Between Us: "The most expensive nanny after divorce that you can't even fire? My ex-husband!"

Photo: Among Us/ ANABEL

"Oh my Anabel, where do I start? I've thought long and hard about whether I should write this letter, but I finally decided that this would be a way to get my voice out. Because even though my legal separation was finalized months ago, I'm not really "separated." I'm raising my children with a man who hates me. And I wasn't prepared for this kind of relationship at all.

When you break up with a terrible man, we often focus on the liberation that the woman must feel afterwards, we say "hey, you're saved," as if everything ends with that notary's signature. No one talks about the reality that comes after: the constant clashes, the mental fatigue, that feeling like you're trying to raise children with an enemy.

At first, I admit: I felt really liberated. I had been through a difficult marriage, with a lot of emotional control from my ex-husband and endless manipulation. As the divorce trial continued, I hoped that with time, and even though our marital relationship had ended, at least as parents we could find a way to cooperate and communicate. To be two adults who knew how to share responsibility.

Naivety.

Because what I hadn't counted on in any of the custody plans we signed was the fact that he hated me. With his whole being. And now, more than ex-spouses, we're like two ex-boxers who have been told: now you're going to continue fighting with WhatsApp messages and always aggressive meetings.

He sees me as his enemy and uses every opportunity to show it to me. It's not like he speaks to me out loud in public anymore, now he humiliates me with silence, with ignoring me, with harsh words on the phone, with not respecting the agreement, with sudden disappearances that force me to invent excuses for our children.

“Dad is very busy”, “Dad is with mom”, “Dad is tired”. Sometimes he doesn't show up for his children for weeks. And when he does, he doesn't know what the children have been up to during his absence, he doesn't know that the daughter has started a course, or that the son hates school.

I've found his "diagnosis" myself: he's the most expensive nanny in the world. A nanny who takes on the job whenever he feels like it, drinks on the job, and lets our 10-year-olds watch movies I wouldn't dare let them watch even at 18. If he were a real nanny, I would have fired him long ago. But he's "the father."

On paper, we have an agreement about sharing time with the children. But only one of us is the parent in this story. And it is the one who feeds the children, organizes extracurricular activities, checks homework, follows schedules, goes to school meetings, reads messages from teachers. That person is me.

If I were paid for all the work I do as a parent, I would have started a full-time business. But no, everything is “normal” when a woman does it. And in my case, even after the separation, nothing has changed. It’s just that now I no longer have my “husband” ignoring me inside the house. Now I have him outside, but with the same emotional impact.

People tell me, “You broke up, you’re better now.” And in many ways, yes, I am better. But breaking up with a man who emotionally abused you for years is not “liberation.” It’s a slow process of recovery, and that recovery never happens when you have to communicate with the man who screams “you’re a psychopath” at you every two weeks via text.

But the only thing I can control is my behavior. I can't change him. I can't make him a good husband. I can't convince him to be a present father, let alone a good father. I can't convince him to stop hating me. What I can do is focus on my kids, my mental health, and learn to put my phone away when he sends his venomous texts.

Maybe it's time to stop calling this situation "co-parenting," when in fact we're not together and there's no real parenting going on.

"If this letter manages to touch another woman who is going through the same thing, I will feel less alone. Because being a mother, divorced and forced to coexist virtually and less often physically with the hatred of someone you once loved, is a different kind of pain that deserves a voice." - written by a lady for Anabel, for the "Mes nesh" column .

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