Your kids and their new siblings, a possible fact of life post divorce
Saturday, October 6th, 2007 |Ive blogged about all aspects of my divorce. I’ve ranted about my anger , I’ve ranted about how isolated and out of my shell I’ve felt, I’ve blogged on the practicalities of it all, how to get divorced, how to do it yourself and all that kinda thing.
What continues to surprise me though is how even when you think you’ve covered all of the bases that something somewhere will still hit you and leave you pondering what and why it is that’s ended up bothering you all over again.
My ex had a little boy recently, by her bf, the one who was once my friend. During her pregnancy my own children didn’t say too much on the topic. I didn’t either, to my shame I was kind of bothered by it all and couldn’t really deal with it too well. It felt weird, I was concerned about how it would impact my kids yet was troubled by my own feelings on the topic so couldn’t entirely talk with them about it in any objective way. I tried, but on most occassions I fucked up. I think they saw through my attempts at being all hey, this is perfectly cool.
And heck of course, it should be, I’m getting that now - people split up all the time, yet when you’ve had kids with a person and raised a family and it all turns to shit, then you can end up feeling like something was stripped away from you, like a part of you died, like something that really mattered to you had been unreasonably taken. It seems illogical of course and being a silly man, who at times is incapable of really appreciating what is happening emotionally, or even accepting that its normal and perfectly ok to feel disjointed and wronged and all that stuff.
Maybe its a depressive thing, but you find yourself thinking in terms of how everyone else seems to be playing new happy families whilst (if you are still single perhaps) you find yourself no further forward. You are the one who has the kids stay over every now and then, you are the one who hears about their ‘family’ holidays and days out, you are the one who is called the name of your ex’s bf by mistake, you are the one who quite often has to deal with the emotional problems your kids are experiencing, the one who can’t really discipline or offer proper guidance to, simply because you just aren’t in their lives enough or there is no really constructive dialogue with your ex. So you drift from week to week, just trying to make the best of it all and do what at least feels right by your children; yet it isn’t ideal because meantime your ex is busy building her new life with her new partner which happens to include your children, your flesh and blood.
Yes of course, to take this view really sucks I know that. And it’s not one of those thought patterns that hangs around too long. Yet when it does, it can really bite; especially on the back of a big life event that impacts your kids.
The right thing to do is to do every little thing you can to help your children see a thing (in this case a new family member) as a positive. Get them to talk about him or her, put a smile on your face as you hear them talk about it.Make it feel as normal and as right as possible, for at the end of it all, that’s exactly what it is. Remember that life is tough enough as it is without having to process all manner of dysfunctionalities later on in life.
If you do the wrong thing, your conscience will tell you. Listen to that conscience and try to redress your selfish behaviour. Be the adult, however tough, however difficult, be that person, you’ll reap the dividends down the road.
