‘She did everything she could to make our lives miserable’

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Nice man, Janneke thought when she met the divorced Hugo. And she still thinks that, but unfortunately his broken marriage also broke their relationship.

janneke: “Never a man again. That’s what I sighed to friends when I finally made the decision to divorce Tjeerd, the father of my children. That was four years ago, my son Kjeld was seven, Björn was five. Tjeerd and I hadn’t been happy with each other for years and we expressed this in countless reproaches back and forth, not giving each other anything and constantly arguing. Divorce was inevitable, but it still took me a long time to tie the knot. And then another year to get it all done.

Making each other’s life miserable

We made each other’s life miserable and, just like during our marriage, we didn’t like each other much. Me too, I certainly didn’t act like a benevolent ex who wanted to make things right for the children, no matter how many times I said to myself like a mantra: you once loved this man, he is the father of your children, swallow again because you will never get rid of him…

No, I wouldn’t bother if he wanted to go to Belgium with the boys for a weekend because there was a family weekend there, because I didn’t allow that to go abroad. Act normal, my sister happily said to me. So you don’t give your boys a weekend romp in the Ardennes with their cousins?

With the blush on my cheeks, I called Tjeerd to say that I had changed my mind. And the time we went to court because he wanted a three-hour change in our co-parenting schedule doesn’t deserve a beauty prize either. In retrospect I think: what was I doing? Did I want to bother him so badly to work through old pains from our marriage? If you can even call it processing – it’s more sick.

To give and to begrudge

He could also do something the other way around; when I finally found a weekend with a group of five friends in which we could go to Ibiza, all I had to do was ask Tjeerd to switch our weekends with the boys. He didn’t, he said. He already had plans. The fact that those plans consisted of drinking beer with his friends, whom he sees every weekend anyway, and that he could also change those plans, didn’t matter, according to him. A deal was a deal. And so the whole Ibiza planning had to start all over again. We didn’t go until eight months later.

“It’s a complicated game of give and take, pain from the past and old quarrels that never ended”

Tjeerd didn’t care that I was furious. With which I just want to say: I understand how it works, catching each other flies when you are separated. I understand that every now and then you can lose your sense of reason. I understand that a schedule change is not an agenda thing, but a complicated game of give and take, pain from the past and old fights that never ended. But in the end I can say with some pride that both Tjeerd and I have stepped over our own shadow. We needed help from a mediator, but we succeeded.

We can now get along normally and give each other a nice life. And if that means that one of us has to make a gesture to the other once, then we will. I wish I could say the same about Wendy, Hugo’s ex. The man I miss every day. Then things would have turned out very differently.

Nice guy

I met Hugo at a party, almost three years ago now. With his dark hair, almost black eyes and beard-of-a-days, he immediately caught my eye. He’s nice, I thought and as soon as I am, I approached him. That evening he went home with my number, it took exactly ten hours for him to call me. And another twelve hours before we saw each other again in a restaurant. We kissed, he went home with me – nothing for me, but it just felt right.

He was also divorced, had a son Kjeld’s age and an ex who was the opposite, and I felt so many similarities. That annoying ex, I didn’t like him at all red flagI especially felt sorry for him. And hey, I was madly in love, but at the same time I also wanted to take it easy. Meeting children, informing exes, that was all far away. Maybe after a week I was bored.

love happiness

But I wasn’t. A week turned into a month and a month turned into six months and then I told Tjeerd. He had to swallow, but, he confessed, he was dating himself and he was in love. I wish you well, I said, and he said the same to me and so we had a moment of enormous maturity, we thought to ourselves. It was also true: Tjeerd appeared to grant me my happiness in love and agreed to a meeting. First just him and Hugo, then the boys. Smooth sailing, the men even kind of clicked.

“If I broke her rules she would go to court, she threatened”

And then it was Wendy’s turn. The divorce was now two years ago, but, Hugo warned, things would not go well on his side, as with Tjeerd and me. That turned out to be an understatement. Wendy did not authorize a meeting between me and Milan, their son. Wendy certainly didn’t want to meet me and if I broke her rules she would go to court, she threatened.

Iron Armistice

Hugo was furious, but still suggested we wait. Strange, I thought. Why not show some more muscles? Of course, if her demands were so easily met, she would carry on. But I didn’t want to stoke, so I said nothing.

For the next four months I bit my tongue until I was completely done with it. Everything was: Wendy doesn’t want this, Wendy doesn’t want that. ‘And you,’ I asked Hugo, ‘what do you really want? Isn’t our relationship worth risking a fight with your ex for? Let her go to court, she’ll lose that anyway.’ But no, sweet peace, always sweet peace. Which, by the way, was not peace, but an iron truce.

take her place

After a year I had had enough: either I meet your son, or I’m gone, I said. Hugo agreed, talked to Wendy and against her will I got to see Milan. A sweet kid who looked at me curiously and decided I was okay. I got on really well with him.

And that was of course against Wendy’s sore leg, who from that moment on tried even harder to lie in front of everything, afraid if she was that I would take her place. As if I wanted to, I had two children of my own. But Hugo couldn’t explain that to her. And she didn’t talk to me, she let me know first through him and then through her lawyer.

“From that moment on, she tried even harder to lie in front of everything, afraid if she was that I would take her place”

What nonsense, I thought, and I called her. What I wanted was to explain that I didn’t want an extra child and that I would never question her position as a mother. But nothing I said came through. She snapped at me that I didn’t exist to her and hung up. “You shouldn’t have called,” Hugo said when I told him. That hurt. I really had the best intentions, at least he could have supported me. Because let’s be honest, we didn’t have to rely on his decisiveness either.

Also read – This mother wonders: ‘Dear ex, will I never get rid of you?’ >

Emergency

Wendy did everything she could to make our lives miserable. When Milan was there, she called a hundred times with nonsense questions. Then he had to come on the phone while he was just playing with my boys. When Hugo and I were away for the weekend, she called in panic. She was on her way to the emergency post with Milan and Hugo had to come now. And so, three hours after arriving, we drove home with 140 from Antwerp for a fake emergency. Milan had missed a step up the stairs and the wound above his eyebrow had been glued up, that was all.

Hugo went in with Wendy, I waited in the car in front of the door. Three quarters of an hour. “Luckily it wasn’t too bad,” said Hugo, when he came out again. I snapped as if he really didn’t realize what she was doing. “It was an accident,” he said. An accident she could have solved herself.

“By keeping the sweet peace for her, time and again he ignored my interests”

The following week I saw the wound. Not even half an inch wide. But Wendy’s goal was accomplished, our romantic weekend was ruined. I think it is commendable that Hugo did not want to push things to a head with his ex because it is not in Milan’s interest. But by keeping the sweet peace for her, time and again he ignored my interests.

A gigantic quarrel between us cleared the air, I kept him silent for four days and then he repented. Yes, now he also realized that he put Wendy’s interests above mine and yes, he was going to demand that she meet me at least once. Because we had been together for over a year and a half and I had only seen her in the doorway. Bizarre, but that’s how it was. And the summer holidays were approaching, so appointments had to be made. Hugo and I wanted to go to France with the three boys for ten days. Wendy wasn’t going to give permission, she’d already said. “Now is the time,” I said to Hugo. “Now you have to stand up for yourself.” I meant: for us. But I didn’t say that.

meeting

Hugo started talking and that led to the meeting – ‘if you really have to’, according to Wendy. It seems to me that you want to know your child’s stepmother, but hey, I wanted to keep it positive and didn’t say things like that. We met in a coffee shop, just her and me. She came in sullenly, sullenly answering my questions for half an hour. Then she went again. I drove home crying.

“The beginning is here,” said Hugo, the optimist. But more and more I felt that not the beginning was there, but that the end was coming. The whole situation, the constant tension Wendy caused, the tongs she had Hugo in because of Milan, it sucked me dry.

And then came the summer vacation. Hugo forced Milan through the lawyer, but it didn’t come to that. Because the day before departure, Wendy sent an app from Germany. A picture of her and Milan: so lovely here. I was perplexed. Hugo called. ‘What?’ played Wendy the murdered innocence. ‘No, France was next week, wasn’t it?’ With every muscle in my body tensed, I stood ready for the fight that was to follow, but nothing happened.

“Tell Wendy she won”

Hugo said this was really a misunderstanding. Hugo hung up. And Hugo asked me if we could move up a week. While my boys were looking forward to it and moreover they would go with Tjeerd the following week. “No,” I said and suddenly words came out of my mouth that I hadn’t prepared but that I meant so much. ‘That won’t work. I am going to France. And you’re not coming. Tell Wendy she won.’ Hugo struggled, said he didn’t want to lose me and I think I didn’t mean it either.

This is your fight

That’s right, I didn’t want to lose him either. But I just couldn’t anymore, the battle with Wendy had cost me all my energy. Hugo could keep one arm around me, but his ex pulled on the other. “This is your fight, not mine,” I said. “And you have to do it yourself.” The next day I drove to France with the boys.

She on the iPad in the back seat, I in tears behind the wheel. Hugo kept calling, but I didn’t answer. For my own safety, because I prefer to be the other way around. I wanted to be with Hugo. Even a year later, that is still the case. I miss everything about him, I still love him. Sometimes we have contact and then he promises that the whole situation will be different, but nothing concrete has happened.

“After all, I didn’t make that much effort to end up in a fight divorce after all”

He recently had to hang up because of a call waiting. Wendy, he admitted. Then nothing has changed. That strengthened my conviction that I am making the right choice, even if my gut feeling says otherwise. After all, I didn’t make that much effort to be able to deal with my ex normally and then end up in a fight divorce. Then I’d rather be alone.”

This article is featured in the Kek Mama Summer Special 2022.

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