My best friend is going through a separation at the moment and her ex-husband has become new levels of crazy that she, nor I, even thought was possible. And that says a lot because he’s actually pushed me down the stairs before in a fit of rage when I pissed him off.

In addition to believing that he can quite literally bully her into staying with him, he’s gone next level with the emotional and verbal abuse he’s using towards the children. Last weekend, she needed to get away so we took the kids and left for the weekend. During that time, he went through her computer and the computers of each of the kids. He was reading all of his daughter’s instagram messages, and got particularly angry about a message that his daughter sent to her boyfriend that had said her dad yelling and trying to manipulate her was making her cry. The boyfriend had written back and said “Things will get much easier when the separation is complete.” – which is very, very mature for a 15-year-old to say.

Let’s step aside from the total invasion of privacy this is (going through someone’s messages without them knowing about it) and talk about what he did next.

He got angry at the message she sent to her boyfriend, and he got angry about the message that the boyfriend sent back. So he took it upon himself to pretend to be the daughter, and break up with the boyfriend through Instagram message.

He actually said some pretty mean and nasty things. Things that the daughter would never say to a single soul, let alone her first boyfriend.

The boyfriend phoned her in tears, asking why she was being like this, and that’s how she learned that her dad was going through her messages.

My best friend has always had a rule that “Your phone is your phone and your messages are your messages, but if I think or sense you’re doing something wrong, or doing something you shouldn’t be doing, then I reserve the right to have you bring me your phone so I can read your messages in front of you”. That, I just think is good parenting. She said she’s only had to do that once though, and they were so embarrassed she never had to do it again.

Going through your child’s messages when they don’t know about it, when they’re not even in the same city, is such a huge violation of your kid’s privacy. I can’t even imagine the gall that it takes to break your kid’s trust like that. He’s never going to earn that back. She’s 15. She knows exactly what’s going on with her parents. He already had a slim chance his kids would ever want to visit him after this separation to start with, and I truly just think he blew up that chance by invading his daughter’s privacy like this, and by completely stepping over boundaries so far that he doesn’t see them anymore to go and break up with her boyfriend whilst pretending to be her.

I feel for these kids so much. They don’t deserve this behaviour. I was worried that this type of behaviour would make my friend waiver and possibly wonder that if she stopped the separation she could protect her kids better.

Thankfully, it’s only given her more realization that she, and they, need this separation to go through.

They’re both old enough that legally, they can pick and choose where they want to live and how much they want to see their dad. While I think their mom would still like them to have a relationship with their dad, given how the past month has been, I don’t think she’s going to ask about it, or force it, or question it. If they don’t want to go see their dad, she’s going to honour that.

He’s potentially lost his kids forever.

And that’s on him.

Which is really fucking sad because his kids are amazing.

The girl just got picked/called up as an alternate for the national team for lacrosse. She’s going to be travelling to California in early May and representing Canada. When she got the call asking if she could be an alternate, she was probably the happiest I’ve ever seen the kid. One of the things she asked after that rush of the news calmed down? She asked that we not tell her dad, because she didn’t want him to ruin it.

The boy… well, he’s basically ignored the boy since birth. Last month the grandparents paid for him to take his kids to Mexico, and the boy didn’t even want a free trip to Mexico because he was so reluctant to be around his dad. Whilst in Mexico, the ex-husband called their son a ‘Pathetic Piece of Shit’ and said ‘I should’ve pulled out’. You don’t ever talk to anyone that way, let alone your own child.

This behaviour from the ex-husband is behaviour that I’ve seen for over a decade. But, up until the separation was announced, was largely behaviour that he kept to his ex-wife, my best friend. He largely just ignored his children prior. It’s been giving me even new levels of anger that he’s been treating his kids that way.

I think I have a bit of a soft spot for kids. I’m not sure if it’s because my father is a raging alcoholic who’s been that way since long before I was born, or if it’s just the empath in me, but I just think that, while no one deserves treatment like that, it seems so much worse when that behaviour is being directed towards kids.

What I would really like to do is punch him in the face a few times. I know that wouldn’t solve anything, and I’m not going to. I just don’t understand how you can treat people you claim to love in that way.