The Path to Alienation

This is the first time I have ever wrote a blog, but I’m going to attempt to write my painful story on how I’ve been alienated from my children all names and places have been changed to protect identity of the people involved.

It’s a long story, but I hope you can follow it through all the way.  I’ve always been a loner preferring my own company, I’m originally from the south of England from a separated home myself so understand the pain as a child having your family torn apart and always wanted it to be different for my own family.  Little did I know at the time how hard that would be to keep a loving relationship and family life on track.

I was never good with girls at School and I didn’t have my first girlfriend until I learnt aboutthe world of online dating, when I finally had my first girlfriend at 24 years old and even she was a fair bit younger then me at the time.  It was difficult for me to mix with people my own age, and so much easier with younger people.  With my lack of experience and not very good social skills, this relationship did not last very long.   It wasn’t to long until I went back online chatting to other random girls. All this while studying for my degree at University.   Then, one day I came across one day another young lady whom I chatted to for many hours online and we eventually moved on to swapping mobile numbers and texting all day every day. This young woman was called Jane, she was from a north of England and always thought this is not going to go anywhere she lives so far away.  But, something made me want to keep chatting with her daily and we went on to calling each other.  Jane one day announced she was coming to the south of England to visit her old uni friends and so we thought this would be a great time to meet up .

The date went great we spent the whole day together, and even spent the night together. We had a couple more dates, while she was down but it came the day that she had to go home. It wasn’t long after that we missed each other so much, that I arranged to take a long weekend off work and went all the way up north to stay with her.  This long weekend turned into a week, and this was the start of where it changed my life forever.  I found myself any job I could with an agency, and even my own little flat that she was going to move into eventually with me.  Sounds all crazy now even to me after such a short period, I think I was carried away that someone actually wanting to have a relationship with me.

Well the happiness didn’t last very long, and only after just one month Jane said that she no longer wanted to be with me, and that we both wanted different things.  I didn’t understand what she meant by this, and was broken hearted for the first time in my life feeling sick and stupid that I had moved all the way to the other end of the country for and now was in a strange place isolated again not knowing anyone.  I was confused and didn’t know if to return back, or stay where I was but thought at the time I didn’t really have any friends down south so was no point and so decided to stay and make the best of a new start and new me I thought.

Life carried on with me trying to make the most of my temp job, which was horrible and I hated it. But, I tried to make some friends but due to my social anxiety this was not successful and I found myself back online again. When I wasn’t working I came straight home and switched on the PC and used to chat with random strangers, and felt good that I had people to be my friends . This was all on good old MSN messenger which some may remember, and the MSN chat rooms.  Every day when I was off work I would spend in front of the PC, all weekend constantly.

Then, one day I came across a girl called Lucy and we started chatting she was in the same area as me, only a couple of years younger both were very similar people. It went on for a while chatting, texts,  calling each other just like with Jane.  I soon felt like I knew and loved this girl without even meeting her, of cause getting carried away with all the attention and that someone could be interested in me.  It was not long before we had the first date, and met up both nervous but we went ahead with it even ending up in bed on the first date again.  This was the start of how my life really changed.

The relationship with Lucy moved very fast, again just like the relationship with Jane within one month we were living together at her parents, and after 3 months she was pregnant with our first child.  Both of us were very happy though, it was something we both wanted and never thought it would happen to us most due to our anxiety about life and lack of self esteem we both shared.

I was a good dad to be I looked after the mother of my child, and done my best trying to get all the items needed for a baby ready for the arrival.  Also, attended all the scans and antenatal classes it was all good fun and felt very excited. 

A bomb was dropped around the 6 month period of the pregnancy it came out, after a visit to the house by the police that Lucy’s father was a convicted child sex abuser better known as a paedophile or nonce.  Lucy had mentioned to me before this visit, that she had been a used by her father as a child but I put this to the back of my mind because of how I saw the close relationship she had with the father. But, this became realistic for us now after being told as living in the same house that this man couldn’t be left in the same room as the baby when it would be born.  We both decided that we needed to make sure we found a place of our own, and registered for a council house. We both become even more anxious after our daughter was born, and became very protective of her and with the help of the district nurse managed to get a priority council house. This was great we felt at ease again, apart from,  the visits from the maternal grandparents which led to high anxiety again to watch over our daughter. 

We got on with our life and I become a very good father preparing our daughters bottles, changing her and bathing her . We later went on and tied the knot 6 months after our daughters birth.  After a couple of years we managed to push out the grandfather after a few family arguments.  We went on and had a son who was born two years after the birth of our daughter.  The family was complete , it was a lot harder but happy to have the perfect family with one of each child. Allet our dreams had come true.  But, we were a little isolated with no other family around mine was down the other end of the country and the maternal side was not talking to us because of our decision to keep them away from our children.  We had our arguments with money being tight , and debts building up as a normal young family. 

The tension between my and wife and myself became worse because just under a year after our son had been born , she fell pregnant again this was the last thing we could cope with having three young under school age children with little money.  But, the reality settled and we got used to it and started to prepare and look forward to another child.  This was short lived though because she soon miscarried, and my wife’s mental health went down hill and our relationship really suffered . We even seperated for a couple of weeks, with her leaving me and staying with a friend with the children. Them, couple of weeks were horrible for me but I felt I was not missing her but I missed the children so much they were the love of my life now. 

We did get back together though for the sake of the children, and after a couple of weeks we were told by the council that we could have a much needed 3 bedroom house because the our little house had become far to cramped. This was good news a new home to start again, and make our home. You would of thought this would of been great but no our relationship did not get better but worse, and my wife’s mental health deteriorated more. We argued more mostly about me being to soft with the children, and she being too hard on the children.  But, I couldn’t tell them off and they could do not wrong in my eyes me and the children had a great relationship. Where my wife is went to sleeping in seperate rooms , I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with her and so went to sleeping on the spare bed in my sons room.