Divorce is becoming more and more socially acceptable, and for many it can be a good thing.
Allowing people to find a new lease on life or simply a means to escape from a toxic relationship is a wonderful thing, but there can be major complications for some.
Messy breakups between two people with complicated negative feelings towards each other is bad as it is, but when it's a marriage that's ending rather than just a relationship, things can get even more intense. If you have children, that just adds further chaos to the mix. Especially when they are at a young age, parents breaking up can have a lasting effect if things aren't handled in a mature way.
But I think even the most bitter of relationships you may have seen between those who used to be married never got to the level that it did for this pair in China. This woman reportedly tied her screaming son to a handrail, causing him to soil himself from the trauma, all because her ex-husband allegedly missed out on a $150 child support payment.
The child was photographed by the mother, who then sent the images to her ex-husband demanding the money. The father lives a four-hour drive away and so had to send the photos to the grandparents to retrieve the helpless child. It then took them almost 20 minutes to free their grandson.
The father said:
"Since July – until my ex tied up our second son in the stairwell – I had already given her 13,200 Yuan ($1989). The reason she did that was because on the day of the incident I gave her 1,000 Yuan ($150) instead of 2,000 ($300)."
The incident took place in Leiyang city, in south China's Hunan Province, and once the images were posted on the CHinese social media app WeChat the story began to circulate around the internet.
Apparently, the boy's parents divorced in early 2016 and have two sons together - the elder son lives with the mother and the young stays with the father. Yet since July, the father requested that his former partner look after their youngest child for one semester as long as he pays her 2,000 yuan ($300) of child support every month.
It has been reported that the father paid 5,700 yuan ($859) to his ex-wife to cover the tuition fees for the elder son, but whether or not that is true - it definitely didn't go down smoothly.
On November 5, the mother allegedly received $150 instead of the promised $300, which prompted her to act totally irrational.
She then seems to have taken her anger and frustration out on the child, tying him to the stairwell of the building she lives in and taking the photos for her ex-husband to see. By time the grandparents arrived, he was described as being in a "horrified" and "desperate" state.
Hopefully the parents can work this out in a way that keeps both the children out of harms way in the future.
