Living Apart From My Kids: My Oldest Two Are in Denmark

Dear friends, we've been following Marlene on Instagram for years. After a birthday post she wrote for her daughter, we asked her for an interview, because our hearts just broke for her. A mom without her kids, a mom who has to spend this special day hundreds of miles away from her child, that's no small thing. This is how Marlene's kids, ages 3 and 5 at the time, ended up staying with their father in Denmark after the separation.

Dear Marlene, in your latest videos you talk about how you often can't celebrate your kids' birthdays with them because you live so far apart. What goes through your head (and your gut) on a day that important when you're a mom without her kids?

The birthdays of my older kids especially are hard for me to get through. I'd love to be as close to them as I can be on those days, hold them tight, tell them how much I love them, set up a beautiful birthday table, decorate the apartment, and show them that they're wonderful people who deserve to be celebrated.

Instead, on most birthdays, hundreds of miles separate us, and the grief sits deep inside me. It's a real, physical pain, like a heavy weight on my chest. I miss them with every fiber of my body.

Birthdays always hit me harder than other days. I also find it absurd that the very person who brought them into the world can't be with them on their big day.

I separated from my husband at the time in 2015. We were all living together in Copenhagen then. Three years earlier, we had moved to Denmark with our first child, and I was seven months pregnant with our second. Until then we'd lived in Bonn, Germany, where our first child was born.

After the separation, it was quickly clear to me that I had to go back to Germany, because I wouldn't have had good career prospects in Denmark. My German high school diploma (the Abitur, the exam you need for university in Germany) wasn't recognized, and I had no completed vocational training that would have helped me get a foothold there. It was clear to me that I would move back with my kids. What followed in the Danish courts was an absolute nightmare.

Two years later in Berlin, I had my third child with my current husband, and then my fourth. So there are four of us as a family in Berlin, and on weekends and school breaks we're a family of six, when my two oldest come to stay with us.

Are the kids there against their will?

Nobody ever involved the children in that decision. Nobody was assigned to take a closer look at our family situation, either. Unfortunately. Because then they could have seen and recognized the bond between the kids and me.

The court's reasoning for deciding where the children would live was that they didn't want to uproot them from their familiar surroundings. My kids were five and three at the time. Nobody considered that at that age, “home” is much more a familiar person than a place.

What were those first years like for you?

The first years were brutal! I was a mom, but without my kids. I felt an incredible amount of shame, and I always had the feeling that I had to justify my situation. Because what (terrible) mother chooses not to live with her kids?

I still hear accusations like that today under my social media posts. But to understand our situation, you have to know our story, and it hurts. The goodbyes were awful too, especially with my daughter. She never wanted to leave me, clung to me, and cried her heart out.

The way she kept calling out “I want to stay with you” over and over is burned into my memory. They were truly dramatic scenes. With their father, it only led to defiance and indifference. His reaction: She'll pull herself together in a few minutes.

Today I know that after those goodbyes, she kept crying for days. Just picturing her crying herself to sleep at night brings tears to my eyes right away. I wanted so badly to hold her, protect her, and keep her with me. Instead I had to let her go. My ex regularly reminded me that if I didn't hand them over, it would count as child abduction.

How do you stay in touch, and how often do you see each other?

We see each other one weekend a month and during school breaks. But even those aren't mine alone. They're split 50/50. It takes a huge planning operation, and the work always falls to me.

Three years after the separation, the Danish family court issued an additional ruling that spelled out the visitation arrangement in great detail, because my ex kept getting in the way and denying me access to the kids. It was a classic case of mother-child alienation.

Luckily, the court put an end to that, and from then on there were no more power games. It brought a lot of peace overall, because I no longer had to worry about whether I'd get to see my kids or not. By now the arrangements are routine, and we try to focus on the essentials.

Beyond that, are you in contact with the father of your older two? How do they live there? Are they happy?

We have contact now and then, and it's almost entirely about planning travel and school breaks. I'd love it if we talked more about the kids' development, but my attempts and questions go nowhere.

Just recently, one of the kids had to go to the hospital because of an emergency, and I found out through the grapevine, hours later. That experience left me feeling very uneasy, because it showed me once again that I can't count on my ex to tell me when it's serious.

At the same time, it makes me angry, because I don't see any sign of joint custody in practice, and only because it crosses national borders. I'm sure it would play out differently here in Germany. Still, the two of them like living in Copenhagen, and by now they have dual citizenship.

It's their home, it's where they grew up. They're now 16 and almost 14, and friends and hobbies come first for them. They've developed well, and I hope that despite their torn-apart childhoods, they grow into strong, kind-hearted people.

How did the people around you react at the beginning, or even today, when they hear the circumstances for the first time?

Right after my separation, two people in my own close family were disloyal to me and completely crossed boundaries. It even went so far that their opinions were used against me in court.

Both of them have since changed their views, but it still hurts me to this day and often comes up in my therapy. Apart from those two, the people around me were supportive and fought by my side. Back then, I couldn't talk about my situation without bursting into tears right away. It's much better now, but I also have 11 years behind me in which I've learned to cope with it.

In 2020, I started talking publicly about what happened to us. Working through my story in my posts and videos on Instagram is a kind of self-therapy, not just for me, but by now for many other women who share a similar fate.

I regularly get messages from women I don't know. Many are relieved to have found my profile, because they thought they were alone with this. But there are so many of us! There's often a lot of shame involved, just like there was for me back then. But it's time to let go of that shame and speak out loud about what happens to mothers in court.

We should question court rulings more and ask ourselves why the verdicts so often turn out the way they do. Why a society shaped by patriarchy would rather put the blame on “hysterical” mothers than condemn narcissistic, violent men. When a mother leaves, she never does it lightly.

Mothers are often stuck for years in toxic, violent relationships and don't dare to leave because they're financially dependent, and for many, separation means sliding into poverty. When mothers leave their partners, there's usually a serious, valid reason, and in my opinion courts should look at that much more closely.

What's the relationship like between the siblings? Do they miss each other?

Yes, they do! The little ones probably more than the big ones. Because the big ones have also gained two younger siblings on the Danish side, about the same age as my boys. When four weeks have gone by, the excitement about seeing each other again is always pretty huge.

What have you learned about yourself through all of this, and what strengths have you maybe developed because of it?

I know that I'm strong and that I'm also allowed to be weak. Letting my children go was the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life, but it was necessary. Not just to protect my kids, but also so I wouldn't lose myself. No child can grow when they're crushed by their parents' ego. If you truly love your child, you don't tear them apart.

At some point after the court rulings, I had a key moment: if I wanted to feel happiness in my life again, I had to actively allow it. I can consciously choose myself and my life. I didn't want to be controlled by others anymore. I wanted to take responsibility for my own happiness again.

What would you like to tell other mothers who hold on to love even when their kids are physically far away?

Hang in there and don't give up! Show your child that they deserve to be loved unconditionally, no matter what. And try not to manipulate your kids. Every child has the right to love both parents without being caught in a loyalty conflict.

Never take your anger at your ex out on your child. Your child shouldn't grow up in an ego show. The weekends you have with your child are something truly special. Enjoy the quality time, and remember that quality always beats quantity.