absent mothers

i've been put in a dilemna concerning my kids who are my world. unfortunately, not only did my marriage break up five years ago but my ex and i also now live in different countries...he in the uk and me in spain. up until last september, both kids lived with me. then just before his 16th birthday, my son said he wanted to pursue a football career in england and now lives with his father and attends a football academy..he's gifted and committed and it was important to him, despite him not having the best of relationships with his dad.

my daughter stayed with me and remains her dad's little princess. every single time he visits her or sees her, he is constantly talking about her going to england to live with him. he hates spain as it reminds him of everything he 'lost' and i hate england cos i hate england and he wouldn't have lost anything had he kept his dick in check.

this year, my daughter has been flunking school. she's not acamedically minded and also the spanish system is very difficult at high school level and kids have to repeat years if they don't attain certain grades...something they don't do in the uk.

my ex is here at the moment and i've not been well and so that's given him leverage to get me to go back to the uk. in his ideal situation, i would live near him and his partner...the same woman he cheated on me with...and we would share custody of both the kids, each having a week on a week off which is apparently what she does with her two kids from a previous conviction.

my daughter now wants to go and will go back in the summer, as planned and give living there her full consideration.

of course, my ex is delighted but he and his family (who are of course behind him in this) don't seem to give a flying fuck about what I want and i'm being made to feel like a selfish mother for not wanting to go back to the uk too.

i have nothing there to build a life for myself on. i earn good money in spain but it wouldn't last two seconds in london and rental prices are ridiculous...plus where my ex lives is an absolute shithole and i would die before living like that.

so, it looks like both my kids (who are 16 and 13 btw) will be soon living with their father in another country. of course i feel guilty before the event and that i should move to be with them as that's what's 'expected' of me but is it so wrong for me to stay? so they have a cool place to go to during their vacations?

it just seems so unfair to be in this posi

DG: thank you so much for your input, it was very much appreciated. i'm sure you know how a mother's guilt works though...kinda damned if you do, damned if you don't.

the main thing that upsets me is that i wasn't the one to destroy the marriage and he's now happy and settled in his new relationship and i've had to do nothing but compromise and make sacrifices for the sake of the kids since we split. i don't resent them for it of course but i do resent him and i resent how he uses every moment he's alone with my daughter to persuade her to go and live there and tells her that it would be best for me to go back too 'because he cares about me'...thus planting the seed in her mind that i'll be selfish to stay.

i guess i wouldn't be an absent mother in the strictest sense of the word but i would kinda feel like one nevertheless. i know i'll be judged harshly if i stay in spain and i already know i will find that judgement hard to deal with as a part of me thinks i should put everything to one side until my kids are adults.

the irony is that my ex goes on about how she should be with her family, ie HIS family...the same family who never call or write her and aren't even her friends on facebook.

i would never choose a man over my kids. i can't understand how any mother can do that. why bother having kids in the first place!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

NO! he pays no child support. he's a musician. a non-famous one. i was always the breadwinner but now, amazingly, he actually has a job as his woman can only work part-time so she can be around for her kids whereas i don't have the privilege of choice in that matter.

he does manage to take our daughter out and spends a load of money on her when he's here funnily enough...and he always leaves her with a few euros which she is told to stash away from me. we could be starving and he would still tell her not to give me any of the money he gives her.

he's an ignorant, arrogant asshole i can't believe i even LIKED enough to go out with let alone MARRY!!!!! this is what happens when you get into long term relationships WHEN YOU ARE TOO YOUNG.

in fact, if he does end up with my daughter living with him, no doubt he will expect ME to pay him child support. however, the government pay an allowance for kids in the UK which you don't get if you leave the country and so he can have that and go swivel. any money i give for my kids will be given to them directly...i'm not funding his new family.

I think you should continue to live where is best for you.

My parents went through a divorce when I was about 14 years old. It has been 'rumored' that my father cheated on my mother and is now with that same woman. I don't know the actual truth, and I have never asked my father up front but I DO know that that same woman was a friend of an extended family memeber and she would be at birthday parties that my parents would attend. So, to me, I already know something fishy is there, and I carry a resentment and dislike toward this woman.

I continued to live with my mother and my father did the best he could to stay in my life. He moved away to another state, got secretly married and had another child. He continued on with his life, and I feel like my mother never really did, and it is hurtful to see.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that your children are still rather young and do not understand fully the dynamics here. I don't think for one second you would be an absent mother, and if anything the fact that you are writing about this and have doubts shows that you are a good one. Your kids will be fine and they will understand the circumstances as they grow older. If you think it is best for them to live with their father in the uk, you are making a selfless decision and it will all work out for you and your kids.

Ruby is only 13 years old, you are the parent, not her.

You make the decisions on her behalf, Ro ... not her.


Put your foot down.

i had a long chat with a close cancerian friend who knows both me and my ex very well. he was saying i should use the opportunity to let my ex take the strain so that i can get on with my life, wherever that might be. he said a similar thing happened to him when he was 10 and his mother wanted to move on after divorcing when he was little and so handed him back to his father. he said he's just as close with both parents cos of it and that although he never quite got why they were separated at the time, it didn't damage him in anyway.

my daughter is on the threshold of her teens and completely self-absorbed and so as long as she's with either me or him, she'll be fine and my son just wants me to be happy and when he was here i hardly saw him for his busy life anyway.

they'll also have somewhere great to come and stay during all their vacations.

what i'm feeling is just a case of premature empty nest syndrome i think.

Sounds like from that ^^^^^^^^^^^^ that you made your decision.

Just make sure that you don't move back to England, considering you used the word "hate" twice ... there's no reason why dad can't take them for a while, and give you a break, if that's what you have decided is best.

If you move to be near them, then he will dump them off on you any time his convenience is interupted. If he plans on being an active/full time parent, then let him have the responsibility of it.


You can move to the US and experience that for while ...