*Not every child is or was brought up by biological parents, and not every pair of biological parents has only that one relationship or “coupling” under his or her belt. For that reason, no assumption is made in asking this question that each and every one of us was raised by our biological parents, nor is there an assumption that everyone’s biological parents only had that one relationship either before, during, or after your conception.
BACKGROUND. I am the product of my mother’s third of six pregnancies, which were themselves sired by at least four different men. My childhood was far from the nuclear family setting that may or may not exist in reality for others. My mother married and divorced twice, the first one I was much too young to know anything about, and the latter one just prior to my 15th birthday. Neither of her husbands were my biological father, a person to this day I have never known. One thing that always impresses me about my mother and stepfather was that no matter what problems they had as spouses and parents, other men or other women were never a problem between them. Faithfulness and fidelity in marriage was as natural as breathing for them. In addition to and after her two marriages, there were a few other relationships that she got into also.
I had a deep personal conviction that I would not be a teenaged father, and then after age 17, I had an equally deep conviction that I would not father a child out of wedlock (I don’t even know if that term is still being used nowadays). When I got married, one thing I considered was out of the question for my life was getting divorced. Ever. No matter what, I was determined that I would never get divorced under any circumstances, I would strive and struggle to stay married. I was going to be a great and perfect father too. Of course, those two tenets were largely based on my perceptions as a single person who had never been married, and as a young idealistic person who had never had children and had never raised children. Any of you who are or have been married or are or have been parents know the reality of those two roles is vastly different than what the uninitiated think it’s like. I found out just like you did that it isn’t as easy as our youthful plans make them out to be.
Even though I constantly joke around on this website about being a ladies’ man, a harem master, a gigolo, a playboy, etc., it’s all for comedic frivolity. In reality, I carried the example of fidelity in marriage that I saw growing up into my own matrimony. I’ve only been married to one woman, our children have never had stepparents. Furthermore, my children were conceived and born well after my wedding date, and all their lives, they have known me as their father, I have always been part of their lives.
Not everything has been a sitcom life nor a fairytale for me, my wife or for our children, I won’t tell that lie. Like all people, we’ve had ups and downs that are part of real life. I have intentionally left out a lot of the trials and difficulties we’ve been through as a family, just touched on certain points that help set up this thread. I’m neither the best husband and father in history, nor am I the worst. Not all of my plans or aspersions in life played out as I thought I would, especially not my starry-eyed dreams of youth.
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