My ex wife and I did not have a happy marriage right from the start. In my opinion she is frigid, uncaring, dysfunctional and a thoroughly shallow, stupid woman.
I appreciate that I may be biased. lol, but I lost all respect for her when she openly called our son Danny a "retard" (he's deaf not retarded and he's a freelance photgrapher/journalist). She didn't like me, so in her own words "why should I like your children?" WTF???
I appreciate I wasn't a great husband, but I really would have been, or at least tried to be had she been a bit less absurd.
Anyway to cut to the chase of what you asked, I adored the kids, she couldn't stand them, I don't value money , it's ALL she values... so she used this to her advantage and screwed me over for everything. She basically said she'd give me full custody as long as I gave her everything financial, if I disagreed she'd go for full custody just to spite me. No contest in my book so she had it all. She wouldn't have cared if I had flayed them all alive to be honest. She never calls, writes, sends cards, presents and if they call her she just says "what do you want?" The fact I drank and took drugs was neither here nor there to her, it didn't matter to her agenda.