Obviously, it is impossible for me to know if you contributed to the situation – or not.

That said, what you are describing was once so common it was considered a normal, even expected response to divorce. Unfortunately, this form of “punishment” was a powerfully effective way for “society” to maintain its rigid patriarchal structure known as the “nuclear family.” By maintaining the family patriarchy, society reinforced the rigid social hierarchy in control of business, finance and government – which favored upper-class white men, above all “others”.

Up until the 1980s, women were forced to depend on men for financial support and divorce meant the loss of a woman’s security, her home, and/or her social status. Very often, it also meant women with no skills, and little more than a high school diploma, were suddenly forced to take jobs where they were treated like second class citizens. Divorced women also found married women shunning them out of fear the divorcee’ would seduce their husbands. Unfortunately, children were shunned along with their mothers. Divorced women were extremely vulnerable, and men often preyed on them, making second marriages necessary, but dangerous for both women and children.

Isolated, insecure and frightened, divorced women passed their bitterness onto their children. Like their mothers, children trapped in these vicious circumstances, blamed, resented, even hated their fathers.

Overcoming these challenges often came late in life, when a mother’s death set children free of the legacy they’d inherited. Even without a mother’s death, children often reach their fifties and have a change of heart – perhaps experience is the reason.

Unfortunately, the tentacles of this social structure run far and deep. These days, I read a troubling number of stories written by parents estranged from their children. Underneath most of these stories are divorces, second marriages, step-children and half-siblings.

That is the long way of saying, I believe you.