I am "someone"?

I'm still reeling over this a bit. I suppose I brought it on myself by choosing to contact DD's bio-father, who I will refer to as "A". I mentioned in a past post that I stopped receiving child support payments in the beginning of March. Although I did call the enforcement case worker and she's looking into it, it can take several weeks for more information. Never really being one to sit still and wait, I decided to reach out to "A".

On 4/3, I sent him a quick email that simply said "I'd like to talk to you. Will you reply to me?"
I really did not expect him to respond.

On 4/18, I got this from him: "I dont check this email that often anymore so I do apologize for the delayed response. what would you like to discuss.... or when/how can we get in touch with each other?"

I thought it actually seemed like a very civil response and so.....I wrote back on the same day: "Is there a better email to reach you? Or phone? What would you prefer?"

On 4/20, he responded: "This will suffice now that I know someone is trying to contact me"
I had to shut my laptop and walk away from the computer. I was so angry at this response and I didn't want to reply emotionally.

So the next day, I decided to keep it to the business at hand and ask him what I wanted to know. I asked him "I noticed that support payments stopped coming in and was wondering what the situation is?"

He replied the same day by saying: "there was an issue with the payroll dept, they state that everything should be back to normal by end of month."

I have such issues with all of this. What was I expecting when I reached out to him? True, the only thing I intended to ask him was why the support payments stopped. I actually managed to forget how emotionally charged any conversation with "A" can be. There is so much behind it.

He has never met our daughter. He saw her once when I had to bring her to court with me. She was 15 months old. But he's never met her. He has 2 other children that I know of. I don't understand how a parent chooses to love some of his children but not all of them. I don't understand how you know what it's like to be a parent and consciously decide to deny one of your kids.

He doesn't have any pictures of her. He doesn't ask about her. We haven't spoken since our final court hearing which was in May of 2006. How do you think of the mother of your child as just a "someone"??? I understand that he's got feelings of anger with me. I imagine he blames me for alot of things that are wrong in his life. But the fact of the matter is that he brought this on himself when he misrepresented who he was to me. If he'd been up front from Day 1 and told me he was MARRIED with kids, I would have never met him. Sure, he would have never gotten what he wanted, which was to get me into bed. Well, he got it alright. And he got me pregnant.

It was a joint decision not to use protection. I did tell him that I could not get pregnant which was a bonafide fact, as far as I was concerned. One year prior, I gave up hope on becoming a mother after many months of unsuccessful fertility treatments and IUI with my XDH. I had no reason to believe it would ever happen naturally!! So I have to believe that he thinks I lied to him and got pregnant on purpose. Nevermind the fact that he was the one who initiated our get together on that day of fate and it was last minute plans, at that. So if I were really "trying", I would have been pushing for certain days to see him. I digress....

After I got pregnant, he told me that he would help pay for a termination but that he had nothing else to offer. I made the decision to have the baby....obviously. :0) I made that choice knowing that he didn't want to be involved so why do I still feel so much betrayal that he's staying true to his word? Did I think he would change his mind once she was born? Yeah...I guess maybe I did. Man, I'm sitting here with a brick in my stomach since I wrote that last statement. All of a sudden, I'm having trouble keeping this in perspective and wondering if I'm justified in my anger with him.

Okay, no.....wait a sec here.....back to clarity. As the pregnancy progressed, his story changed and he did tell me that he would want to meet her. He told me he would pay child support. He did say he wasn't sure at what level he would be involved. But he did lead me to believe that he would be there in a limited capacity. Does it matter? I don't even know. The fact is that every word out of his mouth was a lie. He said what he said to try to manipulate me at every turn. He wanted me to terminate the pregnancy so he said what he could to sway me in that direction. He didn't want me to file legal papers for child support so he said he would pay and that he'd visit her. After she was born, he was still trying to hold me off from filing papers and so he continued to tell me he was sending or had sent money. He told me lie after lie after lie. I could fill an entire blog carnival with tales of the lies he told. When my DD was 7 months old, I discovered he was married. I called his home and had quite a conversation with his wife. So yeah....he's angry with me. But he did it to himself.

Here's where I'm at today..... My own father issues get tied up in the situation with A. Last night, I was reading some new comments on my blog and I looked at my Dear Father post. I realize it's the same theme again.... Certain people in my life are always going to disappoint me as long as I continue to believe that they are able to give me more than what they are giving me. When I get stuck thinking it's something that is wrong with ME and that I can't have what I want from them because I'm not good enough, I will continue to struggle. When I learn to accept that the problem lies with THEM, I will release myself from this dance of trying to say or do the right thing to somehow magically transform them into who I need them to be. I keep thinking if I'm honest with him, it will break him down and he'll just HAVE to be honest with me, too. It works that way, right??? Not so much.

So I sit here bemoaning the fact that I created a life with this man and now I can't even communicate with him. It frustrates me to no end that I can't speak my mind to him. Or, more to the point, that it does me no good to speak my mind to him. He is someone I can consider one of those BAD choices of men I allowed myself to be vulnerable to without merit. He was the first man I started talking to when I left XDH and I had all this "stuff" inside me. He was such a charmer (ie: player) that I felt "safe" letting it all out to him. In reality, it just gave him a better position to play me from. I wish that I had some sort of civil, communicative relationship with my daughter's father. But I don't. There are so many things I want to say to him. So many things I want to know. It's killing me to not be able to let it out and have my questions answered. The "not knowing" drives me wild. I am a "why" person by nature so to have to accept the unanswered is incredibly challenging for me. I want to write back to him because I want to try (a futile wish, I know) to get an answer from him. I don't know what to do with this angst. I sense some more grieving work in my future. Ah, crap.