Fellas Tell Us: Quincy's Lament

I wanted to give men a forum where they can be honest and always have their say. So MANDOM decided to open it up to all testimonies from men. The following is a letter from Quincy Allen aka CientifiQ. And he tells us a story that's all too familiar about the complexities of being a father when the father and the mother are not seeing eye-to-eye.

My daughter was born February 14th, 2008. Her mother and I stayed together for about a year and a half after that. She couldn’t take whatever anymore so she decided to go off on her own, with my daughter and everything that I bought her...

After that we set up visitation and how much money I would be giving her monthly. Basically I had my daughter Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and half of Saturday. She had her all of the other days. At the time she left I was paying her car insurance and health insurance which I had been paying pretty much our whole time together which was 5 years. I asked her if it was ok for me to continue to pay that plus give her about $100 every time I got paid which came out to be about $400-$500 a month. I still had a mortgage to pay, a car note, bills and had to take care of my daughter the days I had her plus plan daddy/daughter outings. Everything was going good I thought.

She used to get mad that when I used to give her the money when I had an attitude about it. Like I was just supposed to be happy about giving my money away or something. I mean we split the time down the middle so in my eyes it was more of you do what you can do and I will do what I can do. It's not my fault that you don’t make as much as I do. I am older than her and have been thru a lot more than she has to get where I am at today. But I understood that not many women are happy with a father being a father so I did what I could to try to keep things cool.

Fast forward a little bit...I ran into a person I used to know from a while ago (who is now my lady) and she (my daughters mother) started to get bitter over that. She wasn’t looking the past that it had been about a year and half since we had been together and she had started dating about 4 months after we split up and all the while I was trying to get her back. A man can only do so much so I moved on. She didn’t like this. So one payday I was strapped for cash and I asked her if I could just give her double plus some the next time I got paid and she agreed. That weekend my girl came down (she lives in Houston) and we had some friends over and you know how shit goes. We were having fun, people took pictures, placed them on your favorite social sites and BAM...Here come the text messages flying about how I don’t have the money to give her but I got time to hang out with my girlfriend like we were just in the mall making it rain or something when in all actuality we were just at my crib having a few drinks, which I didn’t buy and having a good time.

I didn’t take her serious because it was a bullshit reason to put me on child support. I was doing more than half the fathers I see do plus some so it didn’t worry me. I was wrong because about 3 weeks later I got the letter in the mail stating that I had to show up for a meeting in which we agree on the terms of child support. Still wasn’t pissed. I was like ok, we will talk and come to an agreement. So we talked, and I asked her how much she thinks would be enough for her to make it. She stated $500 a month. I stated that that’s what she was basically getting at the moment just not in cash. I wanted to make an agreement so that when we did have the sit down with the Attorney General it wasn’t long and drawn out and we could just sign papers and get it going.

So we go to the meeting. I was told to bring my check stubs so of course I complied and did what they asked just to make things easier. Was she told to bring hers? Nah not at all. She basically brought her purse and herself. And now I know why they did this. They didn’t care one bit about anything that was going on with her. Whether she had a job, how much she made, how much I was already doing or none of that. All the questions were directed at me. They punched some numbers into the calculator and they promptly told her "Ms. Monroe you are able to get $800 a month plus insurance for your daughter". I look at her thinking well we already agreed on $500 so she will say that and everything will be ok. A couple minutes pass and you could see the dollar signs in her eyes.

So now it’s time to sign the papers. They ask me to sign, I tell them I won’t be able to pay that much and still maintain my household. I am still thinking she is about to speak up about the agreement we made a few days earlier but of course she didn’t. They punched in a few more numbers and said that they can bring it down to $720 a month plus insurance. I told them that they must not have heard me the first time around when I stated that I couldn’t pay it. Long story short, I got up and walked out.

I waited outside for my daughters mother to give her a piece of my mind. Asked her why she didn’t say anything about the agreement we wade and she said that she never agreed to it. I'm steaming. If I was that type of person I might have went to prison that day but I didn’t and I left. A few days later she gives me a call stating that they called her and said she can contest it. She stated that she was going to. A few days after that she stated that they denied it. To this day I think that was bullshit but hey what do I know. Shortly thereafter I get a letter stating that should have started paying $800 a month 2 months ago. So now I was behind in my child support over $2,000 plus they started taking it which put me in a even worst place. With them taking that much I was unable to watch my daughter as much as I used to. The court stated that we could come up with an agreement on custody and I thought we did but she basically told me that I was only going to get to see my daughter every other weekend which is the days that are set by the court. I was heartbroken by this because I was so used to being with my daughter that I didn’t know what to do with myself at the moment. But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be with her as much because at the time I was in a bad place financially and I couldn’t even afford to feed myself much less feed her.

Fast forward a little bit more...Bills are behind, I'm stressed about the money as well as a few other things in my life. Did my taxes and got back about $2000 which I was going to use to catch up on mortgage but when I got my check it was $2,060 less than it was supposed to be. So she got her taxes which were pretty nice since she claimed my daughter plus my taxes. I asked her to at least give me half. Didn’t happen. Ended up having to move out of my home and renting it out to someone else. Now I stay on an air mattress at my little brothers house with him, his lady and 2 kids until I can figure out my next step. Am I ashamed of it? Nah, not at all. More embarrassed and frustrated than anything. I worked hard to get to the point to where I am now for someone to just take it all from me. I bought the house for my family, trying to be a man and take that next step in life and I realize that that was the wrong step for me to make with a person that’s not willing to work things out like so many women are these days.

So now the stress is always on my back, and with music being my main outlet for relief and my studio being in storage I have nothing to take my stress out on. Not many people to talk to because as you know when the money goes, so do people. A man that is frustrated at his job, his living situation, sex life and not being able to see people that mean so much to him is a walking time bomb. But with everything I will get thru this. It may be alone and it make take time but everything passes.

I’m not blaming her because in the end all of this is my fault. I didn’t take the proper precautions to ensure that I wasn’t placed in this situation. The only blame I put on her is being greedy and knowing what she did to me would produce this outcome. I had a hard enough time when she lived with me because I took care of everything by myself. I paid the bills and maintained my household like a man should do. I also blame her for taking the time I had with my daughter away from me. That was time I cherished. I am happy that my daughter is being taken care of. I may be broke but as long as she is ok that’s all that matters. But does a 4 year old need that much money? Nah she doesn’t. So her mother is having a good time at my expense and I have to work every day and deal with the fact that it’s going to be even harder starting a life with my new lady because I have to get back to where I was before I can be the man she needs/wants me to be. She has her stress of being a single mother and to have to deal with the things I am going thru is too much for her at times. But to this day she has stuck it out. Not everything has been perfect but just her being there for me to bitch to at times means more than anything anyone can do for me.