… because there seems to be nothing Dopers enjoy more than telling anonymous Internet strangers what they should do!
As I’ve mentioned hereand here, a friend of ours is going through some hard times. He is divorc[del]ing[/del]ed from one of those women. The kind who give the rest of us a bad name. She’s nasty, flaky, makes it difficult for him to see his son, was cheating on him near the end of their relationship if not even before that, has already been bringing around a parade of new men to her home, etc. etc. and so on. The whole litany. He’s been staying with us while he gets back on his feet, and we’ve been doing what little we can beyond that to help him while in return he’s been pitching in around the Casa de Shoes. She has full custody, and he sees his son as often as [del]he can[/del] [del]she lets him[/del] possible.
(I don’t know the details of their custody agreement or divorce, largely because he’s an intensely private guy and I don’t want to pry too much. I know that his meager paycheck is being docked for child support already, fwiw.)
Anyway, he has a relationship with his mother to rival mine (e.g. megacraptastic) and his ex’s mother is no better. He has been badly ill-treated by the women in his life. I’m afraid that the bitterness he’s feeling towards all of them will crystallize into mysogyny, which will pretty much erase any chance he has of finding a decent girl and having a healthy relationship in the future. I watched the same thing happen years ago with another guy, and it was not pretty. This guy … deserves better than that. He *really *does. He loves his son, so much it’s almost heartbreaking, but he made this son with one helluva poor choice in partners. He knows it, and there’s no going back in time.
Ok. There’s the background, such as it is. Have at it, folks. If this guy was nursing a beer next to you at a bar, what would you say to him? Because frankly, I’m starting to feel like some twisted parody of Savage’s “It Gets Better” project. What do I say, other than, “Dude, that sucks” and “Hopefully things’ll start looking up soon” in response?
(Anticipating the inevitable: yeah, yeah, “lawyer up.” It’s been said; he knows it. He’s also flat fucking broke.)