Hey, Big Brother Beer!

I’m a single Mom with three daughters. My youngest is eighteen, and is graduating high school in May. This past weekend, at a family get together (their father’s), the girls’ father offered them the use of his four bedroom house, rent free, while they are in college. They would have to pay utilities, but he said he would take care of the yard. I know he is going to insist that I suspend his child support payments, which I would be glad to do. But he hasn’t exactly been the best Single Dad in the world. The other day when he told the girls that they could move in to his now-vacant house was the first time he had seen them in over six months. He lives less than ten miles away.

I hope that my ex-husband is making an honest attempt to redeem himself, but somehow I doubt it. It breaks my heart when I think about the promises he has made to his girls that he hasn’t kept. I don’t even mean to paint him as deadbeat dad, because he does pay his child support. But he has not been a regular part of their life since our divorce back in the late nineties, when the girls were a lot younger.

What should I do?

I hope you have some good advice for me, Brother Beer. I really need it.

Long Time Reader, First Time Writer

What should you? As much as I hate it, LTRFTW, not a goddamn thing.

I’m guessing that every instinct you have is telling you put a stop to this BEFORE they get hurt. While that’s commendable, in this situation, it would be very foolish.

Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you put your foot down and try to forbid your daughters to move in to their dad’s house. All three are over the age of eighteen, so you can’t stop them. Now consider the amount of hostility that this will breed between you and your girls. They’re going to do it anyway, and the emotional wedge that you’ve driven between you and them will likely make it hard for you to support them in ways that they will accept and will need. If your instincts prove correct, and the offer of a rent free house is withdrawn at some point in the future, either before or after they move, you are going to want to be there for your daughters. And they will want you to be there as well.

The reality of the situation is that your daughters have reached the legal age of maturity. I say “legal” age because being old enough to vote doesn’t necessarily mean that they have achieved any sort of emotional maturity. While this could leave them wide open to be hurt by this creep again and again, the only thing you can do is offer your blessing, and be ready to pick up the pieces if (when) the whole thing falls apart. But if you stand in the way, the resentment they feel toward you will hurt your relationship with them, regardless of the eventual outcome.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 7:43 AM and is filed under Tell It All...To Big Brother Beer!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.