He hadn’t done anything legally wrong…and yet

I remember when my parents divorced. Everyday life took on an air of the surreal. I would be doing something completely normal, and then suddenly remember that my parents were no longer together. That we didn’t live as a single family unit. That our lives were changing. That something sad had happened. That there had been an unhappy ending.

It was a horrible time. I was a young teenager. Life felt weird and uncomfortable a lot of the time anyway, so add my parents divorcing and moving house, and you have a lot. It was as though a grey fog had descended, and how long it was going to linger remained unknown.

It didn’t linger that long. Not really.

We moved house – from the countryside into town. That is a good exchange when you’re 14. I was nearer my friends, nearer my school. My new bedroom had a sink! We got used to our new family of five.

I didn’t see my dad much at all. But I was a teenager. There was a degree of normality in that anyway.

I remember hating the first family holiday we went on without him. It was a definite notch down from the trips to France and Tuscany we had taken in recent summers. My mother took us to Westward Ho! – the only place in the UK with a punctuation mark in its name. She had found a wooden chalet. I remember finding it all pretty grim and depressing. I wished I had been allowed to stay at home and hang out with my friends instead. It felt like too much of a demotion.

I was being a snob.

But after that first summer, I don’t remember anything feeling as bad again. I enjoyed our new home. I enjoyed my teenage years. It was the 90s. There was a lot going on.

My parents’ divorce became less and less relevant. I didn’t have a great relationship with my dad during that time, but that too passed, and when I was a little older, we grew close again.

When I separated from my children’s dad, it was as though that strange grey fog had returned.

But this time, it was worse.

There was more pain. More disbelief. More practical weight. More immediate financial impact.

And it meant I wouldn’t be with my children all the time anymore.

They were four and eight, and I had been their primary carer while their dad focused on work. Now, he wanted a 50–50 parenting arrangement. I didn’t argue. I didn’t think I would win, and I didn’t want my energy – or any of our remaining wealth – to be consumed by the legal process.

And so I lost that role.

It felt awful. It felt biologically wrong. As though some deep maternal part of me was screaming.

It was hard to accept that he had the power to simply take it.

When the children were babies, he wanted our life to support his work, so that’s what we did. When we separated, he wanted to be with the children as much as I was, so that’s what we did.

In both circumstances, his preferences made sense.

But somewhere within that apparent reasonableness, something felt deeply wrong.

I don’t know what that was, really.

And that is how I would describe so much of the process of separation. It felt as though all the stereotypical markers of patriarchy had reared their heads, and all I could do was accept everything exactly as it was.

I had to accept that I had lost the income I earned from supporting my ex’s business.

I had to accept that he wasn’t obliged to offer me any financial support while I rebuilt my independence.

I had to accept that I was no longer the primary carer of my children.

I had to accept that I alone was now responsible for paying the mortgage and all the costs of running our home. My ex could not see a reason to help me, and legally, there didn’t appear to be an argument against it.

I just had to surrender and rebuild.

He hadn’t done anything legally wrong.

And yet, in my mind, he was a monster.