Single Dads

Culture is an excellent propagator of divorces as well. Let’s prove that in today’s lesson.

Many years ago, I knew a woman that I’ll call Jill. Jill was an attractive woman, more intelligent than most, who was at heart, a nice and relatively well meaning person with an interesting personality and a decent person. She was a good cook, a loyal individual, and a snappy dresser. In short, she was a great catch for just about anyone.

Unfortunately, she had one major flaw.

I’ll call it “The Cosmo Factor”.

Everything that she knew about men she seemed to cull from the pages of women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan, Elle, and others were a continual staple of her reading diet. If she wanted to know how to impress a man? Cosmo had an article with the goods. Why did men leave their girlfriends? The answer was in Allure. Any and all answers to all of the burning questions surrounding the classic, awesome, and continual Battle Of The Sexes could be found in a pop culture magazine geared towards women. Each magazine contained to the gospel to her. None of her male friends had the courage to tell her how wrong those periodicals were, though… much to our detriment.

Eventually, we drifted apart.

Enter 2007. To my horror, I read an Internet article titled 6 Sneaky Ways to a Better-Looking Partner , and God help me, the first person that I thought of was her. Here’s the intro, via Yahoo.

Pride may be one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but your lover’s lack of pride in how he looks can be even deadlier - to your love life, that is.

Sure, dedication, intelligence, and a sense of humor are what really stir the chemistry between you, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want your partner to feel like they’re on top of their game, looks-wise.

After all, a confident partner is a sexually motivated partner, and sometimes an extra dose of sensuality is all a relationship needs to go to the next level. But beware: Goosing your loved one into taking better care of himself can be dicey territory, and even the most polite suggestion that “maybe you need to lose a few pounds” can lead to somebody sleeping on the couch for a week.

As I read this, I stifled a scream. Please, not the return of women again trying to change their men. Aren’t divorce rates high enough in this country and others? Isn’t the level of resentment, among men and women, high enough, finally? Doesn’t anyone believe that men can read?

People, people. If you’re getting involved, and the thing that you want to do is CHANGE your partner, I can promise you you’re not doing it right.

And guys, before you start thinking that you are all clever, “Maxim” is a man’s answer to Cosmo.  Both magazines give false hope to clueless individuals.  I could have called this the “Maxim Factor”quite easily.

So, for this article, I award this comment on the article 6 Sneaky Ways to a Better-Looking Partner:

You have failed.

At no time in recent memory, has an article failed more than this one.

Please, never do this again.

As a man with children and an ex, I’m always keeping my eye out for things to help my daughter out (and me) out financially. One important thing that you can do at the end of the year is start planning for your kids future, both financially and educationally, and one way that I’ve done that is by using a 529 plan.

A 529 plan is an investment vehicle for future educational expenses that grows federally and state income tax free that has various rules and regulations based on the state in which you live and the specific plan in which you want to enroll. In Colorado, the plan that I enrolled in was found at CollegeInvest.org, and I can tell you from experience, it definitely pays to shop around for a plan, as fees and past performance can be vastly different. Also, in my plan, my ex has no claim to the money invested and my donation to the plan is state income tax deductible up to $250.00 as long as I donate that amount to my daughter’s plan before year end. Nice. Another bonus is that if your children don’t use the 529 money, you can use it yourself for qualified expenses, and in other cases, for unqualified expenses, although a tax hit would probably occur. If my daughter doesn’t use the plan that I started for her, I’ll buy a boat and give it her name instead. Probably.

Naturally, before you were to invest in such a thing, you definitely want to do your research or talk to a financial planner or another tax or financial professional before you jump. For me, though, it’s perfect. Better, I feel like I’m doing something positive for my daughter, as I suspect that college expenses in the future will be astronomical and I have no indication that my ex is doing any planning for my daughter’s educational future, period.

But now is a great time to look at some sort of educational planning for your kids. Take a look at it.

On occasion I suffer from writer’s block, that bane of bloggers, journalists, authors, musicians and poets everywhere, and after reading an article from someone that I read regularly on the pratfalls of writing, it occurred to me that the waffling over the decision to get a divorce and the affliction known romantically as writer’s block have something in common: both can be partially explained by the emotion of fear.

This writer mentioned a few fears: failure, success, rejection, mediocrity, and risk. Think about the possibility of a divorce that looms. What are your fears with divorce?

There is the fear of success, meaning that you won’t have to deal with a painful relationship any longer, which also means that you won’t have the certainty of knowing who you’re coming home to at night.

There is the fear of failure, meaning that you broach the divorce solution with your spouse and they reject that, which could mean, if you weren’t resolute in your feelings for a divorce prior to the conversation, that you might change your mind and be stuck in terrible relationship.

There is the fear of separation of family, meaning that if you have kids, you might not be able to see your children whenever you might like.

There is the fear of rejection, meaning that after your successful divorce, other people might find you to be a poor relationship risk.

There is the fear of the unknown, meaning that you might have been together with your ex for so long that you have no idea what it’s like out in the single world again, and that you have to start your search for your true love all over again, and you might fail at that.

If those fears aren’t enough to terrify you, there are others: fear that the ex will sully your reputation, fear that you’ll lose mutual friends, or fear that your ex will leave with your money or possessions that can also come into play.

If you are truly ready to get a divorce, seriously consider your fears. Only after serious contemplation will you be able to conquer those emotions that hold you back.

Divorce happens. Here’s a guarantee: prior to every divorce that has ever occurred, someone had to stand up and take stock of their relationship situation and find it in some way lacking.

Adults in the real world have to consider the warning signs. Those indications will tell you either that it’s 1. time to leave your spouse, or 2. do the serious legwork necessary to make things better for yourself and your family.

Here are some rather obvious clues:

• You are spending more time at work, not because you love work, but because you don’t want to spend time with your spouse.
• You and your spouse no longer go to bed together.
• You dread weekends (or other times when you have days off) because you know that you’ll be at home, and your spouse will likely be with you.
• You or your spouse is cheating.
• You don’t want to do the things that you liked previously to do with your spouse.
• When you attend social or work-related events, you tend to or would prefer to leave your spouse at home.
• You or your spouse are ignoring your physical appearance or personal hygiene.
• Your kids are your only incentive to stay married.
• You or your spouse are drinking or using drugs much more than usual to achieve some altered state.
• Being with your spouse makes you unhappy, depressed, or indifferent.
• You or your spouse is physically or emotionally abusive.

Many couples go through some of these from time to time, but lingering problems such as these are all strong indications that something serious is wrong. Ask yourself some questions and provide some answers. What led up to your present feelings of doubt? When did the behavior start? Where do you see you and your spouse in the future? When you see yourself or your spouse slipping into any of these behaviors, seriously consider getting some additional, and hopefully professional, help. But if that doesn’t work, rationally consider the all your options before making additional life-changing decisions.

Priorities. When it comes right down to it, I have only three of note: first is myself, then is my family, finally would be work and friends. Why does this single dad mention that?

This single dad mentions that because at the moment, the my inner space is a touch out of whack. If you were wondering why I haven’t written as much lately, it’s not because of writer’s block; it’s because item no. 3 from above has finally begun to intrude on my primary concerns. In short, I’ve been a very busy dad lately, meaning, yes, I’m working too much.

I would imagine that this is a common problem with parents generally, and possibly single dads - especially, ones that are highly motivated by the thoughts of their children’ present and future - in particular. We must make money to pay for added responsibilities. Child support, alimony, clothes, health care… all of that costs money. Tack on other items like college planning, private schooling, and other optional items, and suddenly, it might never seem to be enough. So, if you’re like me, then you must work, and work like a dog sometimes, to pay for it.

Lately, though, I have been noticing little warning signs: not writing as much as usual, not sleeping as well, appetite fairly suppressed, and I realized that work and life are out of balance. I started writing on this website because it was something that I enjoyed, and because I wanted to leave my daughter little reminders of how I was thinking when she was a baby. That’s a me thing, and to shirk that in even the smallest thing means that am not looking out for myself. Hence, it’s time to take a step back.

Goodbye, part time job. Oh, how so painfully well I knew ye. Guess I’ll have to find some other way to drop a little extra in the college fund.

Come to think of it, I suppose that I just got my daughter a new pair of shoes last month, and they were pretty inexpensive.  I bet she’ll make the rest of the year just fine.

On occasion, I like to look at Craigslist, which I consider to be one of the great Internet success stories of our time. Not only is it great for browsing classifieds (which is where I found not only a great end table set, but the wonderful home where I now live), but it’s also fantastic for other nuggets of human interest, like personals, jobs, and humor. Hence I was overjoyed to find in the Best of Craigslist a posting from my hometown, Denver, that almost demands a written response.

In this anonymous posting, a forty-something man gives his 9 rules for dating, and I have to say that this gentleman has a few solid points. I’m not going to simply repeat his rant here, but I did have a couple of items of note to mention, namely:

1. I never seriously date a woman who terminated her last relationship because she wasn’t “happy”. Happiness is an emotional response to external stimuli. To break the vow of “til’ death do us part” over an emotional state that may or may not be another person’s fault, is shallow and shows a lack of emotional maturity. It tells me that woman is too self absorbed to be a reliable partner in the future.

5. “Independent” women. I never date a woman who feels the need to tout her own independence. First, independent entities by definition do not want or need to be in any type of union with another entity. When the United States declared independence from Great Britain, we dissolved the ties that had connected us to the British. I myself am independent and feel no need to tell everyone about it. It is called being an adult. Being able to take care of yourself doesn’t make you special, it makes you “grown folks”. Second, if you are that independent, why are you looking for a relationship in the first place? Independence is the opposite of dependence and being able to depend on others is why we get into relationships of any kind in the first place.

7. I don’t date women who have their children full time. Might come across as a shitty attitude to have, but I see no need to be a full time father to someone else’s children and a part time father to my own. This is a personal preference I developed after having discussions with my own children. Mine have been through enough already, I’m the Dad and feel I am doing what is best for my children, they were here first.

One of the things that I found particularly interesting about this man’s rules was the completely different perspectives that my girlfriend and I had on the same topics. My significant other found this guy to be bitter; I, on the other hand, didn’t. I found him realistic. But I didn’t agree with him on EVERY point. For instance, as a single father, I found the part about not dating women that have their children full time a touch… loathsome. I can understand that a person might not want to deal with extra people coming between you and your own children, but it kind of seems like a problem of time allocation. I also suspect that men that won’t date women that have their children full-time are eliminating a possibly fantastic pool of empathic mates. Personally, I’ve found most single mothers to be great people that are very appreciative of male attention.

Naturally, his results probably varied.
My rules were not nearly as complex - of course, I have a wonderful significant other and am so out of the single’s market that I’ve forgotten what the market is like - but yes, I do have rules, some of which were at one point probably a little similar to this person’s own. It’s an interesting perspective on the culture of fatherhood, being single, and dating later in life that exists in world today.

There was a pretty funny post over at yoga72179 titled Are You A Bitter Baby’s Mama or A Wise Single Mom? Take This Quiz And Find Out.  Naturally, the post was aimed at single moms, but as a single dad, the temptation to read this post was too strong to ignore.  Oh, and what wisdom was posted therein!  An excerpt:

If you’re a single mom who’s been holding it down alone or simply dealing with a hard-to-take ex, it’s easy to get caught up in tit-for-tat dynamics. But theres a price we pay when we allow bitterness to seep in and engage in no-holds-barred power struggles. Even if the anger is justified and we believe the other person had it coming. What begins to happen is that same bitterness spirals into the other facets of our lives causing a domino effect. And sooner than you know it, it starts to dominate your thoughts, consume your conversations and pollute your spirit.

How true, how true.  I was talking just the other day to a person similarly situated as I, as a single parent trying to get by.  Fortunately, I’m in a position where my day job is in a skill type position, and I have the ability to work more doing part-time work and freelancing.  For many, this isn’t the case, and this person’s situation with their child isn’t so great at all.  But an interesting thing that they said is that it “simply takes too much effort” to be a bitter parent - and they’re right.  Being a bitter parent is a net loss.  It comes out to family, friends,

Being a bitter parent is a net loss.

acquaintances, the legal system (which is so pleasant to deal with already) and others.  It steals your spirit, when spirit is one of the qualities that you need the most when you are a single parent.

High stress due to infighting with the ex over child-related issues?  Exercise.

Can’t sleep because you’re always thinking about the next move?  Read.

Don’t want to talk to the ex?  Fine, but don’t avoid the issue.  Your kids are at stake.

Being positive is the best, and most effective, form of therapy.  Bitter parents raise bitter kids, which the exact opposite of the result you should be trying to achieve.  Remember that.