Wes, the convo was via text and not in person, and he wrote MY in capital letters in the rest of the sentance composed of small lettering, i.e, he meant to emphasis 'MY' or else he wouldn't have written it like that and he only said that because he was trying to justify his reasons for taking me to court.

I don't want to hear his justifications anymore; why can't he just say he's sorry for hurting me instead of thinking he was right to take the children because they're 'his'? It makes me want to slap him.

And yes it does matter what he thinks. I chose him to be the father of my children. It was very important to me to pick the right person for the job. Even if he didn't turn out to be the right partner, I wanted him and only him to be their father. I thought that he thought the same of me.

All those years I raised them, thinking I was doing a good job, and then all my motherhood amounts to is a 50 page report saying how crap I am? He never once took any of it back, or apologised or said anything to infer he thought I was doing a good job with them and he even said to me once that 'childbirth doesn't matter' - so I was suddenly ashamed of the 24 and a half hours he spent watching me birth our children.

If I had known he felt like that, I would have laboured on my own without his presence. To him it's just a comment, to me it stays there. It's a bloody good job I know it now, because if I am having another baby, he sure as hell isn't going to be there when I'm giving birth.

All I remember is a catalogue of insults and shame regarding them. He never lets me have them when I want, he's always on this power trip over them, and in the last few months he always says 'my children' instead of ours.

In the more distant past, he would say 'my' and then correct himself and say, 'sorry, I meant ours' - now he doesn't do that. Even when he's discussing them with me in person, he will say something like 'I've got to get home now to my rabble'.

Every day I hurt constantly to the point where most people aside from my closest friends, don't know I have 4 children. It's too painful to talk about, so they think DD4 is my only one and people keep asking me when I am going to have baby number 2.

DD1 looks so much like me, I have passed her off as my little sister before, to taxi drivers and such. It's easier than admitting he took her off me because he thought I was unfit.

I don't have any recent photos of them up in the house; all the pictures are pre-court, when I was a proper mother. I just can't look at modern photos. I have a few taken 2 years ago which I sometimes look at because I took the pictures at my place, but that's all.

I get on with my life, I don't cry, I hardly even allow myself to miss them, and then Andy says something like that and I'm in floods of tears for a whole day.

The court battle might be in the past, but the judgements permanently altered my future and the children's futures. You take one judgemental court welfare officer, and that's all it takes to ruin someone's life - and she got paid for destroying my family

Having the one person you loved most in the world, think that about your mothering - well, I will never think as highly of my role in their lives again.

Even if we had got back together, I would have always felt I wasn't doing it up to his standard, and if he had chosen to leave again, there is now always the chance I would lose all my children again, even DD4, now he has done it already.

That's why I told him I'd had enough when I realised my period was late.

I've been in tears all morning since they've gone. I just have to get it out my system today so I can function round there tomorrow.

At least he won't be there. He'll be going to the hospital.

Jo.