After reading an article in The Sun yesterday, I felt enraged and figured I’d channel my anger into a blog. I tried to write it one way and then another but I figured the only way I can truly convey my feelings is to write the blog using fictional people but an actual scenario. All my thoughts and feelings are from the heart.
Jennifer was a really good friend of mine. She was married to Simon for fifteen years and they had two gorgeous kids together. The children are aged twelve and nine respectively.
Jennifer and Simon grew apart and ended up separating and eventually divorcing. No one was to blame for the break up, it was purely that time took its toll on the relationship and they had nothing left for each other.
As is usual with break ups, Jennifer had custody of the children and Simon had access to them at weekends and once in the week. This arrangement worked well for all parties involved. Simon worked hard to provide for his family and made maintenance payments as regular as clockwork. He figured they were still his children and he had a duty to provide both financial care and fatherly care.
After a year or so of breaking up Simon met someone else and they dated for a long time before he told Jennifer that he was with someone who he was ready for the children to meet.
It was at this time that Jennifer changed. Overnight she became a bitter twisted person. A person I am ashamed to call my friend and a person who makes me feel ashamed to be a woman.
Jennifer has the house that was the family home, she works part time, both children are at school and she receives money from Simon. She has a life that involves work and socialising and up until this point has been happy.
Simon however misses his kids every minute of every day. He hates that he no longer lives with them and that he is now classed as a part time dad. He cherishes every moment he spends with his son and daughter and dedicates all his time he has with them doing things with them and for them.
Just as when he lived in the family home, he cares for them when they are sick. He reads bed time stories, helps with bathing and any problems they have and feels that his role as father is still the same.
So when Simon met his new partner Marie, he wasn’t prepared for his life to change all over again. Now Simon is a shell of his former self, caught between having a life that he is entitled to and a life with his children.
Marie happily accepted that Simon had children and was more than happy to be a part of his family life. She was also more than happy to leave Simon to spend quality time with his children, keeping in the background so as not to encroach on the blindingly obvious bond they shared. The children both liked Marie and in their own little heads, respected her and the way she was with them.
Only one person had a problem and that was Jennifer. Once she found out that Simon was dating Marie, almost immediately she started playing games. Sick, twisted games that were slowly killing Simon inside.
On one occasion when he was due to have the children, she told him that both were unwell and unable to come out. Yet Simon was more than capable of looking after them as well Jennifer knew. Simon didn’t want to cause any trouble so he cancelled his weekend with them only to later find out that they had nothing more than a slight cold.
At first he didn’t realise that it was a game that Jennifer was playing. But as time went on, it all came out to the most horrifying degree.
As well as hiding the kids phone, so Simon couldn’t get through to them, she would often tell him the kids were out or in the bath and then conveniently forget to ask them to ring him.
Jennifer went to a social worker and told them that she was worried about the emotional well being of her children when they were with their father and Marie.
Social Services visited Simon and found that he had a clean, homely home and could provide everything the children needed materialistically. But they deemed that if the children were emotionally disturbed, that it wasn’t in their best interest to spend time with Simon. They took the word of Jennifer over the word of the children and others around them.
The kids were distraught. They loved their dad and spending time with him. They told the social services this but Jennifer had already painted a bad picture and she won. Yes Jennifer won whilst everyone else lost.
Now Simon is currently unable to see his children at all. If he sees them whilst out and about they bound over to him for a hug which breaks his heart in two because as quick as they embrace him, Jennifer is pulling them apart.
If you look at Simon now you will think he is ill. He is gaunt, pale and tired looking. He works longer hours to take his mind off of his fight to see his children. He has spent thousands on solicitors. But he is getting nowhere.
Jennifer as I said was my friend. But I have to say to Jennifer why are you doing this? You loved Simon once, enough to build a life with him, a home, marry him and bear his children. You praised him every chance you got to anyone who would listen, telling us that he was the best dad in the world and that you couldn’t ask for a better father for your children. So why, Jennifer are you now so intent on hurting him in the most despicable way?
I cannot speak to Jennifer anymore because I am so appalled by her behaviour but I have heard on the rumour mill that she is so coiled with jealousy over Marie that she cannot stand the thought of her children being around her. But Marie was nothing to do with the break up. She came along months later and has never been anything but kind and sensible when it comes to the children.
If I could say one thing to Jennifer or any mother who is playing any kind of game with children, be it using them as a weapon or pawn or stopping them having contact with their father, I would say this: Don’t let your own anger, bitterness and resentment transgress to your children. Don’t let a relationship that has been built to a solid standing over the years, break down because of how you feel. Don’t take away the one thing that should be a fathers right, taking the kids away.
You are not only hurting your ex partner but you are hurting your children in ways you will never begin to understand. If your ex is abusive or unfit, of course I understand that it may not be in the best interests of any party to have access to children. Putting them in an unfit environment is not productive and realistically damaging.
But if you have an ex who loves his children and who supports them in all the right ways, still cares for them and wants to be a part of their life, why would you stop him and them from sharing that special bond?
You may think that you are getting revenge in some way but there are a million ways to avenge a wrong. Why does it have to involve the children? Some fathers are better parents than mothers and no matter what you think, a father has as much right to be involved with his children as a mother. You may laugh at the hurt you are causing your ex, safe in the knowledge that no one will take your kids away from you and that being the woman, you are always going to win.
But let me tell you this, any woman who treats a man in this way, in my opinion, is one of the lowest forms of evil ever to walk this earth. You make me ashamed and angry at being a woman. You make me want to shake you in the hope it will rattle some sense into your brain. And you make me, at times want to cry. Cry for all the fathers out there who are depressed and even suicidal.
I am also mad at this country and the world at large for assuming that a mother is always right when it comes to her children. There needs to be a change in the process. Involve the children more, ask them what they want. Don’t take the word of a woman who more often that not, for one reason or another, is purely out to cause misery to justify her own resentments.
Finally, I hope when you are older and the children have flown the nest and made their own decisions that you sit and reflect on the cruelty you have inflicted on your children and your ex. By then however, it will be too late.
Children aren’t children for long. Don’t take away an important part of their childhood.
Do the right thing.
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