Where did it all go wrong?
- Sonny's Dad
- Mar 22, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Oct 5, 2023
The root cause of all the problems we've encountered has a simple answer to it but was never simple to resolve.
Like all relationships some are made to last and some aren't - the relationship with Sarah and I just wasn't meant to be.
We were together for around 2 and a half years, it stumbled on towards the end but that was basically the time scale. That period also includes the pregnancy with Sonny.
We both knew that the relationship had become too fractious and during that period we did separate a couple of times.
I take my share of responsibility for being in a relationship that wasn't working out, I'm sure Sarah does as too. Most relationships that aren't meant to be just burn themselves out, ours was more complicated.
At the point that Sarah fell pregnant we were on the verge of breaking up, it had become too problematic. Without going into too much detail, I felt Sarah's obsessiveness with me too much, it was a behavior I found suffocating.
This won't come as a surprise to Sarah, she knows how this effected us. Sarah often said years later to me that we should have separated and we'd have probably remained good friends. I agreed with her and that is exactly how things have played out with other ex girlfriends.
It just wasn't meant to me be but that shouldn't have resulted in what Sarah and Margaret did to us.
Sarah fell pregnant with Sonny right at the point the relationship was on the verge of ending. We were both burned out - this was the catalyst for having Sonny taken away from us.
It was at this point that everything changed - it almost felt that there was a demand plus expectation that me and Sarah would revert back to a broken relationship. Whilst the prospect of having a child that lived in a different city was not an ideal situation it was one I accepted. For me and Sarah, it had come to an end.
All hell broke loose - mainly from Margaret. I tried to explain that a child doesn't fix a relationship. I can be a Dad but I can't be in the relationship. Naturally Sarah was upset and I understand that, I was too but no amount of Margaret demanding I make it work with Sarah was ever going to help. I mean what person give's in to such demands anyway? Margaret literally dug a much bigger hole for us all to fall into.
This as the beginning - no matter how much me and Sarah spoke about it and how much I tried to explain how I felt we couldn't agree that we could both be Sonny's parent's we just couldn't be together. Sarah, understandably upset found that hard but Margaret - she was on a completely different planet.
From what I recall, Margaret when not ringing me spent literally every other day calling my Dad - demanding that he force me to go back to Sarah. It was borderline neuroticism.
Every time she called him she would be attacking me and urging my parents to intervene. He would respond "I discussed it with him Margaret, I don't know what else we can do - he's a grown man and he has his reasons'.
I'll always remember something she said to him one day which set the tone for where we are today - "if he thinks he can just come over to Sheffield to see the baby then he can think again". Margaret had made her position clear, either Sarah had me or Sonny didn't have a Dad.
That was something that Sarah and Margaret just couldn't separate, it wasn't about them it was about Sonny and what was best for him.
Shortly after I was told about the pregnancy, passive threats of alienation started but I knew this would happen. This was exactly the reason I was steadfast in my belief that me and Sarah was over. The relationship was never going work and Sarah's behavior's confirmed it.
It would be safe to say there were some negative influences around Sarah who themselves had come from failed relationships. Whilst there may a have been a women's liberation army slowly forming did they ever ask themselves how this would benefit the baby - No they didn't, because they didn't care.
I remember the first time I got a chill down my spine during the pregnancy. It was early on in a heated phone call, she made it clear to me that as far as she was concerned Sonny (the baby) "was hers".
This type of rhetoric just reaffirmed my fears that Sonny was going to be weaponised against me, to try and force a broken relationship. It was never, ever going to work - I was never going to respond to passive or direct threats.
This early period effectively set the foundations for where we are today. A paternal family completely alienated from Sonny.
Margaret and Sarah were so obsessed with controlling me that they completely lost sight of what was best for Sonny.
As a child that has been exposed to parental alienation Sonny may think "well I'm alright I didn't need a Dad, or a Grandad or a Nana or and Auntie or any wider family - "I've turned out fine" - that's what alienation does to the child, it makes them think it's normal.
If you are reading this, it isn't normal Sonny - there was nothing normal about what your Mum or Margaret did. You made some big decisions at 6 and 8 that you were allowed to make that were not healthy for you.
You Mum allowed those decision's too be made, effectively putting the blame and responsibility with you. We don't accept that and we never will, you were simply caught in the cross fire of adult agenda's.
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