I am glad that Keith has finally told his dad what he has been going through, that is a positive step for him, he needs to talk with a therapist and deal with all of his issues with his dad leaving the family, it’s very difficult for any kids to have deal with things like their parents separation and then ultimately the divorce, Jim should have manned up sooner and made some effort to try and explain things to the boys, but he let it fester for to long but he is finally doing it, better late than never. My mother left my dad when I was 11 years old, so I can understand where Keith is coming from, I had to get both myself and my sister ready for school and grow up really fast, it didn’t help that mum had mental health issues but dad was around some of the time, he was shell shocked that mum had left him and taken us with her, she hated him so it was difficult to get in touch with him at first but we did see him once a month after a while, that was difficult but we survived, I do often think that with all of the crap that went on in my childhood I didn’t have a breakdown but I didn’t and I am ok, it did affect how I had relationships with a partner because I had built up walls which took a long time to break down, only my husband has managed to do that because I thought that I wasn’t deserving of a relationship but I have been proved wrong about that and I am happy about it too.
I think that I turned out alright, but school wasn’t a good place for me, going to 3 different primary schools and 3 different high schools didn’t help either.