My children are leaving for their first “family” vacation with their dad’s side of the family this Thursday morning.  He is flying with the four kids (brave man) to Florida where he is meeting up with his sister, brother, brother-in-law, and parents.  They are spending a few days at the resort they rented for the week.  They are taking the kids to Universal Studios and Animal Kingdom.  They are also going to hit up a water park and spend a day or two at the beach.  A lovely vacation planned for my very blessed children.  The kids are are all very excited and can’t wait, but I must admit that my enthusiasm is not quite in check with theirs.

Honestly, my heart is breaking.  To call it “separation anxiety” would be putting it mildly!   In the 13 years that I have been a mother, I have never gone 8 days without seeing my children.  Even more difficult than the mere time apart is all that I am missing in their world while they are experiencing such a wonderful week in their young lives.  I can’t believe I am actually going to miss their first plane trip.  I won’t be there to see the anxious anticipation in their eyes as the plane starts to take off down the runway.  I won’t be there to witness the beauty held in my children’s smiles when they enter the magical world of Disney or the warmth in their spirits when they run down the beach and dive into the ocean.

I am also struggling with being relatively alone in my feelings of angst over the trip.   Aside from one close girlfriend, I do not have a single friend who is divorced with children.  So needless to say, nobody around me seems to understand how this feels for me.  Yes, I am probably having a bit of a pity party here…after all, it is my fault I’m divorced and this kind of stuff comes with the territory.  But I’m really not trying to… I’m just genuinely struggling with this new facet of being a divorced parent.  When you are surrounded by friends and acquaintances that don’t know what it feels like not to tuck their kids into bed every night, it’s hard for them to empathize with my situation….and hard for me to take all the well meaning comments like, “Oh, just enjoy the time off” or “I’m sure by day two you will be loving the peace and quiet”.  Unfortunately, I know all too well that it simply doesn’t work that way for me.

On most days, I have come to grips with my divorce and what that means in terms of my children.  I understand that there are birthday parties I miss out on and fun day-trips I do not get to experience with them; however, I just create my own special memories with them and try to put those missed moments out of my mind whenever possible.  I try my best to focus on the positive and remember that when they are not with me, they are with their very loving and deserving father.  But it’s the moments out of the norm…like sharing them on Christmas night….or a family vacation without their mother that still pulls on my heartstrings and sends me into a tailspin over my divorce.

So as I reflect on how difficult the next couple weeks are going to be for me to blindly feel my way through an abyss which is my home without my children, I think what hurts the most is that I won’t be in a single memory they create during this vacation….other than my obvious absence.

…and what’s a “family” vacation without a mom?! :0(

I was reading a post from a fellow blogger, Mary Lee Shalvoy, and her comments moved me in a very deep and passionate way.  I will not regurgitate what she wrote, as I would highly encourage you to follow the link and read it for yourself; however, I do want to remark on what I took away from her post.  

To summarize, she was talking about adversity in our children’s lives and how perhaps her divorce from her children’s father, may in fact allow them to grow more as individuals.  The idea is that when our children are burdened with difficulties to some extent in childhood…whether it be through dealing with divorce, a death in the family, a learning disability, the list could go on and on…that the experience they gain in problem solving, conflict resolution, managing and processing feelings, etc all make them better equip to cope with life as adults.  

As many of you know, I am also divorced and carry around exceedingly large amounts of guilt because of it. After reading Mary Lee’s post, it was at the very least a refreshing thought to realize that the mistakes I make as a parent might possibly make my children stronger as adults in overcoming adversity.  Perhaps there is something good that can come from their parent’s marriage failing.  Following that thought process; I guess there are several things I hope my children learn from my divorce.  

I pray they learn that getting married too young is a mistake.  The person I was at age 21 (when I got married) is not who I was at 31 or even who I am at 33.  Your 20’s are for finding yourself…discovering who you are, what you stand for, and what you refuse to fall for.  Along with trying to process all that goes into finding yourself, comes along the need to learn how to love and accept who you are.  It is NOT the time to try and discover who your soul mate is and exert your energy into loving and accepting who they are before you even know yourself.  

I hope they learn what a loving, healthy relationship looks like rather than what it does not.  The display I demonstrated the first time around is not what they should expect from their relationships.  While marriage is difficult, constant work, it should never be as hard as it was for their father and me.  They should expect more from their spouse and more from themselves.  

 I want them to realize that disagreements are inevitable, but the way to resolve conflict is not through screaming and yelling, as was the only way I knew how to process things back then.  Withdrawing does not work either, as was the method most favored by their father.  

I want them to know that it is ok to fail.  Failing in love, work, friendships….it’s all part of life.  It’s how you come out of those relationships that really makes you stronger and wiser for having tried and failed in the first place.  Fearing failure will stunt your growth and keep you from the intimacy you deserve. 

I also want them to understand that it’s equally ok to love.  While not every relationship they start will last, they are all needed and important learning blocks because they form the person you are and bring you to the person you will someday, love forever.  I do not regret a second I spent with their dad because if I did, I would be withdrawing the time it took to receive God’s blessings…my four children.  

Which brings me to the next lesson that I pray they take away from my divorce…

The power of regret…and even more debilitating,…guilt.  They are both a waste of time.  It’s important to acknowledge the mistakes, right the wrongs if possible, ask for forgiveness when necessary, and grant grace where needed….but do not give a moment of your soul’s serenity over to guilt and regret.  They are truly two of the greatest tools the devil uses to paralyze progress.  

I’m pretty sure I could write all night long about what I hope they learn and take away from my mistakes, but overall, I wonder who among us has not learned from our own parent’s mistakes and vowed not to repeat history.

I really only pray that my children do the same.

My life story is incredibly personal.  It is hard for me to put into words the emotion that comes along with becoming a mother and a wife.  It is even harder to express the pain of becoming a single mother and living with divorce.  However, I am willing to put it out there for the world to see in an effort to reach just one woman who may have had to make the same tough choices I had to make.  Perhaps there is someone else out there who can relate to my issues and with that in mind; I am willing to chronicle my life. 

 I decided in 2003, to end my 5 year marriage, 8 year relationship, to the father of my four children.  It was a decision I did not take lightly, and it was by far the most difficult personal struggle I have ever encountered.  Please allow me to disclaim that I am in no way promoting divorce, but simply stating what going through the process was like for me.        

Let me preface the situation with our history together.  I had been dating Jeremy since I was a senior in high school.  After graduating high school, we went on to college together at Marquette University.  I was working towards my degree in secondary education that I intended on using to become an English teacher.  I was also minoring in Psychology because I thought I might want to move onto counseling later in life.  

 My world came to a screeching halt one day when I became pregnant right before the second semester of my sophomore year.   Now, many may think simply being pregnant brought forth some sort of moral dilemma or inner turmoil for me.  Was I going to have the child or have an abortion?  I know many woman, especially at the age of 19, choose to terminate the pregnancy and move on, but that was a thought I never entertained, not even for a second.  I have been adamantly pro-life since I was old enough to know what an abortion was, so it was time to back up all the preaching I had done over the years with action.

 Instead, I chose to drop out of school and become a stay-at-home mom while Jeremy continued with his education and graduated with an engineering degree.  I had always said I was never going to let someone else raise my children, so the decision for me to stay home with my daughter seemed to be compulsory.  We got married shortly after I had Kylie because it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.  We had already sinned in the eyes of the Lord by having a child out of wedlock, we were certainly not going to “push our luck” any further in the eyes of the church, the Lord, or our parents! 

This is where the real problems developed.  I lived a very miserable existence in my marriage because I had grown up with a religion that taught me divorce was a sin not easily forgiven. I was determined to obey the church.  I was so unhappy.  My husband was unhappy.  We fought all the time and neither of us showed the other nearly the respect we deserved.   We had periods of good times, but the fighting far outweighed the times of peace.  

 We went on to have 3 more children.  Many people that were viewing the situation from the outside kept asking why we continued to have more children if the relationship was so rough from the beginning.   Looking back, as hindsight is always 20/20, I see now that we thought sharing another pregnancy and another baby would bring us closer together.  The relationship was so empty that I just kept filling the void with another baby that helped absorb my pain.   And again, it wasn’t all bad, all the time.  We had periods of time together when things really were good.  I would venture a guess that those periods would be around the time of my children’s conception!

  I take accountability for my part in the mess we had created.  I came into the marriage with having zero knowledge of what a healthy relationship looked like.  I was way too young to even comprehend the vastness of my decision to get married.  I had also walked into the marriage from the start with such a strong resentment built up towards my husband because of the situation we were in.  When we got pregnant in college, I had to drop out of school and he continued with his education.  I can see clearly now that the choice for me to leave school and get married was just as much my decision as his, but throughout the marriage, I couldn’t see past the hostility that decision filled my heart with.  It was a recipe for disaster from the beginning. 

 The anger, resentment, hostility, lack of respect and so forth had taken its toll on our children as well.  They were the real stakeholders in my life.  They were the primary shareholders of this marriage and I was so determined to “do right” that I didn’t even see the hurt we were creating in their lives.

  On one evening in particular, that became blindingly clear.  The children were attending a Catholic elementary school, and Jeremy and I were at an open house the school was hosting.  Outside of my son’s preschool classroom was a paper quilt that each of the kids had made.  They were to draw a picture of what they prayed to God about.  My son’s quilt had a sweet picture of his mommy on one side and his daddy on the other side with him placed so perfectly in the middle of our “happy family.”  It was the ideal image that I held so dear to my heart, and I was so pleased that is was out there for everyone to admire.  Written below this model picture, captioned in my son’s own words read, “I pray that God will help my mommy and daddy stop fighting so much.”  

GASP!!!  

There, hanging in the hallway of our Catholic school, attached to the church that I was so eagerly appeasing with my “happy family”, was the truth articulated by our four year old for all to see.  

It was one of the lowest moments of my life.  What had I done?  What had we done to this child and our other children at home?  What happened to my perfect, ideal life?  Where was the integrity and honesty behind all of my fake smiles throughout the years?  Most importantly, how was I going to fix it?

  I was determined at this point to make the marriage work.  I had to for the sake of all I believed in.  My personal code of ethics was at stake here along with the stability of my children’s lives.  I couldn’t possibly let my children grow up in a “broken” home.  I couldn’t fathom the thought of going to school functions as a divorcee.  It was an embarrassment.  I was not going to break up my family and disgrace my children or myself in the eyes of the church, or for that matter, anyone else who may be watching.  I was not going to be a hypocrite to my own code of conduct.  I had an obligation to uphold an image, the right image. 

Over the course of the next year and a half, my husband and I put forth what I believe to be our best efforts at saving the marriage.  As ironic as it may seem, things actually got worse instead of better.  All the therapy we were attending managed to do was make me realize how unhappy I really was.  I felt trapped.  I wanted out, but I felt it was at such a high cost; my children’s wellbeing.  I was trying to adhere to the utilitarian belief that staying in this marriage was the greatest good for the greatest number.

 In my mind, there was no way I could possibly be happy and make my children happy at the same time.  I couldn’t possibly have “the best of both worlds.”  Either I stayed in my miserable life for the kids’ sake, or I leave and become the most selfish, horrible mother in this world.  It soon dawned on me though that staying in my unhappy marriage for the sake of my children was at my children’s expense.

  What kind of a mother was I really being when I was depressed, angry and hostile each and every day?  The stress of it all even took a toll on my health.  I was in and out of the hospital all the time for migraine headaches and severe asthma problems.  I finally made the call to take control of my life and alter the code of ethics I was so desperate to uphold.

 I have since divorced and remarried the man of my dreams.  Unbelievably, my ex and I are great friends and get along so well it’s almost scary.  He is involved in the children’s lives on a daily basis.  I have found that doing what is best for me, ends up reflecting on every aspect of my life, including my children.  I have a new sense of self worth and a much healthier quality of life to sustain.  I am stronger than ever and setting an even better example for my children than fulfilling the cliché.

 I still have my crosses to bear in the eyes of the church and many others for that matter, but I face those demons with prayer and faith that I am doing the best I can.   I cannot lie; the guilt of the divorce still haunts me to this day; it probably always will.  Guilt can be as deadly to the soul as cancer.  At times, when I forget to put it in its place, it starts to control my life again.  During these moments, I try to accept the mercy that God has given all of us…even a divorcee like me.  I would say that the second-guessing and inner turmoil are the daily, negative consequences of the way I ultimately chose to run my “family business.”   Each time one of my children acts up or seems to be struggling with an emotional issue, I question whether that would be happening had I stayed married to their dad. 

 I can honestly say that on most days, my children are happy and well adjusted to our situation.  They get to see a happy, strong, self-aware mother who does what she needs to do for her family and not what others think she should be doing.  That in turn, has created strong, happy, healthy children and an environment that is a joy to live in and be a part of.  

 Would they be more secure or happier had I stayed in a loveless marriage for their sake?  I’m sure many would say yes, however I feel that only our good Lord knows that.  For now, I take comfort in the hugs I receive each morning, the smiling faces I put to bed at night.

 I take comfort in knowing that although my personal story has taken some unexpected turns, and perhaps not always the path of least resistance, it is still my story to write and my road to navigate.

I received an email from a friend today that commented on yesterday’s post.  She was so sweet and heart-felt in her concern for my current “situation”.  She ended her email by stating that she would keep my family and me in her prayers.  My first thought was, “Oh that is so nice.  We can always use prayers.”  My second thought was, “What in the world did I write that makes her think we need the prayers?!”  So, I went back and read yesterday’s post and several other posts, and boy did my eyes widen.  I cannot believe what a “doom and gloom” kind of person I am.  The overall theme of every post appears to carry a “the sky is falling” tone!  Had I not looked back with an objective eye, I w0uld never peg myself as such a pessimist!  

So I feel it’s important that I start following up with certain topics to make sure that my friends and family are not concerned that my marriage is over, I’m ready to jump off a cliff, and to reassure everyone that my children really are safe, happy, and healthy!  I truly love my life (on most days) and feel that I am the most blessed woman on this earth (every day).  I have an amazing husband whom I love to the depths of my soul.  My children are my greatest gift from God and my most prized achievement.  I just tend to write about the less that terrific feelings I have as a way of coping.  I just want to know if any other women out there grapples with the same issues.  That being said, I do not want this blog to become some depressing drivel that makes everyone suicidal after reading it!

Therefore, after reading yesterday’s post, I feel I was too harsh on the reality of our situation.  In haste, I stated that the children have not “taken” to my husband.  What I should have written was that my husband feels the kids have not taken to him.  It is his perception and my fear, but not necessarily the truth.  

After the kids came home from school yesterday, I sat them down to have a candid discussion regarding exactly how they feel about their step-dad.  I asked them a few direct questions, and they answered without reservation and as children always do, with purity in their hearts.  

My questions were “Do you love Corey and do you feel your life is better with him a part of it?”  Perhaps too deep for them to truly grasp, but they got the jest of what I was trying to get at.  To summarize their responses:  ”What do you think, mom?  Of course, we love him.  He is part of our family.”  Simply stated and well put!  I would be remiss if I did not add that the 6 year old stated, “He is a great ‘fixer’ of our stuff”.  Thank you Avery!  

Crisis averted.  Peace and harmony restored.  Now, what’s for dinner? 

After the kids were all tucked in for the night, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Corey (my husband) about my chit-chat with the kids.  I told him what they had to say.  All I can tell you is that with tears in his eyes,  a weight was lifted off his shoulders right then and there…as was the same weight lifted from mine.  I realized that while life may not be grand and perfect in a blended family, sometimes we as adults over think and psychoanalyze too much.  It is my humble theory that we do this out of guilt and fear rather than from a place of rational, objective observation. 

Lesson learned:  while the sky may be falling in my mind some days, it is not necessarily falling for the rest of the world.  

P.S.  to my kind and wonderful friend, keep the prayers coming…they certainly can’t hurt!

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to have a “blended” family.  I have four beautiful children from my first marriage, and my husband and I just had a baby girl 10 months ago.  To be completely blatant, it has been a very difficult ride.  It has been 5 long years of ups and downs.  My children love their dad.  They miss their dad when they are not with him, and I can see that when they allow themselves to get close to their step-dad, they feel they are betraying their father.  

My husband loves my children to death, but relationships as a whole are not his specialty.  He struggles with intimacy, so making a connection with my kids has been difficult to say the least.  They resent his presence at times because they subconsciously feel that if he were not here, perhaps their dad would be.  Obviously, that is not the truth, but try explaining that to a 6 year old….or a 9 year old…or an 11 year old…or a 13 year old!  They don’t understand that even without my husband in the picture, their dad and I would still be apart. 

The kicker here is that I get along great with my ex husband.  We are really good friends and my children see that…so does my husband.  I thought that is how it needed to be.  I thought I was doing my kids a favor by staying close to their father and allowing them to see that we are still a team when it comes to raising them.  However, our friendship has in some ways given them the impression that we should still be together.  They cannot possibly understand that no matter how great mommy and daddy get along now, it wasn’t always like that.  They don’t understand that we can only be great friends because we are not trying to be married to each other.  For that matter, I’m not even sure if my husband realizes that anymore.  I think he has doubts too.  I honestly think that at times, my husband believes if he were out of the picture, my original “family” would be together again.  So he carries around unsubstantiated guilt over something he had nothing to do with.  Again, with or without him, my ex and I don’t work as a married couple. 

So what do I do?  How do I bridge the gap between my children and husband?  Who wrote the manual on divorce and blended families because I need a copy ASAP? 

Bottom line, I cannot sit back and watch my kids feel guilty over their love for two men any more, and I cannot handle watching the devastation in my husband’s eyes when he reaches out to one of my kids and they turn their back on him.  I am the tie that binds these two camps together, and I’m slowly losing my grip.