I am fully aware that this site is mainly a political site and I am also completely aware that this diary will not really contribute to any political discussion.
I am also not a regular contributor of content to this site and I really rarely write a diary.
Mostly I use this site to inform myself.
Having said all the above, I decided to still write this diary. Not because I believe you will greatly benefit from reading it, but because I hope to benefit from writing it.
If you don't mind all that, follow me beyond the notsurewhattocallit so I can explain why I think I am reaching my breaking point.
In order to tell the story right, I need to tell a little bit about myself.
I came to the US about 6 years ago via a company transfer.
The job I hold now is still the job I came for, it pays considerably well and I like doing it.
I started building a new existence and although there were quite a few obstacles, I am finally a permanent resident.
I married my wife in 2012. She had two children and so did I and we have a little girl together.
To complete the picture, I need to mention that my wife had her two children with two fathers. Her second child was an accident so please don't get tempted to judge.
I bought a house and everything looked like life was great for this happy big family.
Everyone got along great and being a divorced father and step-father at the same time, I was quite happy that the biological fathers of my step-children were engaged and the kids did not miss out on anything. All was good.
Unfortunately that changed in November last year.
As I learned, the father of my 5 year old step-daughter had alcohol problems before, resulting in my wife leaving him. He seemed to have been able to get it under control though and I frankly never experienced anything unusual in his behavior since I started dating my wife.
That changed when he started to call my wife late in the evenings, apparently drunk and in a harassing manner rambling sometimes for over an our about child support, visitation schedules, religion, essentially anything that seemed to hit his drunken state of mind.
I did not think much when the first call happened, although my wife was obviously concerned, having had to life through it once.
I started to get somewhat concerned when those calls kept coming and became more frequent.
I became very concerned when he started to demand to talk to his daughter when he was obviously drunk.
He started to talk with his daughter in a way that certainly wasn't OK, mentioning courts, the police, wanting to buy her her own gun (she was 5!).
We explained all this away and put up with it. We calmed her down and helped her forget about those encounters.
We tried to make it work somehow for the sake of this little girl.
We overlooked that he was behind on child support and basically paid only when he wanted and as much as he wanted.
We overlooked that he kept switching visitation with his daughter on short notice, making it quite difficult for us to plan any activities in advance.
We tried our very best to stay calm and collected when he called drunk again.
We really tried until he told his 5 year old daughter in one of his rants on the phone: "Tell your mommy I have guns", and told my wife on the phone that he slapped the little girl in the face because she called is then girlfriend mommy (my wife would have no issue with my step-daughter calling her mommy or any deviation thereof).
My step daughter does call me papa, as do all of my children. She call her father daddy, so there is a clear distinction between the two of us and I am perfectly fine with that.
We stopped trying at this point and started protecting our daughter.
We called the police and filed a complaint.
When he talked to the police though, he told them that he only stated the fact that he owns guns and that he holds a concealed carrying permit, and that he did not slap his daughter in the face, but that he would, should she call his girlfriend mommy.
The police could to little about it, so a report was all that happened.
Well, that of course did not do a whole lot to ease our concerns.
My step-daughter was scheduled to spend an extended time with her father for the winter holidays two days after this phone call. He mentioned in one of his drunk ramblings that he would not allow my wife to call her daughter during that time although the court order in place allowed her to talk to the child twice a day.
We did not know what to do. Legally, we had no choice but to have her go with him.
Although we did not like it, we didn't see any alternative. So we hoped that he would be able to at least control himself to a point where he would not be a danger to the child when she was with him.
And then the next day happened. This was the day before my daughter was scheduled to go to her father. The last day we would see her for over a week.
He called late morning, apparently drunk.
He started to tell her that she was not safe in our house.
He told her that she needs to get as far away from her mother and myself as she can.
He told her that he will take her way from her mommy.
He told her that we are enslaving her.
He told her that he would have us put in jail.
He obviously completely lost it.
We spent over two hours on the phone with him.
He terrified his won daugher to a point where she ran away from the phone crying.
We hung up.
He called again - over and over.
3 times, I had to comfort my step-daughter to make her stop crying that day because she was scared that "her daddy would take her away from her family" while my wife had to listen to his insults on the phone.
That night, we decided to withhold visitation.
We knew it was wrong from a legal perspective, but we just did not see any other way.
The next day, my wife left the house with our kids in the morning, since we had no idea what in the world this guy would be up to at this point.
He showed up in our neighborhood with the police, but they did not take any action other than filing a report.
The holidays weren't easy, but we eventually succeeded in calming my step-daughter down and help her forget all the stuff that happened.
We got a lawyer and filed for modification of visitation.
We reached an agreement in February reinstating visitation on a supervised basis.
We had a psychological evaluation done on him. He seems to be a liar, but otherwise OK.
We got a Guardian ad Litem assigned.
We also had him take two alcohol tests. Those tests cover about 3 months and test for excessive abuse.
Both results came back positive.
We went to mediation to see if we would find a solution for visitation in combination with testing to at least assure that he was not drinking while the child was with him.
Based on the test results, we hoped he would at least acknowledge his problem
He refused this proposal yesterday.
I paid for all the above, since I believe that this guy needs help. He is not a bad person to his daughter in general, but he is when he is drunk and has a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I was willing to do what needs to be done for my step-daughter's sake.
I spent pretty much all I had in savings and more on the attempt to protect my step-daughter on testing and lawyers and pretty much ruined my credit in the process.
Now that it seems we will have to go in front of a judge with all this, I will potentially have to pay another 20k or more on an expert witness, lawyers fees and whatnot.
That means that I will have to cash in my 401k this week to come up with the money.
I am losing the little possibility of retirement I had. (I am almost 40 and time is running fast).
I am being told that as a step-father I have no rights in regards to my step-daughter and I understand that. I do have the moral obligation though to protect my family and children, no matter if biological or not.
So I will do what I possibly can.
The alternative would be to give up and stop caring for my children.
I will try to stay strong as long as I have to.
There is no way I can vent about all this with to wife without her feeling guilty to have dated this guy to begin with.
I really don't have anyone else I can talk to about this.
This is why I wrote all this.
I am not asking for donations or for anyone to feel bad for me.
I just think I am really reaching my breaking point and maybe writing all this will help to push it back far enough to get through all this.
This is why I needed to write this and put it out there.
I need to at least have the illusion to talk about it with someone who isn't me.
Unfortunately this diary is not well structured and far from being well written.
At this time, it is the best I can do without losing my mind completely.
Thanks for reading!
10:01 AM PT: WOW, the amount of comments and your level of support is mind-blowing.
I am truly humbled.
I am not a very emotional person but right now my eyes are tearing up. THANK YOU!!!
I am working, so I cannot answer every comment immediately, but I am reading them all and I promise to not let a single one unanswered.
1:00 PM PT: I am speechless.
Absolutely speechless.
I am still not through all comments, but I have seen a few requests to report back how things will eventually end up.
I can promise you I certainly will. I don't know yet how long it will take for all this to be done and what is still ahead, but keeping you all informed on the outcome is the very least I can do and, frankly, I feel it is the very least I owe you for all your support.
This community is amazing. I couldn't have come to a better place.
Let me give you a heartfelt thank you again!
You all really made me a lot stronger than I thought I was.