Here's the deal. When I was four years old my mother and father split up and later divorced. My mother was granted custody and my father was ordered to pay child support and 100% of all medical and dental insurance and co-pays until the age of 21. That all worked out pretty well until around the age of 14 when my father became engaged and began to refuse to cover my medical and dental expenses.
Shortly before my fifteenth birthday my mother remarried and my stepfather added me to his medical insurance. However, due to financial reasons he was unable to add me to his dental insurance policy. Because of all of this I haven't been to a dentist in well over 6 years (Will be 20 this September). Recently, my mother and stepfather came by the money to add me to his dental policy. To make a long story short, I went to the dentist on Friday and was found to have a number of cavities in need of filling and will also need a root canal and to top it all off braces and reshaping (I am genetically missing my upper left lateral incisor). The insurance will cover about 80% of it but when it's all said and done the bill still comes out to around 4000 dollars.
Since my father became engaged our relationship has been slowly spinning down the drain and his refusal to pay for any part of my college education has only put further stress on it. However, we have remained on speaking terms. This morning before my first of a series of dental appointments I called him to let him know what was going on. Needless to say he was completely irate with me and automatically went on the offensive demanding that I find a job and pay it myself because he would not be paying it. All of this puts me between a rock and a hard place on how to approach this situation. Do I take out additional loan money to cover the expenses, do I ask my mother and stepfather to cover it, or do I do what I've been encouraged to do by many and take my father to court over the issue knowing that our relationship will be destroyed because of it.
I'd really appreciate the advice of anybody who has been involved in a similar situation because right now I'm ripping myself apart on what to do.
Thank you.