You Made A Choice, I've Made Mine

For the past 11.5 years, I have been in a relationship with my child's father. For the first few years, we had gone through a lot and were each other's support. Our relationship was like any other young couple's, struggling to provide a life together. After the birth of our daughter, my family and I moved to Newcastle. My daughter's father followed, struggling until he found a place of his own. He wasn't allowed to stay with us, as he was constantly stealing from us all and causing unnecessary stress and heartache. Our relationship out a strain on my father, as he was constantly saving me from a beating. My daughter's father began drinking and visiting us, just to fight my aging father. The stress became too much and he suffered from various heart attacks and strokes.

A few months ago, I had planned a new life away from the father of my child. He is the sort of person who believes anything that he thinks up. He was never like that prior, until he started using methamphetamine, commonly known in Australia as 'ice'. Ice is a dangerous drug. It is not only dangerous to the user, but can be deadly to those around them. My child's father knew what he was doing when he started abusing us, and continued it when we left him. Because I don't want 'ice' to be a part of my child's life or my own, I planned a new life elsewhere. I began saving money, so my child and I could move away from the life that her father had created for himself.

My father ended up passing away around the time that I became stressed out, due to my child's father's ice use. I miss my father dearly and will always carry the guilt that I chose to stay with someone who I thought loved me, instead of leaving him before it took a toll on my father's health - he was my protector! When we needed support and my child needed her father, he was nowhere to be found. After many years of my family putting a roof over his head and welcoming him like a son, he couldn't have the decency to be there for us. This was what opened my eyes and made me give him an ultimatum.

I am constantly hearing how her father is not touching the drug, as he apparently loves us. I mentioned to him "it is common sense: if you love someone, you wouldn't do that to them". Like every other abuser and ice user, he believes that it is my fault that he used ice. I couldn't handle listening to continuous lies and taking all forms of his abuse. My child and I have every right to live drug-free, stress-free, abuse-free and happy. Her father will always blame me for his actions, not understanding how much I don't want him near me or his moronic beliefs. We have a right to be happy, so why can't he accept that?

I gave him the ultimatum a long time ago... "You either want us or u want the ice, but you cannot have both". He made his choice when he touched ice and continued using it, yet he believes otherwise. I am sick of being blamed for something I had no part of, I am sick of having to think for an adult who's more like a child. The ice changed the type of person he was and his mentality is out of control.

I don't want to have a life where my child and I are struggling, homeless or starving. We have every right to be able to live our lives the way we want and not how others want. When my child and I were ready to start our new lives, her father turned up on our doorstep. After almost half a year, he turns up asking for a place to stay - his ice dealer is a psychotic child. Once he makes up something in his mind, he believes it. He began controlling my child's father and everything he did, but it did not excuse him from ignoring us for so long. The dealer robbed my child's father's house, taking mostly mine and my child's belongings. The dealer is that weak and weak-minded, he believed that we owed him money for no reason - he never thought about getting a job to provide for himself.

I didn't my child's father to stay with us, especially after everything he put us through. He chose everyone else over us, told stories about me to others and stopped talking to us at the beginning of the year. He has been staying in our home since April, it is now August. He doesn't understand hints, gestures or direct communication. My child's father tells me that he's not using ice, even though he's acting a certain way. When he's not using, he is almost the same person that I first fell in love with. When he is using, his mouth does weird things, his fingers are always sticking out like E.T trying to phone home, he hardly spends time around me - knowing that I will catch on. There's so many things that he does, which he never does any other time but when he's using ice.

I actually took the time to know him, his habits and the things he does, that's how I know when he is on something. He hasn't taken enough time to get to know me, or he'd know that I don't take childish crap, being blamed for no reason. My parents worked all of my life, they had a hard upbringing when they were younger and I was raised in almost the exact same way. I spent a lot of time on my own, my parents had full trust in me. My father would tell others "my daughter is an adult, she was raised as one too". I never experienced anything chlidish and have never been blamed for something I didn't do, it's something that I am not use to. I have only ever experienced that type of behaviour since being with my daughter's father.

There is nothing wrong with wanting a stable, secure and happy life for both myself and my child. How can it be wrong to want that? Both my child and I have plans that will one day include a man that wants the same things in life, that we do:

• To be a family

• Having a family home

• To live together as a family

• Whatever we share, we share it together

• Providing for our family

• An equal share in finances - bills, utilities etc

• To spend time as a family

• A father-like figure who wants to spend quality time doing what father's do with their children.

• Being with someone who accepts responsibility for their own actions or lack of.

• Having full trust in each other

• Having what we deserve - to be happy in life and more...

• No blame would ever be given, unless it's actual or factual

• Others wouldn't be chosen over our family or relationship

• Substances wouldn't be chosen over our family or relationship

There's so much that my daughter and I want in life. I believe that it is something that we deserve and should have, but don't. My daughter's father obviously doesn't want the same things in life, as we do. When we started our family, we had planned to do the proper thing - settle down, get married, start a family and our lives would be complete. Because I believe that he doesn't want the same things, I also believe that he doesn't deserve them - especially after the way he has treated us. His staying with us has changed things, I feel like our new plans have shifted back and we would have to start all over again. In any relationship, it is hard to seperate from the partner. But, when there's no trust, honesty, privacy or anything that people have in relationships, what is left? Love isn't always enough!

I gave up so much in my life, just to be with my child's father. I did everything he wanted, I felt that he completed me. But when I see him not taking responsibility or priorities for the family that he helped to create, of course I'm going to think that he doesn't want to be with us. There's so many things that you wouldn't do to someone, if you truly loved them. It is not only common sense, it makes complete sense!

I am replanning the life that my child and I want, being pushed away by her father. If he wanted to be with us as a family, he would stop using ice and lying about it. He made his choice a long time ago, he should let us live with the choices we've made. Life was so much happier, good things would often come to us. While all of this happened, my daughter's father suffered Karma's wrath. I want to have what I once had, there should be no reason why my so-called current partner shouldn't accept it. I have never had to go through this type of behaviour before and it angers me a lot - I don't want it in my life and I have every right to live how I want. I don't want to have certain things in my life that I do not want or like, I just want some of the simple things in life. Is it too much to ask for?

**Posted using BlogPress from Missxstatic's iPad Mini**