My parents own a really nice holiday place in Florida, near Boca. Pool, sunshine, everything you’d want. They come down about 8 weeks a year, usually off-season, but for the most part it just sits empty.

When the kids were small, we holidayed here a lot. Those trips were magical, I honestly can’t remember a single argument during them. The children loved it.

We stopped coming in 2018 because my wife decided she didn’t like it anymore. Instead, she wanted expensive country club condo rentals in places like Charleston. Paid for by me!

I went along with it. Looking back, I was a total simp, I gave her too much control and let her dictate decisions that robbed us of places and memories we could have kept building.

My youngest is now 15, and he hasn’t been here since he was 7.

My wife filed for divorce back in March, very much a narcissistic discard. She’s always been mean and a taker, now she’s trying to take me for everything.

To get a breather from all of that, I flew down to see my parents for a few days. Walking through the airport hit me harder than I expected. It dawned on me that she had controlled this part of our lives too, deciding we wouldn’t come back here.

Being in the house has been bittersweet. I opened a cupboard and found toys my parents had bought years ago for the kids to play with here. It floored me. All those memories, all that lost time, and the realisation that selfish decisions made by one person shaped so much of our family’s story.