Unmarried – separation story – feels like a Horror story…2015 to 2025

Anonymous-Mom writes:

At first, I was love-bombed with amazing romantic outings and a luxury car given to me by my ex-partner, trips in and outside South Africa, sharing a luxurious lifestyle funded, mainly, by my ex-partner and now, the father of our son.

Even when I fell pregnant, he still walked the journey with me, although red lights came up, alerting me that I got myself in a very difficult situation with a Narcissist, a businessman, who will go at any length to buy what he wants, when he wants it, while I had to manage my finances very carefully.

After our son was born, my ex-partner completely changed into a control freak and started to scream and shout, fight and find fault with everything I did or said, that even the neighbours and family were scared for the well-being and security of me and our baby boy.

Well, I tried to build a family unit with the father of our son for six years, but in the seventh year, I had to walk away after too many physical and emotional signs of (unreported) domestic violence and a broken-trust relationship, on all levels.

This is when the real scary part started… On 1 April, one year ago, I was served with the first legal letter from my ex-partner after moving in with my family, together with our little toddler boy… I contacted my ex-partner and asked if this letter was an April Fool’s joke, on which he made it clear: he is declaring war against me (and anyone who chooses to support me)…

It took me nine years and twelve court cases in Children’s Courts to High Court judgements and court orders, pro bono legal assistance and a broken back from many sleepless nights and prayers to God to give me the tools and wisdom to defend my position as Biological Mother to our now, Teen…

The trauma and pain we caused our son due to the hideous acrimony between the two of us, as his parents, I lay daily before God to forgive us both, and still continue praying for my ex-partner to stop the legal, financial and emotional abuse that continued after I finally got the guts to leave him for good, which was further supported by his legal counsel and advisors in opening one court case after the other, filing for sole custody or supervised visitation, due to my ignorance in the beginning of all the legal action to allow primary residence for our son at his father, in exchange for our son to receive the benefits of a good education and financial support, which I could not give him comfortably at the time, but then the legal action only escalated, as the one with the money and power had legal advisors that fired his hatred for me, on, in court case after court case.

I described my situation in courts the last few years as being a david standing up against goliath and only God had the final say whether I would lose my son due to a heavily broken legal system and other professionals waiting to take their pound of flesh in the many and ridiculous parenting skills development, anger management courses, pscychological evaluations and on-going treatments that were never good or long enough for the applicant’s legal counsel in Court.

Who suffered the most: the innocent who did not ask to be born into this broken home and system… our son battled with bedwetting, biting nails from all the trauma, instability around different parenting views and drama from being withheld contact to visit his biological mom and was constantly forced, subconsciously, to choose between his parents, whom he loved, equally, the same. 

Our nine year old son, even at one stage, demanded to see the Judge himself to plead with the Judge to stop his dad from “hurting” his mom (and him, as their only child) with all these unnecessary court cases… the acting Judge did not want to see or listen to our boy as he felt the court is not a place for children and the Judge preferred to look at the evidence before him, with an applicant that paid a lot of money to fight on paper for what he wants, while the respondent had to prepare her own legal documents or be too thankful for some pro-Bono assistance, whenever she could enjoy such luxury, as that is not found so easily in a world where money talks and bullshit walks around court rooms & legal practices… 

If the parties got counselling and guidance to attend first to their own issues and hatred and inability to let go and let the children experience the best of both family worlds, after the break-up of their family units in the name of Co-parenting & Divorce Care Programs & affordable mediation to separate in a civilised manner, I firmly believe, that if we had better knowledge and EARLY-ON cost-effective guidance on how to separate our broken family unit in a more calm & civilised manner, through experienced separation/divorce-counselling and specific assistance to help the child(ren) through the devastation of Separation / Divorce, and even introducing new partners into the new family units, it would have been a smoother ride with less headaches and health issues creeping in from all the stress and long term anxiety caused by lawyers and legal advisors that instigated fights between parties because it meant more money in their pockets…

Churches and Schools need to know of these AFFORDABLE organisations and programs where broken parents and families can go to obtain and receive VALUABLE & AFFORDABLE assistance to make the break-up of family units a smoother process, less painful and more peaceful… Thank God for initiatives like splitright.co.za that is reaching out a hand of VALUABLE H.E.LP to assist the broken family units to be equipped themselves with great tools to separate and co-parent in a civilised and healthy manner, BEFORE the legal contracts and agreements are drawn up by legal practitioners.