Thank you for reading this page, talking about it and acting on it. It has helped. Sorry much of it is gone. It is not needed anymore, thankfully. Ruth was a beautiful small town girl, opposite of me in almost every way, and I loved her dearly. Our differences seemed to compliment each other while we raised our family. I looked after her, and she looked after me, we were happy. We rarely disagreed, and when we did, we treated each other with respect and found compromises that pleased us both. It was good times. We grew over the years, with life getting more complicated and busy with more work and kids. With all the kids we toured across the continent, bought a cottage. It was a good but busy life. I was working with the Army Reserve and was away for extended periods, but it was always so good when I came home. We had businesses and rental properties, lots of income but not much time. It seemed everything had to be scheduled. She minded the stress of it all. Finally she asked for a simpler life. We sold off the rentals and businesses. I quit the Reserves to spend more time at home. I did what I could to please her, but entering your 40's is a rough time for many people. This page was to respond to questions asked from comments made and stories spread. The intention was that everything here is to be verifiable. Ruth was not happy with all the details of our separation being posted, so I have removed them. So, to fight mis-information, I'll only answer the minimum: I did not want to separate. I struggled to get back together. I have had shared custody of my kids since separation, kept the family home for them. I was alone when we separated, it came as a suprise, I struggled with depression It was months before I started to date, what a hard experience! (For all involved!) Regardless of shared custody, I pay child support based on the difference of our incomes. Parenting: Parenting should be about seeing another generation advance, become good people, succeed. This is more easily accomplished with two supporting parents, but many parents use their kids to feed their own needs first. Needs like, the need "to win", to triumph over a discarded spouse, to prove your worth. Children can love both parents, even after a breakup. Some single parents cannot bear this. They so desperately want to justify themselves, that they paint the other as all evil. Love waned, turns to hate, they play the victim, they turn up the volume at every opportunity. Children see this behaviour. The don't understand it but they swallow the emotion of it even if it doesn't match fact. This is called parental alienation or as I like to call it, competitive parenting. Parents often "enable" bad behaviour in children. Children are full of many emotions and behaviours, good and bad. As parents we should enable the good, and discourage the bad. What if we did it the other way around? What if we encouraged bad behaviour, because it fit what we wanted to feel? What if we encouraged bad behaviour as a tool to damage the other parent? Examples would be telling the kids things like: "Go ahead and just take the motorbike. It is yours, our divorce agreement says so." "You don't have to pay your father back, especially if he is being an ass about the money." "I believe it it was just apple juice on your breath, not beer like your father claims." "Your father said that would be stupid? What sort of father calls their child stupid?" "Your father said you were being lazy? He always called me names too." "I was always afraid in your father's house. It's haunted you know?" "Your father goes to church? I could never get him to go to church." "Yes, it is OK to tell your father off if he gets you angry." "What does your father do with all his money?" "I wouldn't put up with that from your father." "Your father doesn't really want you, he's just using you as a game piece to keep you from me." Sound extreme? Not really. What sort of child does this create? The truth becomes fuzzy. What is real does not matter, only what you feel becomes real. You can fudge facts and past events to get what you want. What does this teach a child? What morals does this bring? Twisting the truth becomes acceptable. Let's hope this stops... Talk about it. If you want to go back, you will have to hit "BACK" on your toolbar, or cut and paste this into your go to address: http://www.glinx.com/~sbest/sbest.htm