Redefined

For ten years I've referred to Thomas as "The Sperm Donor", "The Asshole Who Knocked Me Up", "The Asshole Who Knocked Me Up And Abandoned Me", and "The Asshole Who Knocked Me Up And Abandoned Me Then Hid With The Assistance Of His Parents" with "Sociopath" thrown in randomly for flavor.

My reality for this time has been that he took off and hid from me and his responsibilities. No doubt this has colored my memories of him, and how I've felt about him over the years. Now it would seem that this reality is false.

It's hard for me to accept that. I have a distrust that has been colored and built by what has been my reality for almost a decade. I can't just let go of that and take things at face value. However, many of the things I am hearing lead me to want to trust him.
Then again, I've always been far too trusting a person, to the detriment of my mental health and growth as a person. So what do I trust? I can't trust my instincts, because I'm receiving messages from them on about four different wavelengths.

I could chose to implicitly believe what Thomas is telling me, but that requires a level of trust that I don't know I can produce. Sure, I want to believe him, I have my own reasons for feeling that what I am being told is highly plausible, but I also know I'm not the best judge of character.

I want him to be able to have contact with my son, and so do my son's parents. I want it to be good, and stable, and reliable and I'm terrified that he'll disappear into the mists again. I literally had no idea where he was for almost a decade. I had every reason to believe he was living in Africa. Not only do I not want to deal with all that again, I am feircely determined my son should never suffer in that way. Right now he has no sense of loss, because Thomas has never been a presesnce. But should he chose to make himself known and then flake out, it would be unforgiveable and most likely make me homicidal once again.

I'm not saying all this for you all to hate him, or rip into him. Right now I have every reason to beleive he is going to be responsible, and follow through. I'm just terrified that I'll be wrong, again.