Rejection

Initially, after my separation with C, he was seeing our girls on alternate weekends. He was staying with his sister and didn't have his own place yet. When he did get his own place, he demanded shared care, complete 50/50. I wasn't at all keen on this, but as the girls were on board, I yielded to it.

It lasted a whole 3 weeks. About 1 week into this, I had a huge argument with J. I don't recall what started it, but she turned on me very quickly, telling me that I was trying to steal Daddy's money. Huh? Where had this come from? J tore me to pieces. She told me I had been spending Daddy's money for years and now I thought I was entitled to it, but I wasn't, OK?! It's HIS money! I still remember the look on her face. She - at that point - hated me. I was hurting her Daddy.

I was pretty stunned at this. C had always made snide comments about my 'excessive spending'. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed to shop; but most of the purchases I made were for the kids or the household. I tended to make bulk purchases when I found one of our regularly-used products on offer. Myself and the children mostly wore clothing from Primark, or supermarket ranges. C on the other hand, insisted on at least 2 foreign holidays a year, with at least 1 of those being 4 star hotels. He wanted all the newest gadgets and biggest TVs, and our vehicles were a reflection of his success, so of course had to be pretty high-end. If I wanted an appliance replaced, he insisted on expensive ones with all the mod-cons. C was the one who bought a hot tub, as well as installing a whole new decking area for it and buying all the accessories. C bought motorbikes and expensive toys without discussion with me. Even now he states my 'excessive spending' as the biggest problem in our marriage. Yes, he earned the most money; but he still refuses to accept that I contributed to his earning potential in any way. I asked him a few months ago if he felt his business would have grown and been successful without my input. The answer was a resounding YES. 

C was made redundant from his job some years before and took the opportunity start a new business. I helped with the start-up; taking on the majority of managing accounts, invoicing, client liaison etc. He hired an office manager when I left to complete my degree, but I definitely set the role up first. I also supported him when his first company failed so spectacularly that he was forced to both liquidate and declare bankruptcy. In addition to that, I did the majority of the cooking, laundry, cleaning, childcare, and certainly took on the 'mental load' of the family management. For those unfamiliar with the term, the 'mental load' refers to the invisible labour that is commonly (but not always) taken on by the woman in a relationship. It's remembering birthdays, doctor's appointments, planning for events and who needs to bring what to where. It's the constant, never-ending mental 'to-do' list that can be entirely overwhelming. I also worked, and while I was admittedly part-time, my role is extremely physically and emotionally draining. When Christmas was coming up, I purchased and wrapped all of the gifts, including those for his family. When the kids needed a dental check-up, I was responsible for remembering to schedule it and taking them myself. I took the cats for their vaccinations and remembered to flea and worm treat them. If the milk ran out, I was expected to either go get it myself, or remind him repeatedly to get some on his way home from work. If he still forgot, I was a 'nag' for complaining that we had no milk despite the 3 messages I had sent him on the subject. If I didn't ask him, he would complain that I should have just asked. I couldn't win.

So you can imagine how upset I was to have my then 14-year-old daughter tell me to stop trying to steal Daddy's money.

While J and S were spending half their time with their Dad, J's mental health was still rocky. She was self harming regularly and not coping well with school. I asked C for help. In fact, I begged for help. I pleaded with him to take her mental health seriously and to stop dismissing it. He presented me with something he found on 'Mumsnet'; apparently someone's child had been self-harming in the same way and it was just a fad. He told me the best thing we could do was to ignore it. I showed him plenty of information and research from reputable sources, advising that we take her self-harming seriously. C told me that 'professionals have no clue, they change their mind all the time'. Yet some random person on Mumsnet can definitely be trusted. Honestly, I think one of these days I'll roll my eyes so hard they will be permanently jammed pointing towards the back of my head. CAMHS were involved by this time, and they also advised us to take her behaviour seriously. C shared with me that he felt that J's boyfriend B was to blame for this; he also self harmed so he was a bad influence. I disagreed; I generally felt - and still do, they are still together - that he is a positive and protective influence on J. I strongly advised C not to share this opinion with J, as it would not only upset her, it would cause damage to their father-daughter relationship.

So of course he ignored me. He spoke to J and to B, saying he didn't think they should spend so much time together, that B was a poor influence, that they were making each other worse, and he was no longer prepared to let B spend time with J at his house.

J exploded. She was angry and hurt; immediately contacted me, asking me if she could come home. She hasn't stayed with her father since then, and has only seen him once for around an hour when she later went to collect her things. His reaction was akin to when you tell a child you aren't going to buy them the sweets they've picked up off the supermarket shelf. Within a few weeks, he had moved his new girlfriend and her 2 children into his house, moving J and all of her things decidedly out, without any discussion. He removed her from his Spotify account and stopped giving her pocket money. When her 15th birthday came round, he announced that the laptop he had gifted her months before (that he had taken in lieu of building work at his sisters house so that J would stop using his laptop for her remote education) was in fact her birthday gift. On the day, she received a card from her father. He didn't even give her anything to open.

J is 15, but she is still legally, emotionally and physically a child. C was very obviously and publicly rejecting her. Despite my regular texts and emails asking him to make an effort, giving him suggestions of how he could reconcile with her and what she needed to trust him again, very little effort was made. There were periods of weeks where he made no contact whatsoever. As previously mentioned, J has a hell of a temper on her. She would lash out at him via text, and he would justify his rejection by claiming he was disciplining her for 'abusing' him. This 15 year old girl, with a complex mental health status, was 'abusing' the 40-something year old grown man who had discarded her. All the while through this, S was still his golden child. He refused to accept that separating J and S for half of the time would be damaging; to his relationship with his eldest daughter, to J's mental health, or to his daughters' sibling relationship. I told him that this was confirmation to J that he favoured her sister, and this was of course hurtful to her. C lavished S with expensive gifts while ignoring J's needs. I later found out that C was making frequent snide comments to and around S, both about me and about J; that I was a drama queen and didn't care about S, and that J was crazy and violent. He even showed S some of the 'abusive' texts he received from J to verify her volatility. Their relationship imploded; J came to resent S (understandably) and S believed that her sister was somehow dangerous. Their father made a safeguarding report to the NSPCC claiming that I put S at risk by allowing her to spend time alone with a teenager who self harms. Suddenly, J's self harm was simultaneously a harmless fad, but also a sign of a dangerously unstable and violent individual, placing her own sister at risk. Thankfully, his referral came to nothing; I expect they laughed at him.

I asked multiple times to reconsider having shared care with one child and not the other. With this breakdown in the sibling relationship, S began to suggest she in fact spend more time with her father. She asked if she could live with him, and see me on alternate weekends. After all, I 'got' J in the separation, surely Dad could keep S? It's only fair that we share the kids completely, right? You try explaining to a 12 year old what the problem is with that logic in this situation, and also try doing it without denigrating their father or breaking the confidence of an emotionally damaged teenager. I can't even describe how this made me feel. I finally understood the heartbreak associated with separation. I wasn't heartbroken to lose my husband, but he was making damn sure my heart would get broken in some other way.

I realised that this was what it came down to. I had made the decision to end our marriage. I had rejected C, and this to him was unthinkable. After all, he was the one in control, he was the one out of my league. When we separated, he wanted to be the one who ended it, and he wanted me to be visibly broken by him. When he hadn't seen me fall apart, he wanted to hurt me, and show the world how devastated I was to lose such a wonderful and generous man. What's the best and most effective way to hurt a mother? Through her children. C had tried very hard to make both children reject me, and when J instead rejected him, he lashed out at her too. His last option was S.