It Doesn't Have To Stay That Way
Just some thoughts on divorce on this Father's Day, seven years out.
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It was seven years ago almost to the day that K and I split up. I don’t remember how we spent that first not-together Father’s Day, but, then again, I don’t remember very much from that time period. I was an absolute lunatic, in a state of full fight-or-flight. To my great shame, I don’t even remember telling my kids that we were divorcing — although my friends assure me that I did, and apparently did an okay job at it.
A couple of hours ago on this Father’s Day, my ex arrived to pick up the kids, because we do our transfers on Sundays. We’re not supposed to according to those legal documents we signed, but we abandoned those rules long ago in favor of doing what we’ve learned actually works for our family. My daughter gave him handmade cards, and my son gave him a graphic novel, and we drank coffee together and did what we call a “family hug,” with the kids in the middle. Then we did what we so often do these days, which is tell the kids we need “Mom and Dad time.”
Lord, it’s not what you think; get those minds out of the gutter. (Both of us have wonderful partners who respect and encourage our friendship.)
What Mom and Dad time these days consists of, basically, is us hiding in my bedroom while our daughter knocks on the door every five seconds asking us what we’re talking about. And what we’re talking about is…well, we start with the gossip, because K is and forever will be in the very limited circle of People Who I Will Always Tell Everything (you know, like when you promise someone you won’t tell anyone their secret but you assume the person you promised realizes that come on, obviously you’re going to tell this person).
When we’re done with the gossip portion of our chat, we move on to the advice part. We talk about our current relationships, and celebrate each others’ happiness. We commiserate about our career challenges. We talk about how our kids are wonderful and occasionally awful, and about our fears and dreams for them. One or both of us usually tears up at some point.
A long time ago, I was engaged to a different man. I was 18, far too young to be engaged, and he was too young as well, and neither of us had been through therapy so our breakups (we had more than one) were truly cinematic-level dramas. But the last breakup, when it happened, happened because the earlier ones had scared me so much: I knew that if we were to get married, have children, and one day end up divorced (like more than half the population), he would frighten me with his rage. He would want to erase me from his life, like that time when we broke up and he sent me boxes and boxes full of every single picture, every single gift, every single thing that could possibly remind him of me.
I didn’t know my children yet, but I knew that I could not bear that for myself, or for them.
Our divorce was hardly smooth sailing, as you might recall — but of course few divorces are. I was so angry. He was, too. The growing pains we experienced while trying to figure out how to do things like respect each other’s boundaries/give up control/co-exist literally forever because of the lives we brought into the world as a pair…they nearly destroyed me.
But when we got engaged, I remember in my bones how certain I was that this man would never destroy our family, should it ever be built. I am so glad that I was right.
I’m also so sorry for the way I made him feel. I think he probably feels the same. But the difference is that now we can hear each other, see how we hurt each other, and move forward nonetheless because of course we will.
My god, how we have changed.
I don’t enjoy everything about K, because he is his own person who of course does things I myself would not choose. I am also absolutely certain that there are things about me that make him utterly insane, and that he is correct in being driven mad by said unlovely qualities. We have our fights, our distant moments, our disagreements about how to shepherd these children through the world. But the experience of having an ex-husband who has, over the years, become not just a “co-parent,” but a partner in life for whom I feel deep and genuine love — albeit of a different sort than I used to — has profoundly changed my understanding of what love is, or at least has the potential to be.
Love, I have learned — in large part from this relationship — can shift over time, take on different forms, and remain true. You can argue, disagree, and still respect each others’ choices. You can have romantic love, and at the same time continue to love a person with whom you have an irreplaceable history. It might be different, but it does not have to be less profound.
I could never have imagined, way back when, that we would hug good-bye not because the kids wanted us to, but because we did.
Happy Father’s Day to my partner for better or for worse, and one of the best friends I’ll ever have.
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