My ex-wife has made it impossible for me to have a relationship with our children

DEAR DEIDRE: When I separated from my now ex-wife she made it impossible for me to have any kind of relationship with my children.

Now, eleven years later, they’re adults and I feel like I’ve failed them. I’m 52, my ex is 49 and our two sons are 20 and 22.

It’s fair to say that by the end of our marriage things between my wife and I had become toxic.

I knew that breaking up was the best thing for us, but my wife didn’t want to split, even though she didn’t want to make an effort to improve things.

I vowed to co-parent our children but my ex was intent on making things as hard as possible.

Arranging visits felt like pulling teeth, and she would often deliberately tell me the wrong days to convince my children I was forgetting about them.

They started to resent me and it didn’t help that she never refrained from speaking badly about me to them.

I’m now remarried, but when I met my current wife things got even worse with my ex and my children started blaming me for breaking up our family.

Eventually, they started refusing to see me. Now it’s been years since we last spoke and I feel so down about the way I’ve handled it all.

I know they want nothing to do with me, but I feel so guilty for giving up on them.

DEIDRE SAYS: It’s clear your children picked up on the anger your ex felt towards you, so they’ve rejected you for fear of upsetting her.

As hard as it may be, try to give yourself grace and remind yourself you did your best.

It’s understandable that their behaviour would have hurt you and there’s only so much you could have done.

Perhaps, now that they’re older, you could consider reaching out. They may understand things a bit better.

You can find more support from Families Need Fathers (fnf.org.uk, 0300 0300 363).