When my first marriage ended, our divorce decree included a very specific clause: neither of us could move the boys out of the state of Texas without the other’s consent. I took that seriously because I knew how easily a father could be cut out of his children’s lives. Fathers were nobody in the courts, and I understood the risk.
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After a while, Cece met a man from Illinois, and they married. When they told me they were moving to Illinois, I reminded them of that clause. They told me that if we went to court and spent a lot of money, they would win anyway. They proposed cutting the child support in half so I would have the money to visit and to get the boys back and forth to Texas for visitation. I agreed, because I knew the courts would almost certainly side with the mother.
I had never missed a child support payment and didn’t intend to start. I wanted that relationship with my sons more than anything. But when they took my two little boys to Springfield, Illinois, I was devastated. Now that those two boys have families of their own, they can understand a little better how it would feel to lose their children at a young age.