Don't Call Me Mum!

I know that I've been a bit slack with updating the blog lately. It's not that I haven't had anything going on. In fact, it's been the opposite. In the last two weeks, I've celebrated Rachel's birthday, dressed up as a sailor for Halloween and been to the US Marine Corps ball.

In addition, the Dive Master P who featured in my last blog entry has decided to stay and look for a job on our small island. It has been great having him around and we've had a lot of fun together. This time last month, the last thing I was looking for was a relationship, but as time has gone on, it seems to have developed into that. I'm not complaining of course, P is a fantastic guy who treats me with respect and showers me with attention. We have literally been joined at the hip over the last four weeks and he has been a great support to me through a difficult time at work. He also gets along really well with my friends and I've been having the time of my life. But you don't get to your mid-30s, date a man your own age and expect him not to have any baggage.

As most of you know, I have never wanted to have children of my own. Blame this on my parents' lousy marriage, my desire for independence or whatever else you may like. It has even been an area of contention in my serious relationships. So in my mind, I thought that dating someone who already had kids and who didn't want any more would be the answer to the problem. I can already hear the laughter coming from over all over the world. Yes, certainly very naive on my part.

P was very honest from the beginning and told me on the first night we met that he was divorced with a nine-year-old daughter Jamie, who lives in the UK with her mother Luci(fer). We've discussed Jamie on numerous occasions as P has given me the background on the acrimonious split with Luci. P hasn't seen Jamie in quite a few months as Luci moved away and deliberately didn't give P a forwarding address. He only found out she was gone when he called Jamie on her last birthday and got a recorded message that the line had been cut. His friend went round to Luci's house and found it empty. Since then, P has engaged the services of a lawyer to try to get access to Jamie through the courts.

This is all still ongoing and will probably take years to resolve. It is something that is a part of P's life and while I am sympathetic towards him, another part of me is resentful that so much time, energy and money is spent on it. I don't know what it's like to be a parent, or what a parent's love for a child feels like. The closest I've probably felt is a deep attachment to my cocker spaniel. All I do know is that when he b*tches about Luci, it irritates me because another woman is taking up his thoughts and emotions. Yes, I do admit to being a jealous and selfish person at times, but I have never tried to hide that side of me. I hate the fact that another person has a part of his heart and always will. And it's a place which I will never get to be.

We had a heated discussion about the situation with Jamie yesterday, which ended up with me telling him to drop the court battle and just concentrate on getting a job for the moment. I'm sure some of you are gasping with horror at my 'coldness' but let's face facts, if I have never wanted my own kids, why in god's name would I want someone else's?

Whether I like it or not though, P is a father and neither time nor space can change that. Ironically, the fact that he understand the responsibilites of fatherhood is what draws me to him. He took very good care of me when I was sick and is selfless in so many ways. If he really did abandon Jamie, I would question his integrity as a person and completely lose respect for him. The question I have to ask myself is, can I handle a relationship with a man who has a child? It is not something that I have had to consider before and I realize that it is something that I don't yet know the answer to.

Of course, my preference is for someone who is childless. However, P is the white male version of me and it is not easy to find someone who is such a perfect fit in almost every other way. Perhaps this is one of life's lessons that I have to learn.

Having come from divorced parents myself, I know that it's certainly not easy and that I gave my dad's girlfriend a hard time for many years. My sister still doesn't talk to my dad and I don't have anything to do with my mother. It has only been in 2006 that my dad's girlfriend and I have come to a better place, mostly because I've mellowed out and realized that there are two sides to every story. Growing up, I only heard my mum's bitter version of events.

Now, it seems that life has come full circle and I am in the potential position of becoming a 'stepmum' myself. P has assured me that we will never have Jamie with us on a full-time basis, as Luci and her husband have custody of her. However, I know that situations will crop up that I may not like or be comfortable with. Can I be the woman that P needs me to be? Time will tell. All I do know for sure is that it will be a challenge and definitely take me out of my comfort zone.

I know that this isn't an easy entry for P to read, nor for my other friends who are in a similar situation. At the end of the day, we are in a grown up relationship trying to deal with grown up issues. As P told me this morning, "If you get p*ssed off, then you get p*ssed, we will work through it." I guess I couldn't have said it better myself.