I carried on seeing my children every Saturday during the daytime, 10am-5pm using hire cars and borrowing friend's cars where I could. There was no way I could rely on borrowing what used to be my car on a Saturday so I needed security. Despite signing agreements, these were now ignored by my ex.
I introduced my children to my partner after a month, with whom thanks to her lovely family, I lived with. Sharing a house that I could take the children back to was fantastic, no more hanging about in parks or paying out for indoor play centres every Saturday when it was raining (the novelty was wearing off for them.)
Christmas was on the horizon and the days were not to fall onto a Saturday. My ex said that they were going away for Christmas and could not be contacted plus I was working on the boxing day. It was the hardest Christmas I had ever endured. I am not religious in any way and to me Christmas is a time for family to get together and to watch your children's faces as they open their presents. To me that is a very happy and rewarding sight. I managed to let them open their presents before Christmas, ironically in her house and I played with them for a bit. I took photos and videos so that on Christmas day I could at least take comfort in looking at them. My partner and both of our families helped me get through this time.
One of my children had their birthday shortly after the new year and I was stunned that both myself and my partner were invited to the party by my ex. My children were so happy that we were there and it reinforced for me that maybe it would all stay amicable. It turned out if anything we were there to watch the children as my ex had no control over them running through the city centre streets. One of them would have gone missing if it wasn't for my keen eyed partner spotting him wandering off amongst the crowds. My ex didn't bat an eyelid towards it which we both found alarming. There had been numerous comments by my ex to her friend during the party including "I had the knife especially sharpened" whilst walking down an alley way. I pretended to not hear it but it played on my mind. Once back to their house I said bye to my children as did my partner and this was the cue for my ex to begin an "Eastenders style" shouting rant as we walked calmly away. I had no idea what my children must have thought. It was a wake up call to me that things were far from being alright.
The vehicle situation got a lot better thanks to a kind donation of money from my family, it was enough so that my partner could buy a car and finally we were not restricted anymore. A huge weight of our shoulders.
Since the time that we had gone our separate ways, I had put my house up for sale. Although it was my name on the deeds and the mortgage I was perfectly aware that under matrimonial law any equity would be halved between us. Annoying especially as I had big debts to pay off when I bought the house originally. I had some prospective buyers come and go but no offers had been made.
My time with the children meanwhile was rapidly diminishing, birthday party after birthday party cropped up and the driving backward and forward started to take its toll. If I said "no" to the children attending (sometimes I was told on the day before!) then I was threatened that the children did not want to see me. It was almost like I wasn't allowed to take the children back to where I was living and spend time playing on games consoles, crafting and building with lego. I found it very difficult to understand, especially when the children did not always seem to know whose party they were attending and they even questioned their mother who on the spot would tell them a name that they still didn't know. My 10-5 was becoming more like 10-12 if I was lucky.
I did manage to have a few full sessions with them and we had a lot of fun together, baking, making things and playing games and no doubt they would tell their mother what they had been doing. One Monday I received a phone call from my ex after having the children to learn that all three of them had contracted worms and indicated that it was from my partner's mum's dogs. I panicked and ran to the pharmacist to buy worming tablets in-case we did all have worms. Then I did what I should have done in the first place...I stopped everything and started to research worms in animals. I was stunned to read from the NHS website that humans could not contract dog worms from a dog, therefore what I had been told was untrue along with the very quick diagnosis by a "pharmacist" as the rate of contracting worms to passing them was a lot longer than the time that has passed. I explained to my ex that I felt that this was unjustified and wrong to blame the dogs but received a lot of verbal back over the phone and made to feel like I was responsible for making my children ill. Although this seemed a fairly petty but annoying scenario, this was not to end here.
I received a letter from my ex's solicitor stating that the dogs at the house I lived at had made the children ill and that one of them also had a phobia of dogs. This was all very strange and I tried to re-assure my ex that the "worms scenario" was incorrect and that none of them were scared of the dogs, in-fact they played with them when they were over. My ex wouldn't listen and demanded that the dogs were banished. Of course being in a house that is not mine, there was no way that I could do this, nor did I want to. This was purely another attempt at stopping me from bringing the children to the house.
One Saturday I arrived to collect the children and my ex started shouting at me in-front of the children about the solicitor's letters that she had sent me. I told her that I had not received the letters and carried on buckling the seatbelts as we prepared to leave for a tourist attraction. My ex went on and on at me about the children not wanting to see me and that they had nosebleeds before I arrive from the anxiety of it all. She even told me that she didn't "give a fuck about the dogs." I really didn't want the children to hear all of this language and started to drive off. With that she started telling the kids that I would buy them whatever they wanted at the tourist attraction. This angered me a little as she knew that I was very tight on money.
It was a bit of an unsettling day to be honest and we tried to have a good time with the children and even let them plan the next Saturday. They unanimously said "swimming" and were looking forward to it a lot. I was a bit nervous about dropping the children off and rightfully so as when I arrived with my partner, my ex and her friend were waiting for me. Immediately I was told that I was only to see the children every other Saturday and I replied that it wasn't fair on the children and that we had plans for the following Saturday. My ex told me "tough" and began shouting at my partner who was also in our car so I drove off not wanting any confrontation in-front of the children.
During that week on the Wednesday while having a meal kindly paid for by my partner I received the phone call that you never want to have. It was my ex telling me that I was never going to see the children anymore....
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