*** Quoting Danny Ceppa from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***

 CS> Agreed.  On disenfranchised Dads, I have one in my shop.  His ex-wife
 CS> is Japanese.  He came home after an 8.5 month deployment to find her 4
 CS> months pregnant and wanting a divorce.  

DC> I was going to ask you about who the father was, but it's obviously 
DC> not him.  

Nope.  Dunno who.  American sailor possibly but no one knows but her.

 CS> She's trying to use Japan
 CS> courts to also keep his kids from his previous marriage.  Technically

DC> Is that possible to do there?  

Dunno, so we exported them fast.  In any situation with a foriegn land, you
¨have to remember their own laws may take precidence. The Japanese wife is
his ¨legally married wife and he had custody of the kids when he married
her, so ¨Japan may consider them 'her kids' as well as his.  That she even
tried this, ¨shows Japan may support such.  Lets face it, int he states
when a man divorces, ¨he normally loses the kids and gets visitation rights
plus pays child support. ¨It's not so very different?

Active duty military almost always lose the custody battle.  In his case it
was ¨unique as the first wife waived that as she wasnt ready and just asked
for ¨visitation.  Her finances were bad so he waived child support (he told
me she ¨paid what she could when she could and if not steady, it covered
xmas gifts and ¨luxuries for the kids, arrangement they both could work
with).

 CS> she's not 'ex' yet but she moved back to Honshu.  He had to get court
 CS> orders to send his kids back to his first wife (San Diego) and he's
 CS> paying her child support.  

DC> Paying his ex-wife or his soon to be ex-wife?   

He's paying the real mother (first wife).  No court order, but like most
guys, ¨he's doing the right thing.  Most guys get a bad rap on that because
of the ¨few, but he's the normal dad who's sending all he can manage. I
think it's ¨every other whole paycheck because first wife needs to get a
few things and he ¨cant send her aything but money from Japan (like, kids
furniture etc has a 5 ¨monthtimeframe for household goods shipment so they
needed something to sleep ¨on).


 CS> Fortunately the situation with the first
 CS> wife is a good one. (Just couldnt handle Navy life, wasnt set for the
 CS> kids alone at the divorce but is now recently widowed from her second
 CS> husband and set for such, just needs help with the money). 

DC> It sounds as if she's the one getting the reasonable support.  

Sounds so to me.  He said he's not mad at her, still loves her.  Basically
they ¨got married because 'opps' with the first kid but Navy life with him
deployed ¨all the time was too much for her to handle when she wasnt yet 20
and had the ¨kids.  She's now I think 27?  Her second husband died a year
ago (hot sure how, ¨got the feeling it was sudden accident, possibly car
related butdo not really ¨know).  She's been sending money to him for the
past several years to help out ¨as she now has a stable job and a GED.


DC> That's completely absurd.  I've heard of nasty positions to be in, 
DC> but that sailor has one of the worst I've heard of.  My condolences 
DC> to him.  

Well, happens.

Diatribe on?  My husband has a child, long before I met him.  Her name is
Sara ¨and Charlotte would love to meet her, but the mother would never tell
Sara ¨about Don.  Never married, never a court order to support, but the
man was ¨sending 700$ a month from 1978-2001.  The only time we heard from
the mother ¨was when she moved and had to tell him where to send the money
to (a PO box ¨always).  We have at best, a picture of Sara age 11.  Sara
never knew her ¨father supported her.  No letters were answered.  We only
knew the checks were ¨cashed and were supposed to send her to college.

I can never repair this, but one day I would hope to track Sara down and
let ¨her at least know she had a father who cared, and a 1/2 sister age 11,
named ¨Charlotte, who would like to say hello.

Diatribe off.  But if you wonder why I married the man?  Who could resist a
man ¨who would be so careful and loveing as to continue support for so many
years ¨just in the *hope* that his child would be ok even with no other
response than ¨'I've moved, send the check here'?

I have the best of all of you I bet .  I will *never* let him
go.  I will ¨cherish him for all of our days in the best ways that I know
how to do and if ¨it isnt perfect in how I do this, he knows my heart is
there always, even if he ¨has to remind me of our anniverary dates!  Umm, I
think it's 19 years now but ¨gotta ask him to be sure (laugh if you want to
but a secure marriage, you kinda ¨forget little details like that).

Humm, got me thinkin' though.  We got married in Hawaii and i was there
from ¨1986-1989.  Pretty sure we married in 1987 after a trial 'living
together' for ¨a year (tossed him out once to sleep on the ship due to
snoring when I had ¨slept in the bathtub for the night and had school the
next day and told him to ¨sleep on the ship the next night so I could sleep
after studying for the test ¨the next night).  That 1987 means 18 years so
I bet he's adding the 'extra' ¨year on when we were married except in court
papers .

I'm the exception.  Never married, nor was Don.  Met at the base club and
my ¨first night there, he sent over a beer and said to all his buddies,
'thats the ¨woman I am going to marry'.  They scoffed but they were wrong. 
They are also ¨all divorced now, having looked for glitz not substance.

Grin, I digress but i can type all day about how wonderful Don is.  Lets
just ¨say his imperfections match me to a T.  His few gaps hit my strong
points so we ¨match. and add, I am just bitchy enough to say that most
marriages that do not ¨work, are because one of the 2 refuse to work on it.
 If both do, almost any ¨match can work.
                                       xxcarol

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