From the Horse's Mouth

My son has a PD day today (what the heck- school just started and teachers are already getting time off. Sheesh!)

Anyhow, we went to drop my daughter to her Montessori. On the way home, my son asked me if I could try to be more "calm" when dealing with his father. My first knee jerk reaction was about to be a defensive one, but I caught myself just in time. This is, after all, just a child.

I asked him why he felt I wasn't calm. He said that he's noticed that his father and I don't get along, that we aren't even friends, and that we aren't even friendly with eachother, and that it looks like we fight a lot. I felt bad. Really bad. I mean, I spent my entire marriage protecting the children from seeing anything- my bruises, hearing the arguments, even from sensing that something was wrong. And now that we are divorced, I guess we both let go of that. At the end of the day, the children still need to be protected emotionally, and that responsibility falls to me and to their father. Their father never really paid much attention to this stuff before, but I did, so at minimum, this responsibility should fall to me. I owe that to my children.

I asked my son why he felt I wasn't calm, trying to find out why he was asking me to be calm (and perhaps hadn't asked the same of his father). His reply, "Because you're the nice one. When you're not calm, it scares me". Poor little guy. What a guilt trip for me.

I felt so badly. I didn't know what to say to him. I promised that I would try to be more polite and calm around his dad, and apologized for the things he has obviously been witnessing. He accepted my apology and then asked me if it would be possible for us to have dinner together. All four of us, including his father. I tried asking if his dad gave him this idea, but he didn't seem to show any indication of it. If my ex did put my son up to it, he's hiding it very well. I had to tell him that it wasn't possible at this point in time, and asked why he wanted us to spend time like that together. Was he hoping we would re-marry? My son proceeded to explain that he knew we wouldn't be married again, but that seeing us together just makes him feel happy, so he was wondering if we could do it, even if just for a little while.

My heart went out to him. I almost wanted to do it just to make him happy. I said almost. At the end of the day, I do realize that no good could ever come of it. After all, it would probably confuse the children, give them false hopes, and perhaps even confuse my ex. Besides, my ex and I can't spend more than 5 minutes without arguing, so time together would just end in an argument in front of the children. That would just be worse.

That being said, I do feel for the children. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for them. I'm an adult, and I don't even know how I would manage if my own parents ever divorced. Imagine how tough it must be for children.

Divorce is never a good thing. Nobody ever marries with the intention of getting divorced. Nobody ever wishes for it. It's just something that happens along the way. In my case, I definitely married too young, I definitely married the wrong person, and I definitely didn't leave when I should have. I should have left before I had the children.

Don't get me wrong- I love the children. It just isn't fair to have children if you're going to make them suffer through a divorce. I knew the marriage wasn't working, but I had children anyways, falsely hoping that the abuse had ended for good. Either way, the outcome has been bad for them. Now I have to make sure that I help them pick up the pieces and move on.

I know that everything happens for a reason. I just hope that whatever the reasons are, whatever is planned for the children and I in the future, I hope that at a minimum, somewhere along the way something in our future will help to ease their pain, even if just a bit. One step at a time, right?