Actually, I didn't know that he had been using while I was with him, I was working two jobs until I was seven months pregnant, trying to save money for this child. It was then that I noticed his "off" behavior. When confronted with the fact that he was stealing money, he confessed that he'd gotten back into using. I'd never even known he had. He'd told me he had a rough past and that it was behind him, so in the spirit of acceptance I never questioned that until I could tell he wasn't the same person I met. At that point we separated because I gave him a sober ultimatum, and he chose to disappear for the next three months to live on the streets in Reno and panhandle to support his heroin habit, which he has said himself was new, before he'd only messed around with drinking and pills as a teen.
He showed up a month after she was born, wanting to see her, I gave him a pharmacy drug-test and he passed, so I said he could visit. Yes he is her physical father, so he does have rights, I concur. But he doesn't have the right to harm my daughter which he has threatened and attempted in front of myself and witnesses since I said he couldn't visit her until he could pass drug tests consistently again.
And no, I didn't have a clue he was using because when you don't affliate yourself in those circles, you don't know what to look for. It's not like he came home looking stoned, he was always dead-tired appearing, and losing weight slowly. I thought it was because he was working 12 hour shifts like I was, not because once he got off of work him and his friends ran to downtown Reno and picked up some drugs to do before they went home to their families. It's not like there were needle marks.
Yeah, I'm naive about drug-usage, I can think of worse things to be: like a bitter and critical lover that falsely accuses your every move of being suspect. But instead, I loved somebody, and gave them the benefit of the doubt, multiple times. Perfect trust means just that. He threw it away. I won't let him harm my child now because I was stupid enough to make those mistakes in my past though.
And as far as the "musical states" comment, yes I would pick up and go anywhere I needed to, to ensure my child's safety from this loser, which I self-admittedly fell for. Yes he does have rights, as long as he's sober and safe for her to be around. Obviously, or I wouldn't have granted him visits before. There's too much to this to even explain. So in the mean time, let's just assume that you don't know everything.
Maybe that you don't know how many chances I've given this guy that he's tossed away. That you don't know how myself and his family have begged him to go to rehab. That you don't know everything that he just tossed aside to become an addict again. That you don't know what it's like to have to deny the man that you loved seeing his daughter because he's strung-out on something, although you don't know what. That you don't know how it hurts to see someone you cared about like that threaten you, and your child together, even the home that you pulled together after he smashed your last one to pieces.
How many times have you seen a woman raise her children around an abuser and thought or said why didn't she get away sooner? Because no one supports her until the children are already scarred. I was raised in a home with an abusive parent, and I will go to any lengths to protect my child. Even change my identity and leave my life behind. Yes, I will go anywhere to do so, as long as in the end it is the best thing for my daughter. I'm sorry you can't understand that. I appreciate your legal responses, I do, but that's all I believe that I've sought here. If you have commentary on what I consider to be my options, contact me personally, or for once, recommend something helpful, instead of harping on everyone because they're already at their last thread.