Meet Emma

Emma is our 11-year-old daughter.

She’s sporty but it doesn’t define her. She plays soccer, basketball, and Gaelic football.

In soccer, her keepy-uppy record is 31. She scored 4 points in her last football game making her top scorer in the game. She can do treble back handsprings in the trampoline landing into a full splits. She loves Harry Potter. She’s read all the books and still hopes I’ll read them too. She reads a lot, The land of Stories trilogy is her next favorite series. Anything by Rick Riordan is next on the list. She can complete the Rubix Cube fully in minutes. She loves art, both drawing and painting. She loves to write. She writes short stories or simply journals her thoughts or items of interest. But most of all she likes to make things, any-things. She loves Roblox, specifically (and not surprizingly) the building games such as Bloxburg. She’s continually rearranging her room. One of her favorite TV shows is one where a celebrity architect designs and oversees house renovations for people. She has a few close friends and has frequent play dates. She’s always invited to stuff, something I regularly delight about and don’t take for granted given that she’s an only child. It’s something I feel a certain sense of relief and happiness over. She has go-to YouTuber channels that she has a real interest in. I’m also happy to say that some of the music I like (music of the Scandinavian doom/melodic-death metal variety) appears on her playlists.

Emma is a wonderful, beautiful child. She has never given us even a hint of trouble. Even as a baby she rarely cried much. She just kinda tagged along with us.

Emma however, is shy, like, extremely shy.

• She does not talk in groups.
• She does not talk to adults, period. She just shrugs and nods instead.
• She does not talk to her teammates.
• In my opinion she’s showing clear signs of social anxiety.
• She is highly sensitive.
• And the killer blow that really gets to me is that she has absolutely zero sense of self-worth. Example, she’s talking to a friend, another friend arrives, she backs away, she fees less-than the others, not worthy, backs off and leaves them to it simply not wanting to be a burden, just wanting to be invisible.
• She does not talk to Susan. She screams at her from time to time but generally refuses to engage in any kind of conversation with her at all.

She talks to me. I just have to remain silent and, on queue the information comes out. I’m so grateful for this for as long as it lasts. I don’t judge, I barely answer except to prompt the odd question such as “What would you have liked to say to her?”

She has empathy in abundance. I’m so relieved.

When the divorce is over, she will need intervention.

If Susan gets 50% custody which she may well do, I firmly believe that Susan will continue to harm and damage her.

I want Emma to be independent, confident and free. We’re a long way off that.