I have been engrossed in this saga for a few weeks now and it seems eerily similar to what happened to a friend of ours.
We moved over in 2000 to Texas with a group of engineers from the UK. About a year after our arrival, another Scottish couple moved from Phoenix to Texas. They had twin fraternal daughters aged about 9 months. The wife seems very nice and friendly as did the husband. Soon my eldest daughter was babysitting for them. Apparently, the twins were long sought after following several rounds of IVF. I got quite friendly with the wife,(TW) and would frequently visit. The house looked spotless but if you looked in a cupboard, a drawer or other places, everything was just shoved in, there was no organization. When the girls were about 2.5, it started to become apparent things weren't quite right. My younger daughter who was now babysitting, noticed that TW would dose the girls with calpol before leaving so they would sleep. She also began to do this during the day when I was there, so they would have their afternoon nap, even though they were well past 3 at this time. I began to notice large wine bottles being placed in weird places. If we went to a party, they would have to leave early because TW would be drunk and become abusive toward her husband (HH).
Eventually, HH broke down and told us that he was worried for the safety of the girls because of HW's drinking. Then we got a call from HH in distress because HW had called the police and accused him of hitting her and making her fall down. She was drunk. The police though had to report it as a DA and he was ordered to leave the house. Things began to deteriorate quite rapidly from that point and HH was made to attend anger management therapy before he could have access to the girls again. The last time I saw HW was when she became abusive towards HH again and walked out of a restaurant to walk home. It was several miles from their house and along a busy highway. They must have taken a taxi ( this was good 14 yrs ago, so the details are hazy) as we had to pick HH to take him home to collect his car to find her. In the conversation we had driving back, HH broke down again and told us how crazy things had become and he was at his wits end about what to do. We told him, he had to get a divorce for the sake of the kids, let alone his own mental health, maybe even move back to Scotland. It was going to be difficult because although he had been accused of DA, there was no record of her behaviour despite driving around drunk with the kids. However, in the end, he did get full custody of the kids, and she moved to an apartment where apparently, she was not in a good way. She now lives back in Scotland and with good counselling, has managed to pull her life back, although her health has not really recovered. She is still very fragile. The girls go back to see her every summer and have an OK relationship with her but they were only 6 when HH gained custody of them. They have grown up to be delightful girls about to commence their 3rd year at University.
Towards the end of our relationship, I think HW knew she was seriously ill. She had been under the care of a psychiatrist since the twins were about 18 months old. She was put on various drugs (multiples at a time) for depression and sleep issues but the psychiatrist was unaware of the fact she was mixing them with vast quantities of wine. He never once thought of the obvious, that she was suffering from post natal depression! She would rant about the fact these drugs weren't helping at all, feeling like a zombie whenever she took them and that she would end up like her Mother, who it turned out ,happened to be an abusive alcoholic who ended up with early onset dementia.
After I cut ties with HW for my own mental health (I was dealing with a drug addict teenage son at the time), she did sent me a few letters telling me how cruel HH was to her and not allowing the girls to see her (untrue). I felt bad about abandoning her as I could see that she was in pain and needed help but I couldn't be that person.
Hopefull,y AE will eventually get the help she so obviously needs and will be able to repair her relationship with her girls but I fear it's already too late for that. My 10 yr granddaughter who lives with us has already formed a very astute opinion of her father and its not a good one, despite us not being negative about him. She has formed this from her own experience of not seeing him for a year (he lived in another State) and her current weekend visits and his relationship with his current girlfriend. As to the hacking of IG Instagram, I don't think a 12 yr old girl could or would have done that without assistance. My granddaughter is very internet savvy (she has taught me how use certain programs but there is no way she would think of doing that.
I do wonder if the IVF treatments had a hand in her deterioration over the years. HH definitely felt HW changed after several rounds of IVF treatment.
