Stickied as requested.
Two recent conversations have prompted me
to post on this thread.
One was from a father, forced out of his
home, and being fed scraps of time with his children. He was completely
broken and unable to understand why he was being punished like this, when
he hadn’t done anything that could be seen as wrong. Through the tears, he
explained to me what it was like for him, to be apart from his children
every day. Not seeing their smiles, not being able to breathe in their
scent when giving them a cuddle, to share laughter, dry their tears, and
just simply enjoying their presence. He now most likely faces a court
battle just to see his own children, and any parenting time awarded to him
will always be, as he said “never enough”. His story is all too common,
sadly.
The other was with a mother, a proud woman left
completely bereft at her husband’s affair and subsequent departure from the
family home. Her raw pain was all too evident. She felt the need to punish
him, to make him feel that same raw pain she was experiencing, and her only
way of inflicting that pain upon him was by stopping him from seeing the
children. We talked for a long time (by the bread isle in Tesco’s) and I
simply said to her – never hate him more than you love your children. She
broke down, as she realised that this was exactly what she was doing – her
love for her children was secondary to her
absolute hate of him. We talked some more, and she said
that she knew she had been in the wrong, but was unable to see through that
red mist and her utter despair. When we went our separate ways, she thanked
me, and said she would put right the enormous wrong she had done.
We all suffer when going through a family break-up, but it’s the children
who are always caught in the middle, being pulled in both
directions, their loyalties divided and their own
interests left behind in the wake of the divorce when their parents put
themselves first and the children second – and this does happen without it
being realised. The lady in Tesco’s demonstrated this.
I too,
am a child of divorce, and am only too aware of the damage that is done to
children when parents are determined to ruin the other. My mother kindly
blamed me for the divorce (I had just turned 13), and I carried this guilt
with me for many years. Of course I wasn’t to blame, but I had no reason to
believe that my own mother would lie to me. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s
and a parent myself, that I finally spoke to my Dad about this (he gained
custody of my sister and
I), and he set me straight. To blame a child as being the reason for a
divorce is simply cruel.
Our actions as parents reflect on our
children, and can be life-forming for them. It’s not easy to always act
with due reasonableness, to be the better adult, to take a step back from a
volatile situation, to not allow our own thoughts to affect our judgements,
but sometimes, a step back is needed, and the children to be bought to the
forefront of any actions we are about to take, and to think “is this really
in their interests?”
We don’t have rights as parents – we have
responsibilities, a duty of care, we should put the children first – always
– and remember that we are blessed to have such precious gifts in our
lives. We chose to have children, to nurture them, love them, protect them,
respect them, educate them, allow them to walk their own path in life when
they are older, and to appreciate them for the wonderful individuals they
are, and that they are your heart and soul.
Show your children you
love them, that they are the most important people in your life, that you
would do whatever it takes to keep them safe, and that above all, you put
their interests first.
Forum 
England and Wales 
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Scotland 
