Hello all, I need some urgent and fast advice, for this reason I am posting in AIBU.
And I apologise in advance, please, please do not attack me for the length of this, I am so lost with how to tackle this situation and I want to give all relevant information.
For background:
I am currently going through a divorce with my ex after a lengthy marriage and 3 children, all daughters, together. The divorce is not an issue, all decisions regarding assets and financials have been made, agreed and committed to.
He is in his early 40’s and I am in my late 30’s. We split up because he admitted he was having an affair with a married woman, was in love with her and wanted to get divorced to build a life with her.
There was NO argument from, marriage was over there and then. Fast forward and she is still with her husband and they are no longer together. At the time of the split, our children were 7, 3 and 1.
They are now 11, 6 and 5.
I have never had to argue with him regarding his financial commitments to our children. The only thing we have ever clashed about since the split is his lack of effort with our children.
When he left he promised he would see them every weekend. As time went on this went down to once a month at his insistence.
He has never had them overnight or for any holiday period which is ok with me but the eldest 2 have increasingly felt annoyed about this as time as gone on.
My eldest and him were very close before the split. After the split my eldest took it very hard, the middle one has only this year started to connect the dots regarding the split and the youngest is just happy go lucky and thankfully doesn’t seem too bothered by it all.
Over the last 18 months, my eldest has become increasingly distressed about his lack of effort in terms of seeing them:
He never, ever attends anything at school, does not matter how important or how much notice he is given, he simply won’t attend.
He is never, ever on time when he is supposed to be seeing our children even though it’s only once a month. He is always late and my eldest gets really irate about this.
He has always insisted on seeing our children at my house. When he sees them, he never has any structured activities or quality time planned with them. He will sit around my house with them and they will sort of entertain themselves and he will then take them out to get some food. For context we live in a lovely little village which is full of parks and greenery, I mean there 3 about 5 minutes walk from our front door. He will not voluntarily take them out on their bikes or do a puzzle with them, my children will happily bake and cook, he won’t initiate anything like that with them, he just does nothing of any substance
He is short and snappy with them, sometimes telling them to ‘shut up’ or calling my eldest an ‘idiot.’
When they are with him he will ALWAYS call me to tell me child x is crying and then I’ll have to talk to and soothe said child over the phone
He will go weeks without speaking to them over the phone, I have suggested so many times that he even Facetime them or something, it is always flat out refused.
My eldest gets anxious a lot where he is concerned, she worries about him. We do not know where he lives, he won’t tell us, and sometimes she’ll wonder if he’s even warm or not.
He has no involvement in any issue regarding their health. Does not celebrate their achievements in any way. Is very, very dismissive of them and of me.
Because our children have no structure with him, my eldest is always in an agitated state where her Dad is concerned and has a lot of pain, anger, issues with rejection and extreme frustrations with him. Sadly she is also desperate to have a relationship with him and be loved and understood by him and so she is not willing to give up on him or let him go.
Now here is the issue:
Since the split to the present day, he has let our children down numerous times when it comes to doing something he has said he is going to do. My eldest especially has been massively affected by this trait of his. I am not making reference to small things like ‘you promised you would read with me’ or ‘you promised we would watch a movie’ but huge things like making plans to spend some one on one time with her, letting her build up her excitement all week and then cancelling the day before, literally the day before and it crushes her every single time he does it. I would like to add that for me, if you use the words ‘I promise’ with a child, you had better damn follow it through.
He has also just gone quiet with communication with our children for no reason. For example, he will ignore my eldest child’s pleas over text, voice note and phone calls when she has begged and begged him to just least just get in touch and let her know he is ok, BECAUSE he is being so quiet. The ticks go blue, he reads the messages etc and then ignores her but then on the other hand will tell her that he loves her. I have warned him and warned him to either follow through on his word or not agree to it in the first place.
The latest incident happened a very short while ago. My eldest has a low self esteem and is highly self critical of all she does even though she is an accomplished student, lovely and kind child, a wonderful big sister (bar their usual sibling bickering) and has good friends around her. I try and try to build her up but she believes her Dad left because she wasn’t good enough and then I remind her that it was because of someone else and she will say ‘well then AFTER he left he has made no effort with me so clearly I am not good enough.’
5 months ago she signed up for an event with the consent of her Dad being there to see her perform and then drive her home afterwards. The event was due to end around 9.30pm and was about 90 minutes from where we live. She asked him if would a) attend and b) bring her home afterwards. He told her yes, emphatically, ‘yes, yes, yes!’ I kept asking him, are you sure? Are you sure? And he kept telling me the same thing. So, we purchased a ticket, my daughter attended practice every single week after school and really threw herself into the entire process. A week before the event I asked him what do you want to do about your ticket? I have it here, if it is difficult for you to get there for any reason, just tell me and I will go instead. He insisted he was going and to post the ticket to his parent’s house from where he would collect it. So I did.
2 days before the event he texted me out of the blue and said ‘put her pyjamas in her bag, I may be booking into a hotel.’ That is all he text. I asked him for some background as to why he couldn’t bring her back home?
Over the next 2 days he jumped between I will bring her back to it will be hard for me and make it easier if I don’t have to. I the end I spoke with her school who are fully aware and her wonderfully kind and trusted teachers offered to drive her home after the event. Once this was confirmed, we are now the evening before the event, I told him he didn’t need to bring her back now, all he had to do was be there to see her. Nothing else.
The day of the event, he called me 2 hours before he was due to be there to say he can’t make it because of work. I was devastated but decided there and then that he is not going to see them anymore, ever. I have given him over 3 years to rectify his approach to them, there is so much more I could add to this post but it’s already massively long.
During the conversation when he cancelled he said ‘fine, I’ll leave work now and go!” And I told him no, under no circumstances are you to go there now. He then said ‘well now I’m saying I’ll go and YOU’RE stopping me from doing so.’
I told him he is not seeing them anymore. I then text and said I had spoken to the school and they knew not to expect him.
He then texted me straight after regarding our finances and how he will do whatever necessary to make sure I feel secure in our financial arrangement.
Today I have asked that we speak over the phone to iron out the finer details regarding him not seeing them. He has agreed and is calling me after the children go to bed.
I absolutely will not be changing my mind, he has emotionally abused and neglected them always with the promise to improve but never has and our daughters, especially the eldest have been desperate to see him. I feel so completely worn out, I would not allow anyone else to do this to them, so why is it ok for him? Because he is their Dad? No. I am done and will not be moving from my position.
My questions are:
How do I tackle this with my children? My eldest is due to start secondary, is well on her way into puberty, is finding her own little identity and then this. She still doesn’t know he didn’t attend even though the first thing she asked when she got home was, ‘where was Dad, I looked and looked but couldn’t see him anywhere.’ I deflected.
My middle one is fiercely independent on the surface, she will not show any vulnerability to anyone but is very insecure and emotional when she talks to me. She internalises a lot. She is only 6.
The youngest is blissfully unaware as she doesn’t remember it any other way.
How do I help them?
Is it better coming from him? (He is a coward so I don’t even know if he would tell them himself.)
Do I tell them he is going away? If so do they chat on the phone?
How much will it screw them up by telling them the truth? How much pain will it inflict in terms of their future selves? Will they look for father figures in messed up relationships when older? Does anyone please have any experience of this?
How do I mitigate the effects of his utter selfishness?
What practical questions do I ask him?
Does he give up his PR? Just any advice at all please. I am utterly heartbroken for my children but relieved that he will be going away and just want it finalised and done so I can get on with helping them to deal with it all and hopefully to heal.
Thank you.
Note:
None of our children are SEN or have any medical conditions so he cannot use that as an excuse in terms of he can’t handle them.
They were all planned so he wasn’t tricked or forced into becoming a Dad.
He has never reneged in any way on his financial responsibility towards them.