In a way, she's right. DH is mild mannered and let things go and when we got together, BM would do things to mess with our life. She would find out we have plans for a weekend she has her daughter and call him at the last minute saying she can't keep her, can he take her PLEASE? He has never said no, so our plans would get ruined. I'd rearrange the weekend to include their daughter and when she'd go back and tell her mom we had fun, her mom would call and yell at DH that she doesn't want me to do this or that with her daughter, she is the mom, I am not. He would get all stressed out over her ranting phone calls and it caused tension between us. I was trying to be accommodating to BM when she had him keep SD on her weekends, but I think her plan was for us to have conflict over her daughter ruining our plans. Our conflict was over BM's ranting phone calls after every weekend. He was getting frustrated because she had never been that bad before but when SD spent time (and enjoyed it) with me, BM went off the deep end. So, it was DH's complaints to me that prompted me to help him take the necessary steps to get his legal rights to his daughter and that meant the court process, so yes, I supported him 125% and helped pay for it and BM is right that if I was not around, he probably would never have done all this. But, if I were not around, would BM have made his life so miserable that he felt he had to do something? Her reaction to our relationship is what started it all and her plan to run me off, using her daughter as part of it, did not work. She either doesn't realize it or want to admit it to herself, that DH does what he wants to do. I can't 'force' him to go to court. I can't get him to take a day off from work for very much, he only took three days off for our honeymoon. But, he takes time off for court (for his daughter) and school things with no problem. (well, he does worry about losing too much time from work because he's on commission when BM doesn't show up for court or continues it, that annoys him) But, back to the point, BM blames the whole thing on me. My relationship is somewhat strained because her mom discusses everything with her (and in pseudo's case as well) but I have been thinking about taking some of TOS's advice, 'kids have the right to know the truth.' I know that if they do anything to BM, she will blame it on me. She already told SD that she can't come to her school because she HAS to go to a job interview. So, it is our fault she can't come to the school because if she didn't have to pay child support, she wouldn't have to go to a job interview and this is how she presents it to her daughter. So, should she be told the truth? Her mom needs to work to help BF pay for their house. Her mom and dad are responsible for buying her stuff, not me. If I don't buy it and mom isn't working, it means dad has to get another job and can't spend much time with her. or how about 'grown ups are supposed to work'. If she loses her license and blames me for not being able to see her daughter (which she will). Same if she goes to jail. She already has bad credit but she will certainly blame me for giving her bad credit. She already tells her it's my fault they have no money, she can't buy her things because I made daddy take her to court blah blah blah The way I see it, it doesn't matter what, she is going to blame me regardless. I don't think a parent should be allowed to get away with something because they are manipulative and place blame or responsibility for everything on everyone else. Maybe my husband should tell her that he'd be in jail if he didn't feed and clothe her. Maybe if she were in jail, SD would be upset about it but BM wouldn't be feeding her all the lies because she wouldn't have the opportunity. I don't want to see parents in jail for not supporting their kids, I'd like to see parents having pride in supporting their kids. and yes, my son's father has been in jail a few times and while most were for other reasons, he has been to jail at least once for non payment. He hasn't filed taxes in over 20 years and can't get a drivers license. (I think he has gone to jail for driving without a license and when he was arrested for no license, they found other things to charge him with) My daughter's father hasn't had a license so he also may have been arrested. I know he was in jail last year, but I don't know why. His daughter told my daughter on myspace that he was in jail but wouldn't say why but was angry at my daughter so I assume it might have to do with child support. I haven't been contacted but did start getting some payments soon after that. He's in another state and I haven't looked into what is being done to collect. My middle son's father wasn't adjudicated as the father until after he was 18. He owes back support and has paid it on time, in full every month. I think the bottom line is that if nobody complains about the non payment of support, then there are too many cases to go after every deadbeat, mom or dad. I do see mom's getting more sympathy in the courtroom than dad's, but I think if nobody complains in the first place, there would be no action taken against mom or dad. I've seen the Judge rip a dad apart for losing his job and not finding some way to pay, but with mom's they are more sympathetic. I think if my husband had lied about his income and refused to bring proof and BM said it was more, the court would have taken her word and used the higher income. I see there is less bias than there used to be, but some still exists.

Ashleys X can dethrown my ex who certainly earned father of the year in 2007. I don't want to hijack your post, just share with you my similar experience... When I was 8 months pregnant with my son, his dad quit his job because they wouldn't give him e/o weekend off for his visitation with his then 3 yr old daughter. He didn't work for the next three years. He was a SAHD to our son..Really he had a 3yr vacation to smoke pot and play video games--After 3 years I'd had enough and left. He claimed he couldn't afford to stay and would have to move cross country to live with his parents and of course... I was the worst person in the world for taking his son away from him. So, figuring I'd been supporting us all for 3 years anyway I didn't need him to pay child support. I took the state minimum $25 mo told him to get a job, get on his feet here, and we could reevaluate in 2 years. For 3 years all I heard was how poor he was, how he couldn't afford anything when I took him back to court I found in 2006 he made $47,000 And paid $300 in support-for the whole year! All the while sending my son home in rags that were too small and keeping the clothes he arrived in to refresh his wardrobe there. Sorry, I'm a little off track here..when it came time for modification he gave the first judge a sob story about how he didn't have time to fill out any of the paperwork he'd gotten. He had the same 20 days I did but whatever the judge gave him an extension-but my ex wasn't available to come to court one month later- because he would be on vacation with the kids out of state so the judge gave him two months :) I was hot, but to pacify me the judge ordered he pay $100 for each of those months. DCS distributed it to his daughter-whatever. So 2 months later we show up in court again the judge orders him to pay around $500 and he starts running his mouth about his other children he pays support for....His 18 year old son who he no longers owes support to, and the daughter that he pays $56 month for!!!The judge didn't find that any reason to discount his support to this child so he started complaining about childcare telling the judge that he wants receipts for my daycare expenses because I leave our son with my then 12 yo daughter totally implying that I'm a bad mom. WHAT AN IDIOT!!! Child support and Daycare are two seperate issues here. In the three years we were separated I never asked him for a dime for our son for anything, not daycare, a pair of shoes, not a cough drop and for him to try to smear me infront of a judge got me so angry when the judge ordered $465 for support the state's attorney recommended an incremental increase so I'd get 1/2 for 3 months before I got a full month and I said NO and asked the judge to say NO-she did, then she ordered he pay that full amount back to the day he didn't have his paperwork ready. Then I went home and gathered all my daycare receipts and mailed them in for my 58% reimbursement, and recently DS had an ear infection requiring drops that were not covered by insurance- the cost $73. You bet I sent that receipt to DCS too. Sometimes I feel a little guilty about what I get from him now -- then I remember how hard it was for me all that time on my own, that our son wasn't worth 1% of his 2006 income and I think of him rambling on in court and I feel just fine. And my X has not once since then whined about being poor. I know it sucks to do with less for now, especially in these hard times and I'm sorry. Hopefully in a couple years he'll have a better job and you can modify and he will pay more-in my state it costs more to raise a 12yr. and support is greater.