Hi Zonedout. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences. I don't know where to start with my questions... perhaps you should go and make a cuppa!
Firstly, you don't sound crazy at all! What an unthinkable situation to deal with. I think you should be very proud of yourself as it sounds like you dealt with the emotional stress almost alone.
I feel that I have protected my girls as well as possible in the most unreal of situations. Daddy has been very unreasonable tho, cancels visits, refused to keep on paying for their private schooling. His main concern appears to be to pay as little as possible and to leave as much upset whilst expecting me to facilitate the ongoing relationship.... I have always been generous with access. I gather (thru the kids) that he wants them to have a webcam and that his parents will take them to Aus in the hols.... I doubt I will be letting them out of my sight until they are much older.
All that said, I want them to understand that Mummy and Daddy still love and that I am not going anywhere. It is likely we will have much upset re housing, schools and lack of cash but I have told DD1 that whatever happens the three of us will be together and that is all that matters. Of course, you never know what is going on in those little heads but I just want them to feel secure.
As you say Zone, things were perhaps a little different when there wasn't such an array of ways to keep in contact and when understanding of emotional issues were less talked about. I am unsure how to maintain the relationship between Daddy and DDs. I do not communicate with soon to be ex DH apart from through e-mail and text. If things are not settled financially we will go to a final court hearing in January and I will be financially ruined. So, as you can see, I am struggling to detach the relationship with the girls from how I will actually manage to survive.... he is putting us in that situation and I am finding it hard to be really objective. Do you think it would be more or less helpful for daddy to appear on a webcam every couple of days... he also intends that the rest of his family will keep in touch by this method. He has told the girls that daddy is moving to Aus to live in a big house with a pool and a slide and his new family...get the picture.... eldest DD is v excited but obviously doesnt understand that you can't just go for the weekend! I am imagining they will be upset and cry after they have spoken/seem him on the cam... I will be left trying to calm them and will feel that we cannot get on with out lives due to the intrusion that is purely "remote" and cannot be backed up with physical or emotional support.....
Sorry I am rambling now! Zone - in an ideal world how would you have like the relationship with your Daddy to have been maintained? Would you have found it upsetting to have little snippets of Daddy but no cuddles and kisses?
Thanks so much. xxxx