Childfree Abby's Mailbag - Impending Doom29 Jun 2006Message ID: 12a93oag4leje2e@news.supernews.com
Abby, I could use your wisdom (please don't flame me, even though I deserve it). I have dated a childed man for the past five years, during which we moved in together happily as a childless couple because he only had custody of his child every other weekend, which he smartly enjoyed said custody of (since he knew from the very beginning how I felt about children) at his parent's home. The child never stayed over at our shared apartment. Now, what all of my cf on-line friends had warned me about has happened. The child no longer can cope with her "mean" mother (who had full-time custody of her), mostly because mom has had twins with another man and the twins are pushing my boyfriend's child out of the spotlight. My boyfriend's child is now spending the summer with my boyfriend, with me, in our shared apartment. I am a true, uncompromised and unrepentant childfree individual. I have managed to stay an arm's distance from my boyfriend's child for the past 5 yrs. This means attending as few shared outings with my boyfriend and his child and my boyfriend's childed friends as possible, not seeing my boyfriend on his custody weekends because he was staying at his parent's, etc. I do not want to be this child's parent for many reasons, one of which is that she has two fully functioning biological parents who spoil her enough already. I am in day 2 of sharing my apartment with this child. I do not want to share my life with her. Already I have accepted that I will be "escaping" a.k.a. doing things without my boyfriend more than I already do in order to maintain my childfree sanity. You can just imagine all of the "together" events my boyfriend suddenly wants to do, and our mutual friends as well. All of the sudden it's "let's go fishing with all of the children, let's have a bonfire with all of the children" (because now all of the parents want to get together) . Call me cold-hearted, but my answer to that is no. And why couldn't I have been good enough to do that with without children? It isn't like my boyfriend is unaware of the things we like to do together, some of which happen to be the same as what he is suddenly suggesting now that he is a full-time daddy. I am feeling slighted. Anyway, the childfree wise-ones said this would happen. I think I just need affirmation that the disintegration-of-my-relationship-script is running as expected and that I am not showing any hint of drifting over to the Dark Side. To do that would be to kill my soul. Thankfully, I am taking some graduate school courses this fall and hoping to establish a network of childfree folks, because there aren't many to be found in the everyday context of this family-haven area I live in. Thank you for any comments you can provide!
Gentle Reader, I think you have covered all the points in your letter, and yes, I agree with them. Therefore, I don't think that I am telling you anything that you do not already know: Gentle Reader, its time to pull the plug on this relationship; your boyfriend's daddyhood will not go away and it is making you miserable. This relationship only worked because, effectively, the child was not part of your everyday life. Now, the inevitable has happened and that idyll is now over. As a parent, your boyfriend's priority is to see to the welfare of his child, and that is how it should be. However, it would be unfair to everyone, including yourself, to drag this on any further. There are no apologies necessary, as it is plain that this relationship is going down a path you have made clear that you do not wish to go, and have never wished to go. Of course, there may be some shock on the part of your boyfriend since he has been trying to get this "one big happy family" thing happening - but that is an issue that he will have to deal with. Say good bye, wish him well, and move on with your lives, perhaps to find partners more suitable to both your lifestyles.
Childfree Abby
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