Dear Marsha:

Dear Desperate Father,

I feel that you have every right to be concerned. We all want what is best for our children and having someone so much older of the opposite sex, and given his current circumstances, must be a little distressing and full of concern to say the least.

I admire that your daughter and wife are trying to help this man, but he must want that help first. Sneaking around into your daughters room is not exactly going about things the right way. Anyone can fall upon hard times, but it is how we hold ourselves up and what our actions speak as to what it makes us become.

I would be very curious as  to why he is homeless. There has to be a reason that he is no longer welcome at his parents home anymore. Perhaps they passed away and he was left without family? Perhaps they simply could not afford themselves and he took it upon himself to step out of the home to make it on his own but found it more difficult than it was in his head at the time.  If either of these are/were the case, then by all means I would continue to support my wife in making efforts to find him shelter and a good job to get him back on track again and to let him know that he doesn’t have to be alone during these difficult times.

If he is homeless because of criminal issues such as drugs, alcohol, abuse, etc.; I would be even more concerned and try to keep my daughter and wife out of the picture as much as possible until you had time to straighten things out with him the correct way first.

Find out his history. Find out all details of why he is homeless. Explain to him that even if it were something of his doing and he wishes to change his lifestyle now, then you are willing to help him if he first is willing to help himself. Tell him that he is old enough to understand right from wrong and hiding out in your daughters bedroom or having/allowing her to skip school to help him is not going to be accepted. There is no reason to jeopardize your daughters education and future just because his has been tarnished. Any mature man will understand your requests and if he obliges, then help him in every way that you can. No man or woman needs to be treated as if they do not exist.

If he does not comply with your wishes, then tell him he must leave or be forced to leave one. Feel free to contact your local authorities to have him removed at any time. I doubt your daughter, at 16, will understand, but you can step back and say you gave him a chance and he was not willing to change himself, therefore you know you are doing what is best for your daughter and family.

Always,

Marsha

Marsha,  hope that you can help with some advice.

My 17-year old son is a senior in high school and is quite popular in school,  and for the most part is just a pretty good kid.  He is an athlete (one of the best in his school in all sports),  and one of the bad aspects of this school system is that it is a badge of honor for the girls or boys to have sex with the most popular athlete.  There is a girl that he says that he does not like,  but every so often,  he goes over to her house to “hang” out with her,  whatever that means.

Over the past couple of days,  he has been bringing the mail inside,  which is something that he normally does not do.  Today,  I happened to be at home when the mail arrived,  and included was a package addressed to him from a company that I did not recognize.  I did some investigation on the Internet (three clicks with a Google search) and found that this company is a distributor of condoms.

How would you advise that we, his mother and I,  go about handling this situation.  My first intent was to present the package to him in the presence of his mother and make him open it,  but it will devastate her,  for this is something that we have hope and prayed would never happen.  In addition,  if we were to elect to discipline or punish him,  what would you advise?  You will see by my signature,  what sort of problem that this situation might pose for me and my family.

Thanks for your help.  Looking forward to your reply.

PreacherDJW

Dear Preacher DJW,

Please take a deep breath and try to look at this situation from your sons eyes.  With condoms being easily accessible and sometimes given away for free at most any store, health department and/or school, he is showing some sort of inner guilt by making the decision to order these online and have them delivered to the house. He has no desire to want anyone knowing he has them besides himself. He knows that you, his mother, and God would strongly disagree and disprove of premarital sex, yet he feels the need to protect himself from disease and/or  having a child out of wedlock.

If you were to call him out on this package, and make him open it in front of his mother, you will be causing him much stress, anger, and embarrassment on a decision that he has already thought long and hard about. There is no need to punish or discipline him in this manner. I fear it would only do more harm than good at this point.

If you really wish to get to your sons inner most feelings, than I would suggest taking a walk with him. Drop the Preacher title for this walk and only use “Dad”.  In other words, do not walk and talk to him as a preacher or from a preachers point of view but be as a loving and caring dad instead.  Open the discussion casually, do not jump right on to topic. Ask him how things are going in school, sports, or other events. Then tell him that you feel it is time to talk to him about sex openly. Let him know that it is an urge that all teenagers have both male and female. Tell him that you were a teen once and that you remember the pressures. If you had premarital sex yourself, then do not hide it from him. Let him know what it was like.  If you had any regrets, then tell him about those too. If you did not have premarital sex, then tell him about all of the urges you fought off and how determined you were to save yourself for the right gal. You may wish to explain to him that once you have given yourself to someone, then you can never get that part of you back again, and that it becomes much easier to give yourself again and again be it the same person or another. Remember to keep the conversation between DAD and SON. At the end of the conversation, lovingly hand him the package (hopefully unopened) and tell him that it came in the mail for him. You do not have to say that you KNOW what is in the package, just let that remain silent. He has to make his own decision now. He should piece together from the conversation that there is a possibility of you knowing what is in there.

As far as the mother goes, if you are in fear that she will be devastated over this situation, then tell her only what needs to be told. Ask her to continue praying for your son and let her know about him having normal teen urges. There is no need to let her know that your son purchased condoms. That was supposed to be something he did in confidence and if it were not for the power of technology at our fingertips, even you would not know what is or could be in that package.

Remember in your heart, that you have done the best you can in bringing your son up in God’s light. You have sowed Gods word into him throughout his upbringing, that seed will always be there. Proverbs 22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Always,

Marsha

I am sitting here wondering how you could give such great marriage counseling to people when you yourself have been married more than once and had 4 children from at least three different men maybe four and are married to another man that doesnt father any of your children. I guess you could say you have been around the block a few times!!

Hmmmm What do you do if say an accidental pregnancy happens and the mother of the child does not contact the father of the child for say 15 years? And then when she is hurting for money she decides to take that childs father to court and sue him after all these years. I dont think that it is quite fair to leave the father out of the picture for all these years and miss his child grow up and then when the mother is hard press sue him for support once the child is pretty much grown. I think that mother should get a real job to begin with and then maybe a second job to support her child since she never wanted the father in the picture to begin with!!!

Dear Angela,

Thank you for viewing my site and thinking that I have been giving great advice.  Seeing as to how I am not certain as to who you are, or why you are passing judgment on me…allow me to give you a little deeper insight to my life.

You are correct, I have been married 2 previous times. I have 4 children all by 3 different fathers. However, what you do not know is that I was in fact married at the age of 17 before having my first 2 children.  This man became very physically abusive toward not only myself but to the children as well and arrested several times for it.  I soon found courage and escaped that relationship.  He still does not have contact with his children and they do not acknowledge him as “dad” either.  Since then, he has had 2 other failed marriages due to abuse…was it wrong to leave this situation?  I THINK NOT!

My third child was by a man that I had a 3 or 4 month fling with. When he found out I was pregnant, he left the picture quickly.  He did however inform me of his sisters name, and I had that address where his mother and sister lived.  He was a truck driver and probably always on the road, but that was no excuse to never reply to all the letters and photos I had sent the family.  I did try to involve him, but he would say that he was not the father.  I had even wrote him one day telling him that my ex and I had a DNA test done that proved my ex was NOT the father.  I requested this man at this point…nearly 4 years later…to send appropriate paperwork relinquishing his rights as father so that this child could be adopted by another man that would gladly take over the “Dad” role…but this as well as all other letters went unheeded.

I then married a young man that was a friend of my step brothers.  We did have my 4th child at this time.  We were married for 10 years before he decided he wanted to see what else was out there.

I was working as an EMT at 2 full time stations.  I was even Lieutenant at one station.  This was the best job in the world.  I have made so many friends in the medical field here and have gained a great name for my family and I.  I was even taking the paramedic classes to move on up.  I was offered a position as a flight medic once I graduated.  Sadly, that day never came for me.  As I was working an accident on the highway of a tractor trailer that jack knifed…I was the most injured patient taken to the hospital. I told my partner that I was not feeling well…they checked my heart rate and it was 180 bpm or beats per minute.  Once I was at the hospital, they noticed my heart at resting was going down to the 50s.  This is when I was sent to a cardiologist who performed many tests and observations of me.  It turns out that I have Sick Sinus Syndrome.  If you are not familiar with this…it is when the heart will beat too slow one minute then just jump sky high the next minute for no apparent reason but all awhile maintaining a healthy heart pattern.

Within one month from this accident, I had to have a pacemaker put in.  I was only 30 years old.  Even with the pacemaker, I was still having heart palpitations and not feeling “normal”.  Despite the pacemaker, I attempted to go back to work.  I worked for a year and a half longer before my next BIG episode happened.  This is when I was once again taken to the hospital by my co workers in MY ambulance and they decided I had to be taken off of work period.  My cardiologist was there and agreed it was too much stress for me.

This of course forced me to have to file for disability.  As anyone would know, it takes a great while before the disability is approved.

During this time, I had met a really great man.  He lived in Australia, and we met online actually.  We talked for nearly a year before he decided to come visit.  I had gotten to know his parents, friends, and other family before making the decision to meet.  On my 33rd birthday he showed up at the airport.  That was the best gift I could ever have.  We were wed shortly after that, and it has been such a great move on my behalf.  This is when I experienced TRUE LOVE for the first time in my life.  I know now what it is and am happy to share it with others.  My children love him and call him dad.  Even my 3rd son, that never knew his father…loves this man so much that he himself chose to have his name changed to my husbands last name.  Seeing as to how his father NEVER once wrote back to relinquish his fatherly rights…we could not do a formal adoption. This was the first choice of my husbands wishes…but things happen.  Seeing as to how I had never received a letter back from the 3rd sons biological father, we had no idea of his residency or how to locate him.  With this being noted in court, they allowed the legal name change.

I then began drawing my disability checks.  Once I started receiving the checks, I was forced by the courts to turn over child support payment history.  When I was questioned about my 3rd sons father, ALL I had was a name, an old address, his sisters name, and his fathers name.  I did tell them about the school he went to for his cdl’s…but that is all I knew.  I never thought that they would find this man…but it was not in my hands.

I was really saddened when they did find this man, and we both know who we are talking about.  I never had even discussed with his son about his father until this moment when I knew we had to go to court.  I did not want my boy thinking his dad left just because I was pregnant with him.  That would be a blow to any ones head.  His dad was a loser in my book and is still a loser in my boys book for doing such a thing.  He can not say he didn’t ever know he had a son, because during the child support court case, I was questioned through HIS attorney about this child being adopted and I had allegedly made mention that another man was going to or wanting to adopt him…Hmmm…that must have came from all those letter I sent and he never replied too huh?

Trust me, if I were able to work…I WOULD!  This was not done out of spite or any ill intentions.  I was forced to go through with this in order for me to draw my disability.

Now you asked how I gave such great advice…Well I think that answer is rather clear.  It took me 33 years to find the perfect man, and after dealing with losers like this all of my life…I think that makes me MORE than qualified. I have never been a floosy, but life has taken me to several “blocks” as you said.  Does this make me a bad person? I think not. I have learned some very valuable life lessons along the way.

I also give thanks to God for all the blessing he has put in my life. He is the one that should get all the glory. Without him, Who knows where I would be.

Now that you have my address…you can write if you so choose.  I am sorry you have such hard feelings against me.  I have never wronged you or your husband for that matter.  It sometimes helps to get the truth before bashing on something you know nothing of.  His sister, (and we know the similarities between our names), had told me that he did in fact see the baby pictures and knew of the letters as well…so don’t be fooled if he is saying different.

I am glad this could come out in the open. We were actually wondering if and when we would hear from you guys.  I know that you have a 13 year old son , and that your husband, or my ex was in the national guard. That only came out after they found you all in the state you now live in.  Have you discussed with your son that he does have a 1/2 brother in a neighboring state?

I want you to be happy, just as we are.  There is no reason for any hostility or angry tones to anyone.  Sarcasm is dangerous…Please do not post anything else that is deragatory on my site.

Always,

Marsha