Isn't it ironic?

"It's the good advice... that you just didn't take..."

Last night I had a 45-minute long conversation with a past version of myself. A woman I know just broke up with her long-term boyfriend. They'd been together about 6 years. They had a kid together, and she had one before she met him. I've known them both, and they've both complained to me about the other one.

"He's too lazy," she says. "He never does anything to help around the house. He doesn't even have a job, and when he gets one, he doesn't help with the bills. He spends the money on himself before helping the kids and the household." The couple has had to move several times because they couldn't pay their bills.

"She's bad with money," he says. "She buys brand name stuff for the kids, has to have Huggies diapers, new furniture all the time, buys all this food that they won't eat and then we have to throw it out. She says she's just 'supporting the kids' and then complains when we don't have enough money. Why should I give her money if she's just going to throw it away?"

And yet, for all their repetitive disagreements, and then on-again-off-again-relationship, they both love the kids, and stayed together. She says she still cares about him, but she just couldn't put up with his attitude every day. So she kicked him out. I got to hear about it, not just from him and her, but from other mutual acquaintances. "Did you hear?" they would ask. "They broke up AGAIN. I'm sure they'll get back together."

Well, she called me last night, upset because he had told their daughter he would visit on Wednesday night and instead, showed up reeking of bar, at 11:00 Wednesday night, long after she was asleep. He carried her from the couch to her bed, kissed her goodnight, and left. But she didn't see him, so she thinks he never came. And then he told her mom that he'd be there for sure on Thursday, and that's what she told her daughter. He didn't show again. She's five years old, just a few months younger than my little Jane. "She doesn't know why he's gone, she only wants to see him, and I feel like it's my fault my little girl is hurting, because I'm the one who kicked him out."

"I'm going to offer you some advice," I told her, "but first, I'm going to tell you a story." I told her about how, when I first found out about Michael's affair, and he told me he was leaving with Jamie, then changed his mind only an hour later, my Aunt Lorraine told me to leave him alone. "Go to your dad's house for a while, leave him alone to sort this out. Let him figure out what he REALLY wants, and THEN decide what you're going to do about it."

"I remember you saying something like that, back when it happened," she said. "All right, then," I said, "the point of that story is, looking back, that's what I should have done, but it isn't. Instead, I let him stay, she left, and then the next day, he went out for a walk and didn't come back." Even telling that story in it's shortened form, I felt daggers in my heart. I shivered, and shook them loose, focusing on helping my friends. "He's not a bad guy, he's just... irresponsible," I said. I know you want him to be responsible. You will it to be true, imagining that he'll show when he says he will, he'll do what he says he will. But, in the end, he only does about a quarter of what he says. If he just abandoned you completely, you could be angry, and justifiably so. But this half-assed attempt at being a father doesn't make you angry, just sad.

Truth be told, I was talking about both our exes by that point.

"So here's my advice to you: get a child custody order. You don't even have to bring money into it. I know you don't want to do child support because if he defaults on that he goes to jail. (I didn't tell her that most of the time, THAT doesn't even happen. It was a possibility in her mind, and that was enough to have caused her to cancel the court date the last two times that she'd begun the process.) But you can get a child custody order. It's not even real "court". It's an arbitrator, like Judge Judy. And it'll be better coming from a third party. I mean, think about what would happen if you and he just casually agree that he's going to come pick up his daughter every other weekend. What's going to happen when he doesn't show? Or when he shows up six hours late? But if a JUDGE says to him, "You can't see your daughter whenever you want. You only get Tuesday and Saturday between the hours of 4 pm and 8 pm." He might just become responsible enough to show up at the appointed time.

And if he doesn't show up on Tuesday at 4, he doesn't get to see his daughter until Saturday. It might be just what he needs to help him become the father that she needs him to be. "And if he doesn't show, what do I tell our daughter? Because I've been telling her all kinds of things, like, "Daddy had to help his grandma mow her lawn, or Daddy had to help our friend Celia fix her computer," "He did come fix my computer that day, by the way." "Did you pay him?" "Yeah, but just $10, because he didn't do that much, and he handed the ten off to our friend Jon, who was hanging out here that day, because he owed him money." "He told me you didn't even pay him," she said. "I can't trust anything he says."

We were getting sidetracked, and I didn't want to get caught in the middle of "he says/she says" between two friends. So I steered the conversation back to my advice. "I understand if you don't want to take him to court. I know you've filled out the papers before," I began. "Yeah," she said, "And I stopped both times. I don't want to go through all that when we can work it out between ourselves." Again, I felt like I was having a conversation with a previous version of myself. "I know you want to take the path of least resistance here. You know something I never wanted to do? Go on welfare. I was raised to take care of myself. If you need to borrow money, you pay it back as soon as you can. But you don't take something that doesn't belong to you, and you don't take handouts. But in the end, I had to put aside what I didn't want to do and ask what was BEST for my kids."

"I didn't know you're on welfare," she said.

Jake has a medical condition. Or four, depending on the expert of the week. He needs Medical Assistance (welfare) to pay for all the emergency room visits, EEGs, special trips to Geisinger Children's Hospital twice a year. All 3 kids are on MA. We also receive SSI for him (welfare), food stamps (welfare) and CCIS, which pays 90% of my day care costs and gets the majority of its funding from "state monies", which is a nice way of saying... welfare. So although I don't get actual CASH from the state (which is what most people think of when they talk about "welfare"). I don't have any money saved "for a rainy day". I have no retirement fund. I have no money set aside for the kids for their future. Why? Because I have no money at the end of the month. If I did, I wouldn't be on welfare.

"Don't even get me started," I said. "I just want to point out that we all do things we don't want to do. And we do it for our kids. There are days where I get fed up with my job and I want to quit on the spot, and there are days when I don't want to make dinner, and just pour the kids a bowl of cereal instead, but I force myself to at least cook something. The point is, we all do things we don't want to do for our kids. And what I would want, if she were my daughter, is for her to have a set schedule, to know "this is when my dad is supposed to be here." If he doesn't show, well, you can cross that bridge when you come to it. But I think if he knows he only gets to see her once a week or whatever, then he won't miss it.

"I'll think about it," she said. "The office is open tomorrow," I pressed. "Why wait? If you do, you'll second guess the decision. You know what you should do, so do it. I filed for divorce when Mike was still in the rubber room." "What?" she asked. So then I told her that story, and that's why we were on the phone for 45 minutes last night. I hung up with the impression that she was going to "try to work things out" with him by herself.



"It's a free ride when you've already paid. It's the good advice that you just didn't take.... Isn't it ironic?"