{ugh}

I just spent my lunch hour going between looking for a place to rent in Tampa & filling out forms for child support.

Here's the deal...
Mike & I are legally married still. Next month marks 3 years since I moved out. Why are we not divorced yet? I have no good answer. We haven't had the money to do it, we haven't had the initative to do it. When we split, we came to an agreement on how much "support" he would pay, $100 a week. At the time, that was the cost of daycare. It's now less during school since she's only there before & after, but will go back to that price (or more) during the summer. About a year ago, I used an online calculator to find out how much the state would require as support, based on our incomes, the cost of childcare, the cost of health insurance, etc. It came up to just under $800 a month. So, for the past 3 years he's been paying approximatly half of what he would be required to pay if it was legal through the state. He knows this, I mentioned it to him once, as an FYI since I was thinking about filing papers. He went online, did the calculator too & confirmed it all. The only changes that we've made to our intial agreement is adding in that he will pay me back half of any medical copays/perscription medicane costs and we alternate weekly paying for her school lunches. My copay is $15 and her lunch is $8/week, so those aren't big changes. Less than $20 a month for the lunches & the occasional $7.50-$12 for Dr appts/perscriptions. Thank goodness for my good medical insurance.

My point to this is that I've been easy on him, at least in my opinion, for the past 3 years. I haven't asked him to pay what the state requires him to pay. I've let it slide when he is tight & is a week behind. I don't question where his money goes. (considering he was living at home, paying no rent, taking weekends away monthly, getting tattoos all the time) I've just let it be. My family dosen't agree with me, my friends don't agree with me. They think I should push the issue, but I always defend him. I always say, it's not through the state, I have no right to push it. They always tell me that I'm too nice & I need to protect Emma and make sure she get's what she deserves, so that she can have the best life possiable.

Now I get it. I found out yesterday that his girlfriend of 3 months (and 7 years younger than him & includes 'drinking, sex & parties' as part of her intrests on her myspace page) is pregnant. And I didn't find out from him. I found out from his sister. His sister who found out through her friend who found out from the girlfriends myspace page that announces her as a "mommy 2 b" and has a pregnancy ticker on it. When his sister confronted him, he said that they didn't want to tell anyone because she wasn't very far along yet. BS. If you don't want to tell anyone, then you don't put it on a public website that you know your friends & your boyfriends friends & family checks. He didn't tell anyone because he knows he's screwed up & he doesn't want to have to deal with it yet. I was telling a friend of mine about this last night & he said that Mike is probably not very happy with the situation & that's why he hasn't told me. I told him that I agree, I'm sure Mikes not happy about it, but that dosen't change anything, that dosen't make it go away, he still has to tell me.

So today I took the first steps in doing something that I should have done 3 years ago. Protecting my child. And honestly, I feel bad about doing it. I'm sure Mike's mind is racing, I'm sure he's stressed out, I'm sure he's scared. And here I am, filling out papers for child support enforcement, basiclly behind his back. (I'll tell him....maybe when he tells me she's pregnant...who knows.) I feel bad that I'm throwing this at him when he's already got so much coming at him. That guilt hits me & my stomach turns. I feel bad doing this to him at this time. I feel bad doing this to someone that I once cared so much for. Someone that even though I don't LOVE him, I do love him & I do care about him. And then I think about it more. And I'm reminded that there's this little girl that is amazing. And she needs shoes. She needs food. She needs shelter. And as his father, he's partly responsiable for that. I didn't choose for him to have another child. The only choice that I've made is to bring my daughter into the world & with that choice, I've commited to protecting her. And when it comes down to it, he made that choice too.

I had to get this out. I had to get it in writing so that later today, or tomorrow, or next week, when that guilty feeling hits me again, I can be reminded of why I'm doing this.