I don’t wish her ruin.

I wish, honestly, that she becomes someone her children could one day respect, because they will need that from her eventually, and supervised visits at a family center are a thin thread to hang a mother on.

But I could not make that happen by staying married to her, and I could not protect my children by pretending the arrangement had been a marriage.

The kindest true thing I can say about Lindsay is that I hope the hard, unsubsidized years ahead give her the self she never had to grow when everything was handed to her.

The court gave me full custody.

She has two supervised hours every other Sunday at a family center in Austin.