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Anatomy of a Deadbeat Dad part one

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Paul Nelson reveals how he became a “deadbeat dad”.

—This is article #92 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

Make no mistake. Domestic Violence (DV) legislation and mechanisms designed to protect victims work well. The law and all those that work inside it, its custodians and enforcers, do their jobs pretty well. Some tick boxes to ensure process is followed, others dogmatically pursue this cause celebre with religious fervour. They are there to protect the weak, and they will do that job to the best of their ability, and then some.

2009:

I know what they are thinking. It’s not hard, just one look at their faces. I sense their disgust and its hard to look them in the eye. I know how they view me. The female DV specialist police officer pushes me into an interview room and demonstrates that I have no patriarchal advantage here; right now right here in this moment, she shows me who has the power.

24hrs Earlier; the police arrive and I am sat in the kitchen. A female police officer walks upstairs to speak to my wife. I can hear her break into painful wails of relief as her armed protector arrives. I sit silently downstairs, stunned by what had just taken place. Trying to make sense of it all. I recall the next hour as if it were a slow motion movie. A silent movie with the players each speaking, their lips moving but I hear no sound. And then my head breaks the surface and the sound rushes back in. The male police officers take me to their car. I’m there at the station and I’m now being interviewed.

No, I don’t want a solicitor. I don’t think I’ve done anything all that wrong. At least I don’t think I have? Where’s my wife?

She been taken somewhere safe and the children are with her.

Can I see the children?

No, thats not going to happen. You need to talk to us first and then we’ll decide what happens from here. We strongly advise you to get a solicitor.

Are they nuts, why would I want or need a solicitor?

This is all a misunderstanding. My wife and I love each other. This will all blow over. You’ll see. Its happened before but it never went this far. Can you have a word with her for me and ask her if we can sort this out.

Not this time, its gone too far. She doesn’t want to hear from me and is, I find later, receiving assistance from a free solicitor specialising in domestic violence funded by a women’s group.

I am not arrested or charged, I came to the station willingly. As soon as I am released I make it as far as the next corner and throw up into an alley way. I’ve never been interviewed before, certainly not like this and it’s taken 3 hrs. I’ve been interrogated and its a first for me. I’m just not used to it. The shock and fear prompts retching on an empty stomach. I’m struggling to breath and it hurts. There are others on the street but they seem scared of me. I notice the spatters of blood down my shirt and realise I look a mess. I catch my breath and the dizziness subsides. Its cold and I need to go home. To our now silent and empty home. I don’t know where my wife and children are.

Another day, another interview and then the call. Mr Nelson? Yes. I am a court bailiff. I am informing you that you have been issued a Non Molestation Order and must not go back to or approach the matrimonial home, and you must not make contact of any kind with your wife and children. Do you understand? I say yes but I do not, not really. This type of thing doesn’t happen to me. Its others you hear about. Not me, not us.

Shock is a word few understand until they have experienced it.

My perfect world has come to an abrupt end and I have not been given the letter of notice to allow me to prepare. I have nowhere to turn. ‘Our’ friends no longer return my calls. I realise she’s told them. I feel humiliated and scared of peoples reaction. One neighbour rescues me, he doesn’t ask too many questions and sees I am not built to deal with this challenge. He offers me a sofa for the night. I couldn’t sleep so I needn’t have bothered. This then becomes my new living arrangement. I move from sofa to sofa, and later into the back of a van that a friend lends to me. Pretty tough for a guy that is otherwise used to the luxuries afforded by a high level career in the city. I’m able to collect my things when she is out of the house. The police officer helps throw my designer suits into a black bin liner. They are crumpled and a perfect metaphor for my new existence.

2010 – 2012:

My ban seeing the children is now established and permanent. Contact orders were ignored by my wife and there’s no way to enforce them; not in the real world. Only on BBC news items that like to promote how good our family law system is. It always makes angry when I see these because it is propaganda, but I suspect some of these journo’s actually believe it. They would not if they walked a mile in my shoes.

Our home is gone, sold. The proceeds in their entirety passed to my wife. My elderly father who is in care has his life savings removed and passed to my wife. Its complex to explain but my wifes lawyers work their magic and I am unable to afford representation on an ongoing basis. I endure my punishment and that of an innocent man in his 80’s because a family court judge says this is what fair looks like.

I can’t face walking past our old home because of what it represents. Its easier to go somewhere different to hide from the shame and the pain of it all. The haunting voices of my children taunt me if I dare pass by our old home. So I don’t but I’ve tried a few times. This is where my last child came back to from the maternity ward, where she ran and played with her bigger sisters in the garden. My abiding memory, the exquisite sound of their squealing and giggling. Three girls. Ages 4 to 13.

All is silent and empty now.

I have lost my job. The stress of the break up, the psychological and financial strain of family court. The rumours of my crimes make it worse. I desperately want to see my daughters. My repeated attempts to do so always fail, if not through judicial indifference then to a mother who flatly refuses to abide by the court order.  People in my work and across my industry hear the story. The shame is complete. A do gooder has anonymously called around and kicked off the rumour mill, the word spreads like an uncontrollable fire. People view me differently when they see me as a bad man, a beater and molester of wife and children. Worse things too but I can’t bring myself to share them here. They are truly appalling to think let alone share. We don’t like or need your type around here is the new order of the day.

I can’t afford a car anymore, my clothes wear and I unable to replace them. How do you go from successful city man to virtual tramp in just 2-3 years? Sometimes, on a good day I even laugh at my own miserable transformation. Friends in and around my stockbroker village mostly turn their backs on me and the calls and texts are rarely returned. A few nervously befriend me but ensure it’s not too well known. I am a pariah. No one wants to be associated with my kind of man. I’m introduced to the term deadbeat dad – I am the man David Cameron Prime Minister spoke of on Fathers day 2011. Some have the balls to say it to my face; usually women who see it as their job to stand up for other women. I don’t know what to say to them; they’ve already judged me and usually their decision is final. There’s more to our story I want to say to them, equally there’s more story than time and their interest allows. They know me better than I know myself.

Humans are hardy creatures and I become accustomed to the occasional aggression thrown my way; oddly, I find myself admiring their conviction, their morals and stand. But it hurts. It helps to conclude that I must deserve this existence for my crime, that even my dying father deserves to be striped of all he has as a final punishment and ‘deathblow’ to me.

I reach a particularly low point and upon hearing an idea from a friend, I stop eating. A self imposed punishment with no clear aim or reason. Eleven days in and I’m 9.5 kilos lighter. I start eating again. It would have been quite easy to not do so. I think I made the right decision.

To continue reading Paul’s story see: Anatomy of a Deadbeat Dad part two 

— Picture credit: PinkMoose

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Anatomy of a Deadbeat Dad part two

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Part two of three……..

2013:

Years pass and I have slowly, and only partially rebuilt my life. I now see my eldest but I know she is irreparably damaged by what has passed. I can find no peace but I keep going because it’s the best I can now offer my daughter. I am not allowed to see my youngest. I’m deemed too dangerous and too much time has passed according to the family judge. She has the option of looking for me when she reaches 18; she’s 9 now, has not seen me for 4 years and has had her name (illegally) changed by my ex wife – not much chance of my daughter locating me or knowing how I feel about her. Our state enforced separation is complete and unbreakable.

Outwardly I am strong but I am aged beyond my years. My bloodhound face shows a place in time further away than reality might otherwise correct. At night I sometimes lose my battle with control when it is silent and dark, the absence of distraction prompting memories, sometimes tears but I usually stop myself. Its always my youngests face that I see in those dark moments. I switch on the light to burn away the sadness. Unlike others I actually long to go into the light. Ironic. It removes the pain and is a happier place to be.

I am now moved far away and I have started a new life where no one knows me, no one judges. I have new friends but I fear being close to another human. I have learned that the closest and most precious can be removed in an instant. Just like that – here one moment, gone the next. Self preservation dictates imposed distance and a barrier with others to prevent loss. If your children and wife can disappear without warning, why would anyone else be there for you, or a safer bet? Here and gone. Here and gone. When I think about it I see my heart encased in a turtle like shell, safe and unpenetrateable.

2014:

Its been 5 years and I want to love but thats a whole world of trust away from what I’m probably fully capable of. Time may change this, we’ll see. For love, I’ve found is a weakness and cannot be offered lightly. I find that instead I give my love to external causes because they can never be taken away. They help to remove the guilt of my own stupidity that fateful day in 2009. There’s always someone else in greater need and it serves to remind me where I’ve been, and how lucky I now am to have what little I now have. I work, I travel by bus (no more sports car for me), I cook and I clean a lot. The apartment needs to be clean to negate the bad shit hidden deep down below. I can no longer deal with disorder because it is symbolic that I have lost control and could at any time spiral back down into the vortex of pain, and drown.

Sometimes I lie in bed late at the weekend and hold onto to a bracelet that my youngest gave to me when I last saw her. I like to twirl it between my fingers and keep it in my curled palm. It is coated in silver but I have worn it away to the darker metal underneath. It smells of her, at least it does to me but maybe that is a trick of my mind. Maybe it just smells of metal but that would mean that she is gone, so its not that.

Today:

I wish I had not done what I did that day. I made a terrible mistake and the price I’ve paid is far too high. My children are suffering, and I am too. My father died penniless and ill, his last days devoid of grandchildren because of my stupid error.

If I could relive that moment in 2009 I would do things differently. I have lived to regret each moment since. In my next life I resolve to act differently, for my children’s sake not mine. I accept that in this life I have failed them.

My dream is that someday, someone will right this wrong in a way that I am unable to, that I could see my youngest, give her a hug and tell her that I love her. That I’ve missed her beyond words these last 5 years. I am resigned to the fact it will not happen.

All the things that my wife told the police that fateful day, and later the family courts have made that impossible. Since then, everything that I love and have made is lost. Worst by far the loss  of children. My youngest is now without me as her father. All of it was so needless and so avoidable if only I had not made that one mistake, that one momentary loss of control.

My crime?

On that morning in 2009 I found that my wife had been having yet another affair. Bored at successfully achieving her childhood dream of being a housewife in a large house whilst hubby slaves in the city, she decided to fill her time with risky sex. I found that she had transferred our joint money into her own name and that she planned to suddenly disappear. One email she sent to a prospective lover she met through sugardaddie.com still burns in my brain:

“My life is so perfect but I am selfish, and I want more. Is that so bad?”

I confronted her calmly. For that I was later interviewed and dragged through hell by the police and everything stripped from me by the family courts. My children, my career, my home, my father, my dignity. My very soul dragged from me, shot, burned and stamped into the ground.

My wife’s reaction was to physically attack me, her plans disrupted before they could be enacted. Much later I discovered that she had done this before with two former partners so this was hardly something new to her. I did not know of her past throughout our time together. With each man she destroyed she perfected her art. She honed her skills as the expert hunter and the state willingly provided the weaponry for her next prey.

My crimes were to call 999 when she’d attacked me and would not stop. She was much smaller than me but was driven by a psychotic rage that I’d not seen in another human. It was a momentary choice for me; likely hurt her to forcibly stop the attack, or dial 999.

To find out what happened next see: Anatomy of a Deadbeat Dad part three

Anatomy of a deadbeat dad part three

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Part three of three…..

My wife was on my back clawing at my neck trying to rip at my skin where my jugular vein is. She was by any measure a woman possessed. She was still on my back when I dialled 999 and shouted out that I was being attacked and our home address. I threw the phone down, heaved her off my back and shut myself in the kitchen. I heard her storm upstairs screaming in rage. She returned calm a few minutes later and spoke through the door. And then the moment of my real crime.

She quietly instructed me to call off the police and that if I refused she would ensure I lost everything, that I would be thrown out of our home and that I would never see any of my children again. That everything I had ever worked for would be taken from me. That I would be accused of the most horrific crimes and that she would ensure everyone would hear of it. No one would believe me and that her background in social services meant she knew exactly how to turn the system on me. She promised that I would live to regret this day for the rest of my life and that she would never stop until I was destroyed. I didn’t think about it. I responded quietly that it was too late, that she had gone too far this time. She would have to deal with the consequences of her actions.

When the police arrived, I told them what had happened. I did so quietly, still deep in shock. She told them a very different version between dramatic bouts of bloodcurdling wails to ensure our neighbourhood would be in no doubt who the true victim here was. They could not fail to see our marital embarrassment, advertised as it was with a sea of revolving blue lights in our sleepy cul de sac.

She was at least honest in one sense; she kept her last promise to me.

If I had my time again I would not have made that call to the police. It only made things infinitely worse. And if in my time again I made the mistake of calling them, I would reflect upon it and would undoubtedly call them off before they arrived. I was stupid to believe that I could defy what I later came to know as the God of Duluth. It is an all powerful god and I AM the disposable gender in her Book of Righteousness. The thing you my reader will disbelieve could happen as reported, is exactly the view I myself had held until I found otherwise. I was wrong and so are you if you do not understand how it works. Domestic Violence legislation works well. It protects the weak, but not always the victim. It punishes the male, but not always the perpetrator. It rewards the female for her being brave in coming forward with her claims, but not always the person telling the truth.

The fact is, our Domestic Violence legislation and protective mechanisms served to destroy not only my life but that of my 3 girls and a dying father. And therein lies a bitter irony; that in it’s efforts to right a wrong by applying a gendered response it ended up hurting more females than males.

I have learned that all it takes to remove a mans life (and of all those that depend upon him) is one single lie uttered from the lips of a crying woman. It matters not how ridiculous and obviously untrue that lie, only that it comes from the lips of a women demanding state protection. There is no come back, no reversal of the permanent damage that is wrought thereafter.

Once the train wreck is in motion it does not stop.

All I had to do that day was to accept my newly imposed life as a cuckold, to do exactly as I was told and to not aspire to believe that anyone would come to my aid.  If I had done as is expected of me, Then I might be better off now. More importantly, my children might still have a father and an identity that they were born with.

My detractors are absolutely right; there really is no smoke without fire. I was in fact guilty of a heinous crime. I was guilty of gross naivety; believing that the police would help me, that blood under her nails and multiple lacerations to my neck and chest would be evidence ample of victim and perpetrator, that her initial admission she had attacked me would not later be ignored by police as ‘inconvenient’, that judges cared about the truth and that social services would actually investigate what they had been ordered to. I was wrong on all these counts and many more.

Duluth reigns supreme over us and all must kneel down before her and obey. Duluth is the all powerful matriarch.

All hail Duluth. All hail Duluth.

—THE END—