From husband to single dad in 12 hours: My unexpected journey

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One Kiwi man shares his experience of being cheated on, divorce and becoming a single father. Photo / 123RF

A recent story in which Kiwi women shared their experiences of being divorced in their 20s, prompted one Herald reader to share his story of divorce from a man’s perspective. Nick*
reflects on his experience, and how it changed the course of his life.

My body knew first the day before.
The pain clenched at my stomach below where the ribs joined. I wanted to be sick.
It was that subconscious sense of impending disaster, of something sliding sickeningly over the edge; the prophesying body.
But the day had started normally. Our eldest daughter was walked to school. The younger one was walked on to kindergarten. Our son was watching TV but wanted to be read to.
My wife, Helen*, was preparing to have a few days’ break on her own.I was taking the kids to visit their maternal grandparents.
I didn’t know about the affair with the ex-neighbour, Bob*, but other people did. They included Helen’s sisters. They told their mother.
She rang and gave her daughter an ultimatum: either you tell him or I will.
It was a rotten day for a near 10-year marriage to be torpedoed. Black and grey clouds hung low over the chimney tops. Heavy raindrops splotted on the path and the grass outside. No wind. Just wet, weeping grey.
“We have to talk,” she said, and the implacability of her tone startled me.
In the little spare bedroom that doubled as an office and studio, we sat opposite each other. She told me she was leaving. She and Bob had been “involved” for the past year. He had already left his wife and children a few weeks earlier.
She had calmly ditched a marriage that I’d always thought we were committed to and were solid with each other.
We’d met 10 years earlier. One of my cousins introduced us. She impressed me immediately. Her faith was strong. She had good morals. Her values were similar to mine. She wanted to be a mother. She was more than easy on my appreciative male eye.
I thought I’d found my soulmate. I fell in love with her then and there. We married 18 months later. Everybody rejoiced. We had children. More joy.
Bob and his wife, Ann*, and their children had lived next door to us for a while.
Our friendship with Bob and Ann developed. To be accurate, the friendship was more between the wives. He and I had little in common. He had cheated on Ann continuously since before they married. He had a roguish, “bad boy” charm that some women can find attractive.
We suffered a miscarriage. Just over a year later, Helen and Bob began their relationship. He’d said something kind to her. Ann had not.
In the little spare bedroom, she told me she’d never loved me. “Chemistry” had drawn her and Bob together. She smirked. I recognised nothing of the woman I thought I knew, had fallen in love with, made children with, and had shared the loss of miscarriage with.
She blamed me for not noticing her adultery. So did her sisters. So did Ann.
This was the start of a pattern that continued for decades – people saying it was all my fault.
I don’t have enough words allocated to me to describe my experience of counsellors, therapists and the like but I will make two points: I was left with a lifelong loathing and contempt for them; I believed they were so dangerous that I refused absolutely to let them anywhere near my kids.
I have been interested to note also down the years the comments of other parents who’d been left holding the babies: being bullied, not listened to, condescended, ridiculed.
It’s time to talk about the children. I’ve often been asked if opting to keep them was a hard decision. I generally reply, no, I’ve spent longer on choosing a Big Mac.
I went from working full-time to domestic purposes benefit recipient in less than 12 hours.
Nothing prepared me for this. There were no books. I didn’t know anyone I could talk to. But it had to be done.
The kids and I had to get to know one another differently. I had to find a new way of loving them, of showing softness while also establishing myself as the authority and disciplinarian in the home.
A priest asked: “What are you going to do?”
“We carry on as normal,” I replied.
Over the next 13 years, living in a home without a mother became our “normal”.
The children went to school as usual. I expected them to behave and to do their best. Education was their ticket out of their circumstances. They were not going to be failures. They are adults now and have good jobs and children of their own.
Plenty of people were willing to tell me that a man cannot – should not, even – bring up daughters. Yes, he can, especially during the puberty years. More men should realise that, instead of sprinting for the hills. Daughters do want their dads to take an interest in them and what’s happening to them.
I lost my career, and for good, as it turned out. After the DPB years, I had to do different jobs.
Helen and Bob went overseas after a year to live. She never tried to fight me in the courts. I am forever grateful to her for that. She let me get on with it.
* Names have been changed
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