A child needs both a father and a mother.

How your wife has hurt you and how she has treated you is really sad. But that is what happens when a marriage fails. People - one party or both, get very hurt.

That should not make one parent want to block the other parent from being a parent to their children. The fact is that a child gets so much from both parents. A father cannot give to a child what a mother can, and a mother cannot give to a child what a father can.

I know this. When my husband and I first separated, I would much rather have tried to gain custody of my two children. My husband actually threatened to do that to me.

Common sense has thankfully prevailed. I am learning how much my children love and need me for myself, and how much they love and need their dad for who he is.

I know you are terribly hurt right now. And I understand your circumstances more than you will ever imagine. But express your anger with your wife's actions to your wife, or better still, to a counsellor. Don't allow your anger to stop your son from having a mother in his life, no matter how much you want to be the main custodian of your child. This is not the best outcome for your child.

Remember that the first months of separation are the most terrible, draining and emotional of all. But when there's children involved, you have the rest of your life and your child's life to think about. You need to stay on child-care terms with your STBX. And no matter how hard it is to do, the time to start that is now. Or you will make things much, much worse than they are already.

I wish you all the best. I know how hard it must be for you.