My Journey through Life, Loss, and Fatherhood.

by Widowed Buckeye Dad
(Texas)

I have been through a lot and I want to share my life journey:

Boy, I haven't shared my life experiences online until recently. I am more of a private individual. But, I feel that if I can share my experiences and journey with other people, I can finally be at peace. From 2015-2022, that was the darkest period in my life.

I am a 33 year old widowed father of three daughters who are aged 14, 11, and 9.

I was born in Bangladesh and came to the United States at 6 months old. I moved from state to state as I was raised by a single highly educated mother. I call Ohio my home state. I will always be a Buckeye.

I am dark-skinned.

My mother who is still alive, was a very strict woman when it came to my education however, she did let me enjoy watching Football on the weekends and bought me stuff that I wanted or needed. I haven't spoken to my mother in 12 years. She has never met her youngest two granddaughters. Our relationship has been damaged

In 2008, I was accepted into my dream school The Ohio State University on a Full Scholarship and attended.

During a Fraternity party in the fall quarter of freshman year (it used to be the quarter system) I met my late wife. We were both intoxicated and we snuck back to her dorm room and had a one-night stand. My late wife was a Caucasian Woman. She got pregnant from the one-night stand. Our oldest daughter was born out of wedlock. We dated for one year and got married after Sophmore year at tOSU.

We left our daughter with her parents and sisters in her home state of Texas (Where I currently reside.) We would come see her during breaks. Even though I am politically conservative, my former in-laws including her sisters at the initial point did not approve of the marriage as they are a Conservative and Caucasian Family and I am a dark-skinned guy from Bangladesh. They are great people and our relationship has been much better to this day.

Our second daughter was born after we both graduated from The Ohio State University and our youngest daughter was born two years after that.

We moved to Texas after our second daughter was born to be closer to her family and we both were attending graduate school. I earned my undergraduate degree in Computer Science from The Ohio State University.

I earned my Masters in Economics from University of Texas-Austin.

My wife wanted to be a Pediatrician.

In late 2015, my wife at the young age of 25, passed away from Ischemic Stroke. She passed away right in front of me as I held her. I learned that the stroke was caused by a small piece of plaque which mounted in one of her arteries leading to her brain.

I was a widowed father for 2.5 years and got married in 2018. My second wife who is now my ex-wife is also a Caucasian woman and it was a second interracial marriage. My ex-wife is an Assistant Prosecutor here for our county in Texas

My second marriage lasted 3.5 years and got divorced in October 2021.

The reasons on why we got divorced was that she wanted children of her own and after we had gotten married, she found out that she can't have kids biologically. She wanted to legally adopt my three daughters. I refused to allow her to.

The first time that she had asked me, I kindly told her that I do not want the adoption of my daughters to happen and leave it at that.

The second time that she had asked me, I was starting to lose my patience and I told her "No" more cold heartedly. She asked me why and I told her that "you're not their mother, you're their stepmother" and I also had to remind her that I witnessed my late wife pass away right in front of me, why would I want to remove the connections the girls have with their mother? The youngest was only 16 months old when her mother passed.

My late wife was robbed of the opportunity to be their mother, so why should I let another woman become an "official" mother to my kids? I told her this.

What you need to know is that, I wanted my daughters to have a mother-figure in their lives and by that, I mean a stepmother figure and not the changing of the damn documentation.

While we were married, I told the girls to only refer to her as "stepmother" or on a first-name basis. Not to refer to her as their mom.

I believe that biological children and their biological parents should never be separated. I do not believe in stepmother adoption. I believe that it is complete bullshit for a documentation to be changed and then that person can call themselves a mother.

Another reason for refusing to allow the adoption to happen, is that had the adoption happened, then all 3 of my daughters' connections to their late mother's side of the family is gone.

I have no respect for stepmother ------> adopted mother.

To make matters worse, I had an affair with one of her former law school classmates and that affair lasted for 9 months. She saw text messages on my phone while I was taking a shower. We were about to go to bed after I took the shower but once I came out, she confronted me about this and I admitted it.

That was the last straw for the marriage.

Now, I am raising my daughters by myself with my late wife's parents, and her 3 sisters.

Also, after our youngest was born, we had a conversation and decided that the girls would go to my former sister-in-law and her husband should in case anything happen to the both of us, she is the oldest sister of my late wife.

I am thinking of moving the girls and myself back to my home state of Ohio. I want this because the two oldest were born in Ohio and they are born Buckeyes. The oldest is about to start her freshman year in high school here in Texas. I do not want them to finish their high school in Texas. I want it, Ohio.