Kids Come First

When dating, whether polyamorously or monogamously, the kids come first. That’s law. Anyone who doesn’t understand this, even without it being said, isn’t someone you can date as a parent. In fact, as a parent you should date people that put your kid first too.

When I was pregnant I got ghosted a few times because I couldn’t smoke weed. Which was crazy to me. I never said I wouldn’t hangout with people that smoked–Hell, they could be high around me for all I cared. I just couldn’t smoke with them and obviously they couldn’t smoke right next to me. But we could still have a good time! Nope, that was apparently too much of an inconvenience for them. Good riddance. Not the type of person I wanted to spend time with anyway then.

Despite Sean not having kids of his own he is very understanding that I am a stay at home mom. Most of the time we hang out, during the day while Dakota is at work, I’m going to have my child with me. Occasionally he comes over in the evenings or I can get her down for a midday nap but usually our fun is kept very PG and he’s okay with this.

Ryan is also very understanding of my situation, being a parent himself. Which is why, despite the heartache it caused us both, he understood why we had to break up (again). Things have been growing more and more tense between him and Dakota for nearly a year now. I hate it. I love them both and want to be able to spend time with both of them. Sometimes together. But it’s become clear that’s too much to ask.

I would’ve dealt with the arguments and silent treatment and made Dakota get over it if it wasn’t for our kid. But he was in such a bad mood he would only half-ass play with her. His bad mood could affect me but it was absolutely unacceptable for it to affect her. 

Since we had an amicable break up Ryan and I are still in touch from time to time. I saw him just long enough to give him the Father’s Day gift I’d ordered before we broke up. He keeps me updated on work stuff (he got promoted!!) and of course Sara’s bullshit.

While it was pretty obvious to me pretty quickly that she wasn’t a good partner, it still blows my mind that she’s such a bad parent. As a mother I cannot imagine fucking my child over like she has and continues to do. At any point in 14 years she could’ve stopped cheating and her kid wouldn’t grow up with divorced parents… but that was clearly too much to ask.

Now I don’t really care about the “broken family” aspect. I’ve seen firsthand how it’s sooo much better for a kid to grow up with divorced parents than with parents that resent each other. My cousins grew up with a dad that repeatedly cheated on their mom and it definitely did more damage for her to stay with him than to leave. The thing that makes my blood boil is how she is fucking over her kid financially. Besides wasting money they don’t have on lawyers because she can’t be agreeable, the same two incomes that were barely supporting their kid before are now having to cover over twice the housing cost. And her housing cost hasn’t even gone up yet.

She’s so sheltered she doesn’t realize how fucked she’s about to be. Rent anywhere in our area that is an acceptable place for a child to live will be about 50% more than their mortgage is. Her living costs are about to skyrocket when they have to sell the house in the divorce. Her solution is to buy him out of the house (she can’t) but I’m pretty sure she’s too dumb to realize her mortgage would still go up when she has to refinance because she can’t keep his loan. (If you’re reading this you’re welcome for the heads up, dummy.)

All of this means they cannot afford the tuition they’ve been paying. They live in an area with shitty schools so they’ve been sending their kids to private school. For a couple months now I’ve been trying to get Ryan to move to a new apartment complex he can (surprisingly) afford in the best school district in the state. Literally one of the best schools in the country, considerably better than the private school their kid currently attends. His hesitation has been that he didn’t believe he could actually afford it. No way. The price ranges on the website started at unbelievably low for the area and went up to no-way-he-can-afford it, so he just assumed those low prices weren’t real. “Starting at” always has an interesting way of creeping up significantly from there, right? When a 2 bed became available and I could actually see a price listed for a specific unit I sent him a screenshot expeditiously.

“Seriously? That’s what I pay now. And that’s such a good area.”

This was the push he needed to discuss the new school district with Sara… Who was of course unreasonable. She couldn’t believe he was trying to move closer to me and blah blah blah, all of this unwarranted anger considering we’re literally broken up. But even if we weren’t I cannot fathom sabotaging my kid’s education out of spite.

Over the last few months it has become obvious to Ryan and his parents that I care more about the well being and success of this kid I’ve met four times than his own mother. I scoured our entire metro for a place that would let him thrive. And there’s so many other examples of her clearly choosing her own feelings over what’s best for her son but this is the one that actually hurts my heart. He has an opportunity to grow up in a safer neighborhood, with a better education, and they would have more money for his needs… and yet her priority is being an asshole to the man that was a better partner than she ever deserved.

Eventually everything will come to light. Kids grow up to be adults. Adults understand the bigger picture. Your kids will eventually figure out who the villain of the story really is. I’m doing right by my child. Maybe soon she’ll grow up and do the same.