I CONFESS: She turned my daughter against me

Children in Barbados are trapped in the middle of a war between their parents. I know this to be so from personal experience and the almost weekly outcry from women about child support in the media.
My heart goes out to some of these women as I truly believe that children should be taken care of. However, I believe the best situation for a child is to have both their parents lovingly living together and contributing to their development.
The truth is, though, every man and woman is not fit to be a parent. What should be recognized, too, is that women use children to spite men. This is why they often take men to court for maintenance although they know the man may not be the biological father.
That is why I believe every child should have a DNA test at birth to stop women from choosing “fathers” according to his job and salary. This has been happening for years and everyone knows it; yet when a man is taken to court he usually leaves with the feeling that he was robbed.
It’s time the court system is reformed to stop this! After all, it takes two people to produce a child; so in heaven’s name, tell me why the man alone is saddled with the burden of support. If judgment is made, it should affect both parties, not just the man.
Because men suffer most in these issues, it makes me wonder if the widespread perception of men being dogs who recklessly run around spilling their seed could be more deep seated than realized. Those who hold this view should realize that the men they lambast run around with other women. So women are as guilty as men in everything men are blamed for.
Painful personal experiences have, unfortunately, informed my views, particularly after living with a woman for 11 years. At first all was well; I couldn’t want it better.  
As if company likes misery, her friends started telling her that as we were together so long and had a child together, why couldn’t I marry her? She started going to church, too, and became even more miserable, picking at everything in our relationship.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. Here was a woman who had three children from three previous relationships, all of whom I supported through school. Yet I had now become the enemy and, as the years passed, her children turned against me too.
What made matters worse for me was when I repelled the advances her oldest started making to me. After that, she started running away from home, saying that as soon as her mother left home for work, I was having sex with her. It took intensive investigation before she admitted to lying.
Anyway, things did not get better between me and her mother. It did not get better either between her and her oldest two children, both girls, because whenever she came home the house was usually in a mess.
With all of this turmoil and verbal abuse, I started packing. As soon as I finished, she took my daughter who was sleeping and literally threw her on my bundle, telling me to take her as she was mine. I took her and left.
One day I turned up at my daughter’s school to pick her up and she had already collected her. It was part of her strategy of trying to get me back as she had been begging me to return, with the promise that she would change.
Foolish me returned. The same treatment soon raised its ugly head. I became so fed up that I got up one morning, dressed for work and never returned, but I continued to support my daughter.
I later became medically unfit and someone told her. She asked for half of my gratuity. Hell no!
After that she began scandalizing my name. She then took me to court for a protection order but was so stupid that nothing in the information constituted a basis for that order. Case dismissed.
She then stopped my daughter from coming around me. I used to buy all of my child’s clothes and books for school, but she would not let her come near me. So when school began I got a call from my girl telling me she had nothing for school.
Hurt by this, I started going to her house accompanied by other people to give her support for my child. She would take the money and throw it back at me. On numerous occasions this happened, until I stopped.
This woman then took me to court for child support. She also said her daughters were scared of me and that I had sexually abused them for years. What kind of mother would do this?
I tried to explain my side but was not given an appropriate hearing.
Since then my daughter has not spent a day with me, as ordered by the court, and it’s been years. Now that she has finished school, she is slowly turning away from me. I guess that’s life. All I can hope for is that she will one day get to know the truth.
In conclusion, I would advise men to be very careful in choosing a woman as they are like the biblical serpent – cunning and full of guile. When you do fall in love, make sure that you love yourself best. Take no kind of abuse from a woman. If it ever starts, be strong and walk away.
And always remember, despite whatever you give a woman, it will never make her love you or be loyal to you.
Finally, please don’t kill yourself over a woman because she will find another man.
• EDITOR’S NOTE: Will the woman who called two weeks ago saying she was depressed because she was unemployed, please contact us at 262-5986.