I sit here and watch acquaintances’ family lives on Facebook and wonder where the fairness is for my family. I have always wanted to be the house where my kids felt comfortable to bring all their friends back and have loud boisterous “friend time”-something I was never really encouraged to do, nor did I have the support for when I was growing up. I wanted to make a house into a HOME…with my kids. For my kids. I wanted to raise them in the best possible way to encourage their intellect, their compassion, their common sense, and their secure relationships. I wanted them to have the secure and carefree childhood that I didn’t feel was provided for me.
Now don’t get me wrong, my parents did a decent job raising me. They were your typical lower middle class parents – not horribly involved with the day to day lives of their children – blue collar father and stay at home mom. The problem was they hated each other. Now they weren’t always out and out mean to one another, but my dad drank a LOT to drown out my mom; and mom lectured a LOT and cleaned. I remember she had two cleaning days, and when she was cleaning, whew, stay AWAY! lol Now as an adult, I don’t begrudge my parents. They did the best they could. There were a few occasions where divorce was bantered about, but there was never any follow through…though I admit there were times I’d wished they would/had so they weren’t so miserable all the time. I’ve come to see them as a symbiotic relationship at this point. Neither of them can survive without the other, though neither of them really wants to accept the existence of the other completely.
I never wanted that for me, my marriage, my family. I wanted the white picket fence, three kids, a dog, the Norman Rockwell picture…
I imagined the kids having friends that were like extra children to me…having them over so frequently. I imagined that their parents and my husband and I would all be friends and get together for occasions like Super Bowl and Fourth of July picnics. I imagined that we would all be lifelong friends. I imagined that this life would continue on into old age. My husband and I reminiscing about the kids and their escapades long into our golden years. Sitting on the porch of our family “home” that contained so many memories we could hardly remember them all because there were so many. Looking out onto the property where countless hours of labor had gone into creating the gardens and the nice patio area for entertaining and the fire pit where many bonfires had been enjoyed…
all just imagined
none come to fruition.
My ex had grander plans. He wanted to become one of the “elite” government employees. He wanted to relive a life of a young man and become something he had always dreamed of…and it wasn’t a great father and leader of his family. I always kept thinking “as soon as _______________ happens, things will all fall into place”. Yet the ________________ always kept changing. Long before the “sexy” job it was finding our first home. Then it was the potential for him to get his masters degree, which never occurred. Then it was the promotions to new job responsibilities at his private sector job. When that didn’t satisfy, it became him getting hired on with the new “sexy” job; which was supported completely by me for the entire two years the application process took. Then it was getting settled in the new city and trying to make ends meet until we could get back to where we were with income before the job jump, a 60% pay cut is a hard pill to swallow, but “as soon as we were back to where we had been, then we could xxx”. Lucky I am pretty good with money…we made it through those five years smoothly in a financial sense. Then it was trying to make the first city assignment a permanent one…that wasn’t in the cards. Then it was him getting assigned a premiere position with a special team; which didn’t happen even though I supported and encouraged him all along the way. And then, and then, and then…
I could go on forever.
…and here I sit. My kids not fully connected to a city I never wanted to live in to begin with and the relationships I always dreamed about for them (and me) are nowhere to be found. We haven’t been here long enough to develop those kinds of bonds, and now things are so fractured in our lives that it seems those bonds are more and more difficult to create.
My ex is nestled nicely into his new family. He has acclimated himself right in to his paramour and her group of friends and her sister’s family and her mother. So much that they all have essentially adopted my children as their “new family” to my children’s chagrin. They do not like this forced relationship. They are not a part of, nor do they desire to BE a part of this union. My son has even said to me, “I don’t really care that we live with [the paramour], but I don’t agree with them living together” and “I think we should have been able to determine our relationship with [them] on our terms, rather than being forced into it”. What an insightful 14 year old, huh? He makes me so damn proud sometimes. But really, I would give ANYTHING if he didn’t even have to contemplate these kinds of situations to be proud of him about…
…I’ve sacrificed so much thinking there was something I was working for…my children are sacrificing and may not even realize it…
all I can hope is that they come through this on the other side stronger…becoming the amazing people they were destined to be!
Strengthening the amazing people they already are
…and my sacrifices will be worth it in the end.
Making Sense from MY Perspective 