We don’t want the kids to see dysfunction

I happened to over hear a women speaking with a colleague over coffee at work yesterday about how her ex husband was making her life difficult? Obviously this made my ears prick up! She said that he has been calling her complaining that he doesn’t see the kids enough and that he wants to see them more often and more regularly.

She was saying that the kids don’t really want to go because it’s boring and all they do is watch TV.  She was saying that she had told him this but he doesn’t believe me and that I am making it up, she said “I just want him to go away and leave us alone”!  He has been pestering me about seeing the kids more for a couple of years and I am sick of it.

Enter Peter… I couldn’t help myself! I said to her, can I ask why you got divorced in the first place? She said he left me for another women and he now lives with her.

OK, its making some sense now.  I thought there must be a reason for your annoyance towards him and your inability to let him help by being a father to both of your children.

Here I go… You know (I said), this isn’t about your hurt feelings its about a father rightfully wanting to see and be apart of his kids lives.  The kids may have said they’re bored but what kids don’t get bored?  They need their dad! and you should encourage them to see him and not put road blocks in his way.

I said, if he isn’t a drug addict or abusive to them, you should only help him have a good relationship with them.  Regardless of what you feel he did to you, you should never get in the way of his ability to be a good dad to them!  I finished by saying again. “They need their dad”.

I think she got the shock of her life as she wasn’t expecting someone to challenge her, she didn’t argue back, just listened and then said to her friend, I’m going back to work.

I hope she thought long and hard about her actions.

It made me think, kids do not need to see dysfunctional behaviour between two separated arguing parents, They need role models to learn from so that when they start a family of their own they have a good set of guidelines to go by when things get tough.