The Right Choice

My oldest daughter's father was a recovered methamphetamine addict when I met him. He was not perfect. He had dropped out of high school, struggled a lot with his own childhood traumas, and had difficulty keeping a job. But he was a genius with a computer and he was sweet and he enjoyed nature and animals as much as I did. We had a lot of fun together and he treated me well. And then one of his buddies got out of jail and he reunited with meth.

When you date an addict you date deception and pain. His personality changed when he was using. He was easily agitated, explosive when angry, he lied, he stole, and he was only able to focus on when he could get his next fix. Multiple times I left him, just to be suckered back in by his cries for help and threats of suicide. I tried to help him, I truly did.

My daughter was not conceived consensually. She was conceived because of meth and me taking pity on an ex banging on my door in the rain one night. I almost didn't tell him I was pregnant. We had been apart since that night, but he was clean again and he apologized and begged for me to help him stay clean. He promised me counseling and rehab.

My heart wanted him to get better. I wanted my friend back. I wanted my hiking partner. I wanted the guy who would jump in a river to catch a turtle for me to photograph close up. I wanted our adventures back. And most of all I wanted our child to know him as more than an addict because he was a part of her. I tried to help him.

Unfortunately no help was stronger than meth, and he did try counseling but ended up refusing rehab and he fell back into doing drugs. In the end drugs won over his child, and I was angry and bitter.

In a short time he became transient and disappeared completely. It was a blessing. After some fear and anger on my part he admitted to me that he didn't see himself ever staying clean and he didn't want to hurt us. If I'm being honest for a long time I hated him, for what he did to me, for leaving our child, for not being strong enough to chose his child over drugs. But I am certain now that he is a good man undermeath it all because of his choice to stay away.

My daughter is a teenager now, and only recently learned about her biological father because she started asking. I knew she would ask one day. I was afraid she would feel like she was "half bad" if she was told too much about him, so I tried keeping it simple. She didn't accept my well rehearsed "he made poor choices and couldn't be a dad" speech and demanded details. After everything she has been through and the guilt I carry for putting her in harm's way I decided she deserved to know.

I gave her the details, all the sad and horrible details. We discussed things like drug addiction and the possible genetic link, and that she should be aware of that as she starts being faced with peer pressure and choices that may involve alcohol or drugs.

I really reinforced his positive points too. I told her how he would never have hurt someone when he was sober, how he loved nature and adventure, and how could take apart anything electronic, fix it and put it back together with no instructions and could hack any computer game. I wanted her to know some good things about the other half of her genetic code.

I wasn't sure if I had done the right thing, especially given the fact that she spent much of her childhood seeing me in an abusive relationship with a man who eventually abused her too. Would she think her biological father was as awful as her abuser? Would she hate me for making multiple poor choices and not learning my lesson before she ended up hurt? Would she feel bad about herself because of how she was conceived? I was terrified to tell her the truth.

Luckily she took the information in, and after a little time to process it she seemed fine. She was more concerned with keeping her baby sister safe from the man who had abused her than she was about the man she never knew.

I had also told her what I thought was the truth when I said he was presumed dead because nobody had heard from him in years. Her questions had sparked a curiosity in me though, and I looked him up online for the first time in many years,  expecting nothing, or at best his obituary, instead I found that he is alive. This information was found due to a picture of him in orange and the accompanying article about his drug arrest. After thirteen years he hadn't changed.

I sat my daughter down to let her know. I had wondered if she had any interest in meeting him ever. My fear was that she would and she would be disappointed or possibly hurt by the results. She surprised me with her maturity when she told me that she did not want to meet him and said "He made the right choice by leaving."

She didn't say it with anger or resentment. She really seemed happy with her biological father's choice. We talked a little more about her feelings about it and she said that she thought that in a strange way he showed love by staying away. And that is when my child helped me overcome any resentment I ever had about his choices.

Her biological father is not a loser, or a deadbeat. He is an addict. When the drugs are in charge he hurts people. He realized he wasn't going to be strong enough to beat his addiction so he chose to not cause his child pain. I hadn't seen it that way before. I wanted him to get help, to stay clean. That was the way I wanted him to show her love. And though that would have been the best way, he wasn't capable of doing so.

I can finally forgive my daughter's biological father. I can finally forgive myself for not being able to help him. Being in his child's life would have been a greedy choice and would have hurt her. I can finally see that thanks to my child's wisdom. He made the right choice.