I couldn't sleep last night worrying about the babies. I was so scared they would all be dead this morning. It looked as though the mom was feeding them yesterday but I really wasn't sure if they were getting much or not. This morning I got up early and got ready, took the dogs for our daily morning walk and then came back and took the guard off. I prayed so much yesterday and my heart was beating so hard as I opened the box and looked in. Thank God I saw four pairs of eyes looking back at me. So I have been watching for over an hour now, no peeking at all that I could see. Took Mom half an hour to go in and feed them but now she is feeding them and removing poop sacs but it still seems like they want them out for some reason. I have no clue why, she will get the food and sit for the longest time either in a tree near the box or on top of the sparrow spooker before going in and I can hear her chattering. Dad still hasn't done any feeding yet, for some reason he couldn't figure out the hole guard yesterday. So I am going to watch as much as I can today. If one goes out and cannot fly I may just try putting it in a tree and watching it, that way at least I know they will get fed. If I have to I can always put the guard back on for overnight. I am praying they all make it ok. Thanks everyone for your help. Donna

For anyone who may be wondering if Chazlie is the norm, let me clarify. Chazlie is a classic case of a person who has been wounded at a crucial point in life - maybe more than once. He has a deficit of compassion, love and respect for women as a whole. He justifies his acting out by belittling those who live a life he cannot fathom, one of true intimacy and security. I can predict fairly easily that such a man does not have a partcularly close, loving relatioship with his own mother, and I would also guess that his wife struggles with some codependency. He would probably argue both these points, since it is so hard to look internally when such a deep pain exists. The brain works exceedingly hard to "feel good" - and such acting out (yes, it's acting out, it's not socially acceptable, reasonable, nor is it normal) - is an attempt to make up for the pain that exists mentally and emotionally. That is the ONLY reason people are self destructive - and yes, blocking real intimacy through multple partners and infidelity is without question self destructive. This is sad, no matter how you slice and dice it.

Surferchiky, I agree with ulrike, I think your mixed feelings about the situation are justified. It does sound like your DH did his legal duty if not truly fatherly duty by paying child support for a child he did not know and now is open to starting a relationship with that child. It's pretty harsh judgement to come down on your DH without knowing all of the facts about the estrangement from the mother, their relationship if any and so on. Don't worry too much about any child you have with your DH playing second fiddle to his first daughter. They don't really even have a relationship yet and are strangers to each other. It would be pretty unusual if they quickly developed such a close father/daughter relationship that your child together would be relegated to some lower position in DH's life. That being said, this girl IS his daughter and DID come first. You did know about her years ago and although you may not have expected her to enter DH's life beyond child support she has and both of them have the right to know each other. Relax your anxiety about it, she may like you both and you may like her. A deep relationship between them will take a lot of time, in fact, if you have a child that might facilitate closeness all around. who knows? I applaud your DH for doing the right thing. I can understand the other posters thinking he should have played an active father role all along but once again, we don't have all of the facts and it's pretty common for many women and their families to not even want fathers involved especially if there was not a real relationship in the first place. Easy for me to say but just be fair to the girl, flexible with DH because this must be major for him and be easy with yourself. You don't have to be a mean SM like yours was, be yourself and don't forget how it was for you. there is no suggestion of her living with you is there?

Today was 90 days and he is still sober. If I hadn't put a link on my browser to ever having written any of this I would have forgotten entirely. I am forgetful (or forgiving) and this time maybe that's a good thing for a change. He has definitely made it easy to at least not think about it. Our relationship had deteriorated to a point where I was Mom to his two children and an out of control teenager (him). I think the turn around was that I gave up on him. I let my heart go icy cold. I gave up on fighting his training. I treated him exactly how he has trained me to treat him, with distrust and animosity. I neither hid nor revealed anything and I volunteered not a single word because talking to him had never helped. Only when he asked did I speak and what I spoke was brutally honest and emotionless. Exactly how I felt, just nothing anymore. I was fully prepared to leave him forever and I didn't care if he realized it or not. I told him that I need three months to get my affairs in order and he will give that to me because he owes me, period. I told him in the mean time your finances are your problems now. I will no longer police your spending so if your kids go hungry then you are to blame. However, I will be eating, I can take care of myself. Its you and your children that will go hungry and all three of you can sit at the table watching me eat. I don't care. Get your paychecks sent to your account tomorrow, as in tomorrow, drop what ever crap you think is important and get your ass to the bank otherwise your paychecks become my paychecks and I will not be sharing just as you haven't been sharing with me. I told him to make preparations for his children to be taken in by their mother, grandparents, someone, I don't care who because I am leaving and if you haven't gotten a plan together when I do walk away from this hell hole in three months then they will eventually be taken away from you by force. And get this done quick because as of this very second I refuse to wash dishes, do laundry, cook, clean, or anything else that I really don't have to do because there is no longer anything that I feel I have to do for you or yours anymore. Then I told him that I will not look after his kids anymore either. If you think you are going to leave them with me, I will make a point in getting me out of the house at my convenience, and they will be here alone, scared, and crying. I don't care anymore. I refuse to watch them. Take them to work if you have to. You benefiting from me and my parents is over. This was in the summer so the kids were home all day and he took them to work that day, just like I have taken them to work everyday for the last three years. I work in my families business so taking them to work was a pain in the ass but manageable. That day he realized that you only get 1/4 of the work done when the kids are around and you feel like punching babies at the end of the day. He begged for another chance. I told him how many chances do you need? The last three years were nothing but chances and you failed, you crashed and now you are burning and I wouldn't stop to piss on you because it would help you. How many accidents does a person have before they can be labeled as just not giving a sh**? How many times can a person say "I didn't know" before they can be labeled as a complete f**king retard? You have given me nothing but words, words are cheap, and cheapen even more when coming from your mouth. He begged me to tell him what to do to fix things. I told him that I have been telling him what to do for three years, you refused all of it. Dig deep into the crap pile that is left of your brain. I am sure you can come up with a million ideas if you just tried. I told him that there are three months before I leave. Prove to me, show me, make it a possibility for me to stay. Make me want to stay but in the mean time I am preparing to get out of dodge because I don't think you can do it. In fact, I know you can't do it. I do not believe in you anymore. And I meant it right to the center of my icy heart. I felt nothing but the weight of myself burdening me which was many tons lighter than what I had been carrying. This made me happy and he saw that. He saw that I was happy because there was a light at the end of my tunnel now. Ok, shake it off. Getting all worked up here. He has turned everything around and is maintaining. All he has done is quit drinking and everything else fell into place. He has a better memory, he has more energy, he has more time, his mood is more consistent, he smiles, we are paying off our debt which has gone faster than we predicted, saving money, and will soon be able to splurge every now and then. There has been all of this improvement with just one life change (one really hard life change) and he knows it because he is living it and frequently comments that it was the drinking. He still has urges but the frequency has been decreasing. He knows that he has ruined himself with alcohol as in once he has been ruined he can not go back. I love him more now than when I married him. If he falls off the wagon? I don't know. We will deal with that when it happens.