Dear Roger: Lack of "Try Hard"

I just don't get it. I took my kids school clothes shopping yesterday and I was easily able to get the boys new stylish shoes,jeans so that they actually have at least 2 pairs of pants apiece,hoodies,socks,a couple of shirts and sweaters, as well as a pair of jeans for daughter, for under $200. Its been hard trying to figure out why my ex thought it was okay for his sons to not have any pants or to be wearing shoes that were rotten and falling apart, or why he didn't take care of their basic needs. I work a job that is beneath my education and ability, but you know what? Its a paycheck that keeps my kids in the things they need. I would do pretty much anything when it comes to making sure my kids are fed and clothed and housed, but he doesn't seem to grasp that concept. Sometimes as an adult you have to do without and you have to sacrifice for the good of others, especially your kids. It can be as simple as giving your daughter the last piece of chicken when she says she is hungry, even though you just walked in from work and are dead on your feet and starving yourself. Its just what a parent does. What I found down in AZ was the opposite of that. He had new boots,(2 pair), and a fresh can of tobacco for his can a week habit. He wasn't buying food for the boys because he was on foodstamps but the things he was bringing into the house for them to eat was absolute crap. If he had quit smoking, he could have spent the $13.00 a week and bought them decent shoes and some clothes, but he wouldn't sacrifice himself. I just don't understand why? Why would he not see them as coming first? He doesn't seem to have any pride at all. I know he is not a nice man, I ended up a the wrong end of his hands and his straight razor enough to know that, but why keep my sons if he wasn't going to take care of them? I try not to dwell on it or get angry, but I just got off the phone with him, finding out if he was going to have his yard sale today or not, and he got angry with me for ,'nagging". I pretty much used up every spare dime I had, as well as swapped around other things in the family budget in order to clothe children that should have had plenty of things, so I think I have a right to suggest he get off his ass and actually do something.

I managed to keep calm when I went to get my sons. I knew if I stepped out of line or argued with him at all, it would end very badly, so I just bit my tongue when I saw that the weeds were so thick that my children could not even go out in the yard. I kept my peace when I saw that he hadn't cleaned the house in what looked like months. I kept quiet when I saw that he had taken down the boys new bunk beds that I had bought them before I left, and that he had them disassembled and set aside in the,'Sale" room along with my sons guitars, much of my antiques and art as well as the boys game system that supposedly broke. I kept quiet when I saw how he had ripped decor off the walls and broke more than a few things I had put up. I just waited until he left and I video taped the filth all over the place, the dining room that looked like a tweekers nest, the back closet with the plastic sheet over the door and the paraphernalia. He had enough money for drugs, but not enough to buy shoes for his kids.

Its hard to not hate him. Destroying the house and van as well as most of my possessions that I had been unable to take left me wanting to rage and yell at first, but then the rage turned to disgust. Last year when I fled with my son and little girl, it felt like he had won. He had gotten the house, the van, all the things I had worked hard to acquire and establish for my kids, but the worst of all was that he still had my sons. I do hate that judge that said he had,'Rights" and I wish that judge had to live in that filth and deprivation with a man who did something that left my youngest son feeling the need to cringe and repeatedly say,'Im sorry" whenever it gets loud or whenever he thinks he is in trouble. My ex thinks he is coming up to Portland. He has plans to sell off everything and somehow get up here. I hope he doesn't. I don't want him anywhere near my kids again. I don't want them to have to deal with whatever situation he is going to end up in up here. I know him, if he does manage to get up here, he will find some rat hole apartment or room in the bad part of town and he will expect my sons to go live with him.My boys don't need that disruption. My daughter doesn't even know him anymore and what she knows of him makes her upset. She calls him by his name. Not,'Dad" or even father, but by his name. He let her down soo much that she found other male role models, and she is happy. I hope to make my boys happy again, but with the threat of him making it up here, they wonder how long the stability will last.

He whined at me that he wasn't going to do a yard sale on Friday because its ,'Too hard" to get set up and ready for 2 days. He whined that he couldn't take a job working in a restaurant because,"Thats beneath me and not worth my time." I've tried to get him to understand that a job is a job and that there is no shame in hard work, but there is lots of shame in hardly working. I don't get how an ex-con with a drug habit and no degree, expects to step into a job that pays top wages and is easy? He has tried scheme after scheme to make easy money, including finding some ambulance chaser to sue the poor bastard that rear ended him a few months ago in am minor traffic accident. He whined that he got whiplash and that he has suffered, but I am skeptical as is the opposing party who is fighting back. He has been sitting back, waiting to collect 20k so that he can,'Start over" , instead of getting off his ass and working for it.

I will never get any child support from him. I am resigned to that fact. He is the type that would try to take the kids just so he didn't have to pay. He has lost all his power now, and the only way he can bully me or get anything over on me is to threaten the few possessions I had to leave there. My dog is dead. Ferg died in July and I know I will never get the full truth of circumstances of his death, but I just hope that it was quick and painless. He was always nicer to animals than he was humans, so maybe I am right to hope for that.

I wanted to rage and vent and do something to deal with all the anger and rage I have at him, but it would just upset my kids and probably just make me feel worse, but I hope he cannot get up here. I hope he has to do without like my kids did. I hope he just goes and lives with his mother like his other dead-beat brother did and I hope he never darkens my door again. I made it for years, taking care of the kids on my own, making every dollar stretch enough to feed and clothe and care for my kids without his help and often having to struggle and fight and hide things just to make sure that he didn't see them and get angry at me or my kids.

Venting here is about the only outlet I have, but I am going to try and make this the last I speak of all of the anger I have towards him. I am done appeasing him because my kids will no longer suffer his ire when he hangs up the phone. I am done letting him have the power to ruin my mood or the day. I am just done with him because he is unfix-able, and not worth my time. He will probably end up back in jail, and I have no doubt he will try to gain my pity, but all he will get is my disgust at a person who expects me to fix his life when he wont even get up off his ass and try. My kids and I are free and with the help of the courts in Oregon, I hope to make sure that is how things stay.