Thank you for writing this. One thing is to hear it from another father, another thing from a child that has lived through... something similar at least.

Your comment made me realize how much I try to understand her side. How I'm still trying to find the reasons for the mother to treat us that way, stepping outside my own and into her shoes. "What if she's right?" is a common question that comes to my mind, although I know the answer.

It also helps to see the real meaning of the words that she is using against me. That I really am not like that. That there is no rational justification for what she's doing to Lily and I.

When this happened the first time, my therapist suggested writing a diary. Every day a little letter to Lily, privately. So when we would reunite, she'd be able to read (or I read to her) that I never, not one single day, forgot about her. I'm doing something like that. I send her voice messages and videos almost every day, through her mom's number. Not that she gets to listen to them all. But she'll know that I was always there.