Should I take back my son’s deadbeat father?

DEAR BEL

AFTER many single years, I met a handsome man (I’m average) and, within a month, was pregnant with my first child — at 44.

Sam was thrilled and we were soon living together and getting ready for our lovely little boy.

But as I got to know Sam, I realised all the responsibility was on my shoulders. I learned this had been the case with his previous wife, who divorced him before we met.

We grew apart but remained good friends.

We’re both freelance. I was working doubly hard and pouring all my earnings into the house we had bought, with a hefty mortgage, and childcare. He dragged his feet.

Behind with our payments, we had to take out loans. I sold our house and absorbed the debts, as well as buying a new house. I’m the owner, but we have a joint mortgage he’s never paid into.

He hated where we lived, hated work, often hated me. After some years, I asked him to find a job elsewhere. He did, contributing to his child’s keep (but not the mortgage) and we saw him twice a year. He’s now announced that he has given in his notice and is sending all his stuff here.

I emailed saying we couldn’t live together but he could still make his summer visit. Yet I fear he’ll sit it out here, making me foot all the bills and getting nothing in return, while he looks for a job. The last period went on for six months and he did nothing in the house to help.

At Christmas, he told me he hadn’t loved me for ages and was in love with another woman. I wished him well. Unfortunately, it fell through and now he has no one but me, and is courting me again. His family have distanced themselves, not wanting him on their doorstep.

Whenever I mention the recklessness of leaving his job, he calls me mean. He has no savings and says he’s guided by angels who leave him signs like feathers to show they are watching over him.

I don’t want him to come here without a concrete offer of a job, and feel distrustful and insecure.

If I close the door I could be condemning him to homelessness, but if I open it, he may well live off me for the rest of his days.

My concern is my son and his future. I’ve ensured enough money for him to go to university, but I am very tired, having worked so hard for years to get work — and also find it for Sam.

He’s asked me again to start checking out opportunities for him. I’m sleepless. What should I do?

MARION

Sometimes i wonder whether all of us might pick one word to encapsulate the story of our lives . . . what it would be. of course, it might change at different stages, but it’s an interesting exercise.

i’m choosing ‘defiance’ for myself. And for you i suggest ‘gratitude’. Why? Because of the revelation in your first sentence.

it tells a story of a single woman who didn’t like that state and couldn’t believe her luck when a good-looking man paid her attention and awoke her sexually, when she believed herself to be the dull peahen to his glorious peacock. that’s about right, isn’t it?

this is important, for it probably set the dynamic for the relationship.

You didn’t know him when your son was conceived, but when you realised what he was like (lazy, selfish and weak are three useful adjectives) it was too late for you to rewrite the fiction of who you were: the lady pleased by his attention and, therefore, all-too-willing to put up with a lot as a result.

Although you were the hardworking one, i suspect you never lost your feeling that you weren’t quite worthy. it’s interesting that you describe yourselves as ‘friends’,

and I have no right to question that assertion.

Yet it sounds to me as if the one who has acted like a true friend is you, supporting him, dealing with the property, raising your son, listening to his moans, wishing him well when he told you he loved someone else and hadn’t loved you for years. Wow!

Meanwhile, your ‘ friend’ did nothing. In fact, so great was his commitment to the family, that he agreed it was a good idea to work elsewhere and only return twice a year. I admire you for making that suggestion to the deadbeat in your life, and imagine you welcomed him back for the sake of your son.

But this was a son he was willing to leave, because it presumably meant he didn’t have to bother with helping with homework and footie kit and all that tedious stuff that distracts from the contemplation of white feathers drifting (or not) from the sky.

So here you are, tired, feeling trapped and sleepless, yet apparently accepting that his stuff will arrive and he’ll get his feet under the table and sponge off you once more. And you will be helpless to change things.

Tell me, what would happen if you were to change the storyline? So when you write: ‘If I close the door I could be condemning him to homelessness’, the heroine of my new narrative shrugs: ‘So what?’

This isn’t a teenage kid, or a very old man. This is an ablebodied adult who could get it together to reconstruct his own life, if he didn’t assume that the anxious fairy godmother will always try to make things right for him.

But you don’t want him, you don’t love him, nor do you respect him. Time to turn the page.

Look, the man believes in angels. Well, maybe you should transform into bad angel/fairy for the first time in your life — this time for real — and tell him a firm: ‘No!’ You never know, he might thank you one day.