A website, a podcast, YouTube channel, Instagram, and Twitter account dedicated to me and my struggle to see my loves…you three. This is for you. My living will and living timeline. It was never my idea to be away from you three.
I have the audio, videos, and written word to prove it all. I only hope to live long enough to have you in my arms again.
I will have either died by stress or by the hands of cowards if that does not happen.
I cry for you everyday, but you do not see my pain.
My heart hurts for you everyday, but you do not know my pain.
I am sad every day, but you have no idea why.
Daddy loves you and misses you.
Daddy is ok, but could sure use your help taking this pain away.
My name is Louis…
…and I have a few things to tell my three kids, along with a few others, but unfortunately, I must have this conversation for the world to read, hear, and experience before they will get a chance to first.
My first time talking to you will be through some written and carefully thought through choices of words…well, I will certainly try to make them as perfect as possible. Maybe not perfect in every one’s mind, but at least with me trying to say the right things. I am raw with emotions and unfortunately that will not always include the choicest of words when I speak about my experiences, but nothing overly ridiculous. My goal is ultimately getting as much time with you as I can moving forward. That is goals one through three and all tied for first. But my other goals include telling you how much I miss you and have missed you. My main purpose for this is to explain things as best as possible and for you to see your dad, even if it is just by seeing and hearing me from the past.
My long-term goal is to help other dads achieve equality when it comes to their kids. What I have had to endure should never have got this far. Experiences that never needed to happen and pain that never needed to be felt. There are days where I swear, I am dying of stress and sadness.
I have only SEEN you three for about 50 hours in the past One Thousand Six Hundred Twenty-One (1,621) days. Think about that for a second. Let that sink in and really think about it. That is 1.85 minutes a day for the past…
One Thousand Five Hundred Fourteen (1,621) days.
…4 years, 5 months, 7 days
…53 months, 7 days
…140,054,400 seconds
…2,334,240 minutes
…38,904 hours
…1,621 days
…231 weeks and 4 days
Can you think of something where you feel whole after only getting 1.85 minutes a day doing something? I cannot. Well, may social media. Especially when those minutes equate to spending time with my three favorite and most important people on this planet. Christmas (never on the day of course), birthdays, visits, all spent on your driveway because getting you outside that cul-de-sac was impossible. Holding you. Loving you. Caring for you. Cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner with you and for you. Watching TV with you. Playing disc golf with you. Visiting the HMNS and MFAH with you. Playing soccer with you. Watching soccer with you. Going to a Space Cowboys (Chicago Cubs and Wrigley field would be amazing) games with you. Houston Dynamos games with you. Houston Rockets games with you. Helping with homework. Giving you a band aid. Keeping a tooth. Wiping away your tears. Listening to you laugh. Listening to you play your instrument (I cried at your first concert and solo). Watching your play basketball and soccer.
Being your dad.
Has been impossible.
For me, this has been a journey of a complete range of emotions. And emotions that I have had to confront whether I like it or not. To be completely torn away from the three most important human beings in my life has been without a doubt my worst nightmare. I have tried everything I could think of to get a positive message told to you kids, but interferences and parent alienation/maternal gatekeeping have blocked every attempt. So, my only action left is to continue with this planned out writing, continue to make videos, record podcasts, and protest the treatment of myself and dads everywhere.
Your mom played judge, juror, and executioner. While she inspired three children with lies and half-truths, I will inspire the world with passion and determination for dads everywhere. My only crime was falling in love with the wrong person. We just were not meant to be a couple. When a person that used her sex to destroy me, and continues to use her sex to act innocent…they are not a good person. She wants equality, but only when it suits her needs. Equality is just that, equal for everyone always (no matter the person’s sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, or any difference), which I am absolutely all for. There should not be pick and choose scenarios, only equality, including how dads are treated by the courts.
A misconception that helped fuel this nonsense is that moms are the only ones that can care for their children, and that dads are simply paychecks. Well, that is an incorrect thought and action that continues to destroy a population of dads. It sucks to hear jokes about dads, and real-life stories from men about how they lost everything based on their sex, rather than what was best for their kids. I was the bread winner during my failed marriage, and it was the actions of my ex-wife which led me to work more than I wanted to, not because of the natural selection of our sex. She was given every opportunity I was given to advance, including adding to her education and working jobs outside of the house. She did neither. It was one phone call that led us to where we ended up as far as needs and wants (will be explained in an upcoming podcast).
She was weak and bailed on me. Instead of trying, she ran into the arms of someone new, and I am ok with that. She allowed her own faults to be wiped clean only to turn around and shove mine in my face. She brings my faults to you kids, while passing out rose colored glasses to those around her. This way they would only see the good things and ignore her faults. She is the one that brought this difference of opinions between two adults and dropped it at your feet. The pain is unbelievable and consistent. So much that the anger of how I have been treated feels at times that it is my therapy. Therapy that I have been left to myself to complete, understand, fail out, succeed at, and survive day by day. I am just trying to find a happy medium deciphering all these emotions. I will never understand how this was able to happen. A fight between adults turned into my rights as the dad of my three kids being stripped of me. Stripped by those that should know better.
The gross and lopsided specter of the crumbling of my marriage has fallen completely on me, when it should at worst have been 50/50. In the state of Texas, men are treated as third class parents (moms and moms on drugs out rank dads in Texas), being denied their most basic rights. All my rights were put on a piece of paper by the state of Texas and then simply ignored by the custodial parent (mother). And their response was to get a lawyer. But no lawyer could be afforded, due to the OAG taking whatever money they want whenever they want. She’s allowed to move with you without reporting an address. She has been allowed to ignore giving me things that were owed to me (furniture, half of your stuff: toys, clothes, etc.) She once told me I did not need your things because you were only coming over to hang out for the weekend. She has never sent me one doctor’s visit information (I never missed one appointment when you were in my care) or correspondence to your school. I have never received a lost tooth (I gave you $5 for your tooth son, and she made you return it to me).
All I wanted and hoped for was for her to give me attention a little more often. When a man is lonely for his partner and she’s not there, the reasons don’t matter. You just know you’re alone. And you get angry. I know I did. I’d say hateful things to your mom, trying to get her to listen to me. And then the next day I would talk to her again and tell her how much I loved her. And you know something, both conversations were saying exactly the same thing, that I needed her. All I am saying is that it takes a lot of care and understanding to pull a marriage through the tough times, and my pain was ignored. When it came time to save her life, she was all about me. When it came time to save my life, she was all about her, and forgot about me. She acted like the pain wasn’t there. Either she refused to see it or refused to acknowledge it, but one thing is for sure…she chose to think of only herself and her happiness. She would have known there were two sides to the same story if she had gone to therapy with me. She refused. She refused to let me be a stay-at-home dad stating I could not do the job she does on a daily basis. I told her I could. She still refused to let me. She refused to see her own faults and work together to fix things. It was all about her while using you kids as pawns to her own issues. She was and continues to be a coward.
Your mom acts like she raised you all by herself. That you all only benefited from her actions and none of mine. She acts like she did everything without me. It is absolutely not true. We will talk about this in later dates, including my podcast. She, along with those around her, spewed this fear message, and I am the one paying the price for it. I have been denied my most basic of rights. I am the one not seeing you three. I am the one still trying to find the help he needs to return to the Louis I need to be, and that starts with being a dad again. Returning to you as your daddy. All you keep hearing about is fear, and a fear that has no merit. It’s amazing, I keep loving this state and country and they continue to not love me back.
I look at pictures sometimes, but the pain is too strong to look every day. I do very much think about you daily. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day. I’m sad. I am angry. I am tired. I am tired of hurting. I cry but feel numb to this. I have seen enough of a society that treats people differently than them in a way they would not want to be treated, including dads. There is no golden rule here. Only to mispresent a power struggle to be relevant with their differences of beliefs and/or way of life. I don’t want pity, I WANT CHANGE!! I do not want to wait any longer as the state drags their feet due to a system built to be nonresponsive, which care very little about a dad’s relationship with his children.
I am your daddy. And I will hopefully hold your threes hand and finally step away with you from that driveway sooner than later. This will be my only typed message. The rest will just be raw “at the moment” thoughts as I tell my story. Why start with a typed beginning? To set the tone as someone who is not ashamed of who I am. My thoughts. My dreams. My daily interactions with anyone and everyone, no matter family, friends, loved ones, people at work, students, customers, community members, and strangers. I am who I am. I am an assistant principal, but always a teacher first. I want to teach in college again. I want to earn my doctorate. I want to play disc golf when I have time. I want to be happy again. I want to be loved. And I wish I had that one best friend to lean on, but currently missing that. And I miss being a dad, the most important job I have and want.
My name is Louis. Please listen to my stories. Please share my stories. Please offer productive advice. Please point me in the right direction so that this nightmare will end.
I was simply told my trauma was invalid and to just suck it up. It is disgusting and wrong on so many levels, but it is my hope to find the support I need to change things. What is more hurtful is that many, if not all, that attacked me when talking about my trauma are protecting their own insecurity without acknowledging and dealing with their own damage.
And above all, STOP telling dads that they should have fought harder to see their children and start asking mothers and the state why they had to fight at all.
Dads Are Equal To Moms