Carin and I are in the middle of a divorce. 25 years of marriage, seven wonderful children, including two with special needs.

It would be foolish of me to make any judgements about either you or your wife. I don't know either one of you or your lives. And neither does anyone else here. When I read the *call the cops* and *she kidnapped your children* I get both angry and sad. No one here can make judgments nor should they make suggestions that may very well harm your children emotionally in the long run.

From my own experience...

Like yourself, our marriage had lots of *cracks* when I decided we needed to separate. I had made some terrible mistakes and decisions. And yes CDing was a PART of my decison to divorce. IMO we both made mistakes over the course of our marriage. It was hard to not get into the *who did worse*. But really does it matter? If reconciliation were to happen then mistakes, bad decisions, would have to be forgiven. If divorce was the decision then *blame* would not make that any easier.

One thing I knew was that our children were/are the most important piece of all of this. THEY deserved to be heard and respected. To not do that would be, for both Carin and I, to be bad parents, to be neglectful. Neither one of wanted that.

Divorce is just painful. For everybody. Even for the one *walking away*. And to the outside world I walked away. Some of that *walking away* was beyond difficult for me to do. I did it, I hope, in the most respectful way I could...for my children, for Carin and for myself. None of it was/is easy. But my divorce needs to be civil. For my children and for *us*, for the family. Financially civil, property civil, respectfully civil.

There is shock involved with divorce/separation. It is *shocking*. If you can take that *high road* and keep any conversations respectful that would be a good thing.

My children are somewhat older. This has been painful for all of them. They have talked and been angry. They are still angry some of the time. We do our best to listen and hear what they need to say. They relied on *family*. That family is no more. It is very different. But we are still all *family* to each other.

I know one thing. I love my children. Their father loves them. And they love us. That love should not be split apart. If you keep in mind *that* whatever you and your wife decide will be OK for your children. And OK for your children should really be all that counts at the end of the day.. IMO.



Louise.