Ready for an new year

Without question this year has seen the most changes ever in my life. I have gone through the end of a marriage. I have ruminated over how many clients and friends for that matter who were about the same age as my daughter when their parents divorced. I have seen or they tell me how hard tit was for them and the role it still plays in their lives now. I know it has a profound impact on how children view adult relationships. I really grieve over this part of my decision. I fell in love this year and then that too went away. Along the way I had a great time and I am learning how to survive without the things you want.  It is not an easy thing to let go and I never want to stop being willing to take the chance. Then what else have you got? For me I too social of a person to close off that part of  human experience. I finished school this year 8 long years after starting. Too long. Ridiculous in fact.  I rekindled a lot of friendships that really had gone by the wayside out of neglect and circumstance. 

Three days till I see the kids.  I start to get overwhelmed with feeliings when I think about it.  The ywill be bigger and different. I hope I never take forgranted another second I have with either of them for as long as I draw breath. I am ready for a good time with them. I certain I will be really sad to see them go. If anything this year has taught me it is how to process feeling s of sadness and loss. That comfort comes from within and not from the outside in.  It feels as if my life will never be easy again, but I do not regret the things both good and bad that I went through this year. I n the end I think I better for it and will end up a happier person.  Still working on it though I still struggle and hurt people along the way. It is  a bad feeling to take the anger you have with yourself and direct it at other people, which is what I have done at times this year only to feel very small inside.  I am still growing up and I guess that is better than not growing up at all.

when is enough enough

I can honestly say that my ex is now just starting to express how angry she is at me for seeking a divorce.  It is obvious in so much as she has not spoken a word to me since she moved out of state.  Noe though when I pushed her on something that was a reasonable request, an accommodation really, that I sought from her she took it as an opportunity to say no and to tell me in so many words how selfish I had been over the course of the summer and how much pain I have caused the kids. All true to one degree or another. A page and a half detailing specific past transgressions. Which I understand. She is angry at me and this is not what she wanted.  In an attempt to appeal to the idea that making the kids stay in NY to finish the last two days of school and then fly back fly back to Seattle on Christmas Eve was probably not in the kids best interest, I earned some sort of written tongue lashing.  It is too bad that things were not better between us but they weren’t. I needed to make a change for my own sense of self and my health. Now when I ask her to consider deviating from our written parenting plan I am accused of selfishness and looking out for my own self interests. To be sure I would rather fly to NYC on the Friday before Christmas and return the next day. Much easier for me but really this is about not making the kids fly across country on Christmas eve when they could already be back two days earlier. even one day would be better than the day of.

 

What can I do? What do you say? Wait try and be patient continue to appeal to the notion that this kind of response is ultimately not good for the kids. The divorce has happened. I made the most generous sacrifice I could make. I let them move out of state, that was not some sovereign right you had to take them.  Not to appease you but that I thought in the end it would be best for the kids if you were as happy as you possibly could be.  I can deal with the issues in a more positive way, I never anticipated that you would or could. And you are proving me right.

Keep your head up

Is an old hockey term, meaning if you aren’t looking your about to get cracked.  Much like contact sports such as football or hockey it is often the hits you don’t see coming that often hurt the most.  There seems to be a certain violence that can happen in a relationship when one person does something that hurts the other in a way that is totally out of character.  Having inflicted this form of pain on several people this year and dealing with the ramifications has been a very hard lesson. On top of that we all have our own unexpected moments. Several of which have hit me recently, largely because they came unexpectedly.

Getting an innocent call from a telephone solicitor, I know why was I picking up the phone?, who launched into her spiel about  a children’s magazine I had ordered for my kids and since let expire. As she rushed through her “fantastic” offer I had to stop her. I told her that really the person she ought to be calling is my ex since she has the kids. I could have ordered the magazine and not said anything or just no thank you, but a part of me wanted to say what was really on my mind and quite frankly phone solicitors if anyone kind of deserve it.  Needless to say it was the fastest I have ever been able to get one of them off the phone besides just hanging up on them. Fact is I wasn’t expecting a call like that and it caught me off guard and made me both sad and angry. Those in your face moments that shine a very bright light on what I do not have in my life are often not welcome unless I turn that light on myself.

Two days later. I am in the parking lot at costco, a place I never go to anymore, since I live alone and don’t often eat in bulk. Anyway I am going there to pick up some photos and low and behold who do walk smack dab into just as I am walking past my car but my son’s preschool teacher from last year. Ugh. In what I can only imagine was with best intentions she asked how the kids were.

HER ”It’s really to bad that you aren’t together anymore. You were such a nice family. We all miss Ryan.

Why not just whip out a scalpel and cut my heart out there in the parking lot?

ME “Thank you (what do you say to that?). I hope to bring the kids in during the summer.”

HER  ”to visit?”

ME “I need to leave there for child care during the summer.”

HER “Oh so you get them for the summer?”

No I just want to pay the money just in case…

Capper though is the VM message my son who is four leaves on my phone Monday. He gives me a few quick updates an Halloween and his preschool class and then starts to get teary and sad and says to me “I love you and I really miss you because I am with mom and I really really miss you. I hope mom gets better if she doesn’t I want to stay with you. I hope you take care of me bye bye”

I love you too Ry

Much to think about

I have been wondering why people stay in relationships that are not satisfying. I stayed in one for a long time. There were a lot of reasons why I did. Many of them perfectly reasonable and acceptable. Primarily it was for my children. My desire to raise them in a family environment like I had been raised.  To this day despite my own divorce I tend to think that problems can be resolved, the issues worked out. No relationship is satisfying all the time it requires patience and sacrifice and hard work. A friend of mine who’s parents’ divorced sees thing very differently than I as did my ex wife who’s parents divorced. IT always seems as though the man chooses to leave. Is that true? Well yes it is. But that is really very small portion of what actually happened in my marriage and I suspect that is the case most if not all divorces. Nevertheless I see the pain that my friend experiences at the loss of her father and I feel badly for her. Today I was thinking about my own children and how this will eventually play out in their lives.  It burdens my heart. I still ask myself was it all worth it? What did I gain and what have I lost.  The only way this makes any sense is if I do the things I felt I was not able to or could do in my last relationship that I was so dissatisfied with that I chose to leave. Make the changes, demand more of yourself and your partner. Don’t settle. Still it is hard to live this out at times especially after your feelings are involved or when you are unsure of what it is yo want.  This is why I need to take my time. And admittedly I struggle with this. Particularly now as I continue to have very strong feelings for someone and I am not sure what to do with my feelings.  I am learning, though I am learning. It is funny how willing to take risks and say what should be said at work and I often struggle to do the same in my personal life. My feelings and my desire not to have bad feelings may be a motivating factor. I just sense that people who are raised in divorced households expect that nothing lasts, “men” always leave, life is painful and ultimately so are relationships. I don’t want my daughter to view the world this way. What can I do I wonder?

Feelings

It was my last weekend with my kids before they move.  The time has gone so fast. I am not sure what I feel yet.  Nothing? No when I talk about it with people who are listening and asking questions it is a lot more than nothing.  Somewhere between sad and angry and guilty for the choice I made. And then back to vindicated and assured that what I am doing is the right thing.  Having the opportunity to talk with a therapist has been the best thing I could have done (thank you K, I know long over due).  Someone who doesn’t have a vested interest or a side they need to take. Just someone to ask me good questions, give me feedback, remind me of what I am gaining by making difficult choices that cause me a great deal of pain. 

 

The kids are going to be fine. Ryan is ready to go, so he tells me.  He wants to make sure that his stuff that he is leaving behind will be there when he comes back.  Lily, she is going to be fine too. I made her stay the night with me, despite her wanting to go back to her mom’s. Best thing I could have done. She was fine after a couple of tears.  The thing that is causing me the most pain right now is something so basic to having a child that you take it for granted after a while.  Especially that relationship between dads and daughters and mothers and sons. The thing that I have lost and will likely never get back is that sense of being able to do no wrong in my daughter’s eyes. I am sure over time as she got older this would change into a different set of feelings expressed in different ways.  As for now though there was that bond she loved me without question, she still loves me but I have hurt her in a way that has changed how she experiences me-that is my biggest loss and that would have come whether she moved away or not.  Nothing about this has been easy, for any of us. 

 

Now we are down to six days, five really for me.  Every moment seems important.. I know they will be back. Three months is a long time.  The sadness is coming I can feel it. I need to feel it in order to get through it, I will not ignore it or numb myself to it.