> His other ex and I got to tell our children that their father died without saying goodbye to them, or that he loved them
Assuming the children aren't 14+, this is where a white lie is in their best interests. Telling them this, true as it may be, will only traumatise them further than they may already be.
I know it can be very hard though when you've had a traumatic relationship with your ex.
Source - based on all my research, and discussions with child psychologists, I tell my younger kids, when they need to hear it, that their Mom still loves them, she's just working through some stuff.
The reality is that her conduct indicates no love whatsoever, merely an interest in using our kids to further her narcissistic goals ("Winning" against me, even though it's not a contest, and garnering sympathy from her well meaning but somewhat naïve religious community).
And she definitely isn't working through any of her stuff. She's only allowed supervised access, and hasn't used it once in the nearly 4 years I've had sole custody - because she "did nothing wrong", and using it would imply she had.
But, my younger kids still need to hear that she loves them, from time to time. I admit that I dislike telling them she does, but it's not about me, it's about them.
Yeah, fair, it's ambiguous wording, although the "without saying goodbye" segues into "or that he loved them" You still have the option of fabricating a comforting lie around the latter part.
It's actually all very sad. Lowtax wrote funny columns about Uwe Boll's movies, and Uwe charged him to a boxing match. Lowtax got his manhood taken from him and never was the same. The domestic violence can be seen as him moving down in weight class. After a few he actually got pretty good at it for his weight advantage. And then this happens.
