I have no idea what to do about my ex-DH and DDs

[LoafersOrLouboutins]

I was with my (now ex) DH for 13 years, we met at uni and divorced last year. ExDH is Iranian, I'm white British. Cultural differences were never an issue for us and ExDH wasn't a practising Muslim by any means; he drinks alcohol and we lived together for years before getting married. He loves Iranian food and music so it was more the Iranian culture which was a part of our lives than DH family's religious beliefs. We have two DDs together (ages 5 and 2) and we were very happy, DH was very supportive of my choice to go back to work full time 3months after each DD was born and I was fine with him working away often. Then when DD2 was 7months old he just broke down and said he couldn't carry on with the way things were, it felt wrong to him and he felt like he was failing our DDs. I tried my best to get to the heart of the matter but a week of blazing arguments followed, I left our home in London with our DDs to stay with my parents in the countryside for the weekend. I would often do this when DH was working away and I told him it was to get away from the arguments but we would all be back on the Monday. I did return on the Monday to find DH had packed his things and gone to Iran. He rang me a few weeks later and spoke to our DDs on the phone, we were raising DD1 to be bi-lingual so he spoke to her in Farsi, I'm not sure what he said and she has never told me (although I'm not sure if she remembers it now). ExDH has since inundated me with emails of his love whilst divorcing me(!) and rings me at all hours to cry about how he misses our DDs. DD2 doesn't remember him but DD1 does and misses him a lot, she goes to a weekend Farsi club and we still do Iranian cultural things but she wants her daddy. I KNOW it would be hugely unsafe and irresponsible of me to take them to Iran, which is what my exDH begs me to do as he says we could start a new life there, (Betty Mahmoody comes to mind) but I feel like I'm failing my DDs. They're missing out on their father, who still loves him and a part of their identity. I'm so angry with my exDH but I also don't know what to do. I'm really struggling with being a single parent and I feel torn in three directions; my parents, myDDs and my exDH. Sorry if that was a rant and possibly should have been posted on the relationships board. Any advice?

OP, you have done tremendously well. It must have been so difficult to say that to your DDs. I love the response you got though, just goes to show how little minds work.

I hope you get some consolation from me, someone who has experienced this first hand, that all will be OK. My sister and I went through exactly this. And we had a wonderful childhood with our mother. She never spoke badly of our dad, which I think we appreciated. But he just was never there, it was no big deal, its just the way things were. My mum is such a loving and doting person, we always have felt loved and cared for. We did not need him. In fact, if he had stuck around, our lives would have been far, far worse.

Keep exh well and truly off that pedestal, you owe him NOTHING. You know all this anyway, but I would suggest you maybe get this thread moved somewhere else so it doesn't get deleted, and if you ever have a wobble, you can refer back to the comments and it may give you some strength and freshen your resolve.

Just wanted to say well done and I am thinking of you and your girls.

I was just going to say that you should print this thread, OP.
If you are ever tempted to get in touch/make contact with your ex, read it.

Oh goodness I am thinking about you and your girls - what an awful time you are going through. I would def alert the passport authorities that no other passports are to be issued for your girls and lock the current ones up in the bank.

I would agree with pp's that you should gradually phase out the Farsi/close links/Iran is a wonderful homeland aspect of your lives. If your dd's want to explore that side of their heritage when they are older then they can but, by that age, will be able to identify that it isn't all hearts and flowers.

You say that you have close friends who are Iranian - if any of them are v close friends of your ex I would be extremely wary of them. You don't want them passing on any details of your usual movements etc.

I know this is all still raw but have you considered moving? Is that a possibility with work etc? Don't worry about your dd's friends etc - they will make them again in the blink of an eye and they are incredibly adaptable at that age, in fact the earlier you do it, the better. How about going down to Devon to be nearer your folks?

Strength, courage and to you. You are doing the right things.

agree with Whatis - you should be wary around people who are friends of your ex.

I agree about moving. It's a shame your folks are so far away from London, I think it would be very wise to move to be close to them so your girls can be watched closely and enveloped in a different community/group of friends, if you can make your career work down there.

You can stop the Farsi club.

You can offer to meet her friends from there in the park or at a play centre or anywhere else instead (not as well as the club, I'd stop that immediately) and gradually break away from them if you want. But I would stop the club right now.

You could do it easily, by being busy with something else, and not telling her that she's not going again. Yes it is Farsi club tonight but this is the only night X could come to play. No, we're missing Farsi club today because we've been invited out with X. We are going out for dinner today and won't be back in time for Farsi club.

Children are surprisingly resilient and make new friends more easily at five, so why not just stop the Farsi club and offer her the chance to go somewhere else. Dancing, swimming, another language club, anything else where she can meet other friends and have fun.

And as everyone else has said, definitely do not take them to Iran or anywhere else to meet up with him. He can come here, but don't have him stay with you in your home or think for one minute that because the passports are with your parents he can't take them out of the country.

There are ways and means of doing anything and he might be able to use the passports of other children in the family, or apply for passports for your girls on his own, either here or in Iran.

I've read about children being taken by fathers who still then have little to do with them, handing them over to female relatives to raise and leaving them isolated from both parents in a strange country with little chance of being returned to their mother.

There was a recent thread on here about this happening to a British woman who had an American ex-partner wanting her to give birth to their child in America, so it can happen anywhere.

Please get proper advice and be as careful as you can be.

I've read about children being taken by fathers who still then have little to do with them, handing them over to female relatives to raise and leaving them isolated from both parents in a strange country with little chance of being returned to their mother.

Ditto. with knobs on.

Your ex will be living life as a single man. your DDs daily lives will be governed by his mother, sisters, aunts.

I am so pleased you have decided not to go to Iran (you have decided that, haven't you?) - I think it would be a very risky decision indeed if you did go, so very pleased that you're not.

Your DH is being very weird and I agree that there is a good chance he is manipulating you - if he really wanted to see his DDs he would come back to the UK to do so.

The only thing that would concern me now in any way is whether or not he is able to procure Iranian passports for them - do you know how that works? I realise you have passports for the girls at your parents' place, but are they British ones?

Anyway - that's the only point I would suggest you look into, if you haven't already.

It is very sad for your DDs but I expect that they will soon become accustomed to the change in their family set up. :(

Just imagine your girls living in a foreign country wishing they could see you and your ex telling them all sorts. I'd stop the language classes now.

I completely disagree that you should stop Farsi club and having Iranian food etc.

I'm someone who had an absent father from the ME, and if my Mum had had the ability to teach me more about the other half of myself but then chose not to, I would resent that. My only regret in life is that I don't know more about where I came from.

I love the Iranian culture, the food is amazing, and like it or not, it is part of these children's heritage. It is not some evil place whose people you need to protect your children from, no matter what the American influenced media likes to say.

Obviously the children need to realise that they won't be going to Iran any time soon, but it's existence in their minds will not cease to exist just because their exposure to its culture is limited. These children have a right to know their heritage, and it's a sad thing for children when it's not possible to give them that.

Just to jump in and say, I agree very much with the steely determination and the taking him off a pedestal, but think you should keep up farsi and making them aware of their culture, and be a bit careful with how you phrase the 'Iran is not a very nice place' stuff.

Look at it this way: if he reappears and gets access and visitation when they're stroppy teenagers (which he would), and can say, mummy has been cutting you off from your culture, look at all these exciting things only we can understand, that's something else he can hold over you and them. If they are comfortable in who they are and their background, and understand that while Iranian politics of the day mean they shouldn't want to go there now as it isn't safe, but they have a rich background and you're happy to help them understand that, then that mystique won't exist. And they'll know that he chose to leave, and it was nothing to do with his being Iranian, just being a knobend. Also, being bilingual is a huge advantage for a child: and if the worst somehow happened and they were abducted it would be a lot easier for them to find their way back to you if they had the language skills to communicate outside the family.

I know people of Iranian descent who are very progressive and comfortable with their British identity while retaining their Iranian culture. I think it woudl be worth cultivating family friends who are from that background who are critical of the current situation in the country and who can answer qs your daughters may have as they grow from a position of trust. I'm sorry you are in this situation, and while its worth being aware of the risks, I have no doubt you will raise your daughters to be strong happy women and you mustn't lose sight of that.

You are old enough now to find out about that side of your heritage for yourself though WooWoo

You don't have to regret that you don't know as much about it as you would like.

Had their father chosen to stay, he could be teaching them as much as he liked about that side of their heritage.

He hasn't done so, and the OP is now trying to teach them about a culture that is not her own, but alarm bells are quite rightly ringing about his comments and behaviour, and the very real possibility of him wanting to take the girls and have them raised away from their mother.

And I doubt his family will be even one jot concerned about half their heritage being British, or respect the need to raise the girls with British culture as well as Iranian.

The OP hasn't taken away that opportunity for them to be raised with both cultures, and neither has the media, her ex-husband has done that. The OP is raising British girls in Britain, their father's heritage is important but no more so than their mothers and as they are being raised in Britain by their mother, why put a greater focus of their heritage on another country and an absent father?

They have plenty of time to learn about it later, if they choose, when they are old enough to understand why the OP might have felt that distancing them from Farsi club was a decision she needed to make to protect them while they were vulnerable and to understand that it's not all about the language and the food.

I can't see any harm in allowing your DDs to continue with Farsi club; nor with still eating some Iranian food if you all like it. After all, it's useful to be bilingual and they'll learn best at that age. They can always choose to discontinues it later if they want.
But I do agree you don't need to put so much emphasis on it now.

I also agree that you should be wary of how you describe Iran to them - after all, they are half-Iranian, you don't want them to think that Iran = bad, because then they might start thinking they are half-bad themselves (child logic).

Do not take your children to Iran just dont he can come and see his dds I know he is hassiling you dont feel guilty or sorry for him he left you all its not like he has moved up north or something, I hope he gets a grip and comes to see his children I wouldnt trust him

I didn't say that they should be told that Iran is a bad place and that Iranians are bad people, just that it is dangerous due to the laws there for them to visit while they are still children, as there is a real risk that Iranian law would see them separated from their mother forever.

Which is the truth.

I didn't say you did say that, did I FacebookWill; in fact my post wasn't aimed at you at all, I was extrapolating from the OP's use of "Iran isn't a very nice place"

Iran isn't currently a very nice place -- particularly for women. I think the OP is showing remarkable restraint given how she and her daughters are being treated, and what is likely to happen if she is ill-advised enough to set foot in Iran with her DDs. A friend of mine (Iranian) spent a day under arrest in Tehran last week despite wearing a baggy jacket and baggy trousers and no make-up, being groped by the "morality police".

I'm not disputing the niceness or not-niceness of Iran. I'm just saying that the OP might want to be careful how she describes it to her DDs as they are part Iranian, and might internalise any negativity towards Iran because they are half-Iranian.

Also I think it would be worth checking with the Home Office about getting it on record that he's not allowed to apply for passports for them - their current ones might be locked away at your parents, but he could say they had been stolen, etc. and then apply for new ones. Or Iranian ones.

I re-read this thread and printed it too, as a morale boost for the future! Today was the first time DD1 didn't go to Farsi club. I took a poster's advice on board and said it had stopped running so I thought it would be nice for her to try ballet or a drama club instead. My dad is going to forward to the most important (or how are the girls doing at school rather than 'I'm so lonely and want to die without my girls, I don't see why we can't be a family here type emails) emails onto me on Tuesday evening to reply to. ExDH is calling the girls tomorrow afternoon, he has 15minutes per DD. the DDs are never alone with our Iranian friends and we only tend to see them out and about, I don't invite them to our house since ExDH left. I'm really horrified by what happened to your friend downamongtherednecks, how awful! Is she ok now? DD1 doesn't seem too upset and is looking forward to telling her dad about our new kitten, I really hope she doesn't mention to ExDH that Farsi club is 'no longer on'. I really want to phase put the phone calls to no contact but I know my DDs might hold it against me when they're older. I'm going to enquire about the foreign office on Monday. I would love to move closer to my parents in Devon and I'm seriously considering it. I work as a PA to a hedgefund manager, I could get a job as a PA in Devon but it would be a big come down in salary, although living Costa would be lower so it wouldn't really matter. Do you think uprooting from London to Devon would be too much stress do my DDs? DD2 is oblivious to it all but I worry about DD1. How do I get this thread moved so I can refer back to it in the future?

Report your own OP, Loafers and ask for it to be moved to Relationships or similar.

I think moving nearer to your parents would in fact be a good idea because it would give you more support and your DDs would be able to spend more time with their grandparents, which might off-set some of the difficulties of them not seeing their Dad, although of course they will still miss him, especially the older one.

From a security point of view it would also be a good idea, as, if there were any risk at all that your DH's Iranian connections might try to abduct your DDs, then moving out of London to a new address (that you wouldn't be passing on) would make it a damn sight harder. Plus if you do move then that puts paid to Farsi club, I'm sure - I doubt there are too many clubs like that available outside the big cities.

Children adapt children make new friends settle into school etc and they would be neard grandparents you woul d feel safe and happier I wouldnt rule out a move to Devon if you really want to move down

Your DD will not be traumatised at all in moving to Devon, she is still very young and would easily adapt.

I think threads like this really show MN at its best and you have had some great advice here, good luck OP.

FWIW - I don't see any harm in encouraging your DDs to learn about Iranian culture, their heritage. But I would not trust any of your DH's friends in London and absolutely their passports need to be water-tight.

I think moving to Devon sounds an excellent idea. Really the girls will be fine.

Do not go to Iran.

I seem to remember that under Iranian law once a child is 7 dad automatically gets custody if he asks.

You are not stopping him seeing his daughters. You are keeping up with cultural aspects of their hermitage, you are doing more than enough to be a great mother.

The move to Devon sounds like an adventure for all three of you.

If you weaken just remember this is not just your ex, this is your ex's family you are dealing with, and they will see things differently. They probably see your girls as your ex's not yours if that makes sense.