I have a friend like Emma - genuinly never happy
Had a good life and a decent husband and father to her kids. Picked him apart , put him down, seemed to dislike who he was basically and always had a moan where us all were looking in thinking crikey we’d feel lucky to have a lifestyle like that. Obviously we don’t know behind closed doors but she was always just the same. She almost had a competition of being better than him but we would say all the time be glad he is such a great parent . She took it as an insult and would put down the smallest things, that were so trivial in the reality of compromise and being grateful . I always wondered if she ever loved him or just wanted to be with a good looking high earner , but then would be so offended if anyone said she was lucky. It was always he’s the lucky one. Anyway he just went into a shell of man over the years and then I think he just couldn’t take it anymore and instigated their divorce , although she then tried to make out she had left and started painting him out to be something he wasn’t to almost justify the lie .
He’s happy as a clam, and now she’s even more miserable and feels hard done by. I think when he got out of the cycle with her and realised he was actually a decent bloke, his friends just didn’t like her, etc, she then felt even more hard done by. No accountability , and now the kids are a weapon.
If they have fun with their dad, that’s a problem.
If they want to go do something without her, a problem. The truth is she was and is the problem and nothing is ever going to be good enough.
I said to her ( after going through a much worse divorce etc ) that let the kids be happy and find what makes you happy because so far nothing really has. She kind of cut us all off because we didn’t feed into the narrative and plays a victim but she did treat him like utter tit and it’s now apparent that she was always the problem.
She reminds me so much of Emma. She woukd send the kids with teddies that smelt of her to their dads because they ‘ hated being away from her ‘ he wouldn’t say anything but the kids didn’t even ask for them or know they were a thing. It was just a dig for the sake of it really . All very sad and not fair on the kids.