Short version is that my Ex is a dick and I divorced him after years of horrible control and abuse. He was banging one of the local barmaids but told everyone I was shagging around the place. I wasn’t, and frankly could barely leave the house.
We have several children, who all live with me. The ex has fucked off to the next county and life is settling down. I’m much happier and although money is tight, we get by. For various reasons I had to pay HIM off when we split. He most certainly got the best end of the deal, but whatever, I don’t have to deal with him, mostly.
Eldest has autism. He is at mainstream school but is struggling especially socially and was badly bullied last term. He’s a very young 14 and I discovered that he had given away some things from the ex’s house to his friends at school to “thank them for sticking by him.” He has no real concept of the actual value, which certainly wasn’t obvious at first glimpse. Thankfully another parent realised and the items were recovered.
I told the ex straightaway. Partly because I wanted to warn him, and check what was there and partly because I want to model good honest behaviour for my children. The ex won’t communicate with me directly usually but deigned to speak to me and said he was going to claim on his insurance and call the police.
I persuaded him not to do that and that it had all been recovered and sleep on it. He agreed.
And he’s just had a scheduled phone call with eldest, and said that he didn’t know how to move forward and he didn’t consider him to be a “Smith” anymore because he was a thief and that he should consider himself to be a “Jones” like your mother’s family because they are all thieves.
Eldest is upset but says he won’t see him again. Other siblings are horrified but have said they don’t want to comment because they’re caught in the middle.
And I might explode in so angry. I’m sitting in the garden doing breathing exercises.
Wise women of MN tell me what to do. I still have the recovered items by the way. They are in my safe, rather than a box in the kitchen at ex’s where this stuff was previously stored. Replacement value of items is about £6k.