How to keep handling the challenges of divorce

I’ve been split up from my first husband for about four years. The separation seemed to have been sprung on me suddenly but really, it was a slow decline continaully band-aided over and eventually the band-aid, old, gross and irreparably stuck to my skin, was ripped off and my life took a path I never anticipated.

Because I’ve been handling this for so many years now- at this point, more than half of my son’s life- I should be a pro and in many ways, I am. But then there are the ways in which I realize I’m not and I come to these realizations typically when my daughter (the older one) brings them to my attention.

Custody

We’ve recently moved to a more typical week-on-week-off schedule with the kids’ dad, with whom I have 50/50 custody. This custody arrangement was primarily the doing of my children. Like most parents going through divorce, I vowed to myself to fight for full custody of my children because, dammit, they’re my kids!

But in conversation with my daughter, she repeatedly brought up the concept of “fairness”, something I’d allowed myself to forgo in the face of fighting and justice. But that’s not what this is about. My daughter and son had a need to be loved and seen by both parents equally and it was my responsibility to make sure their needs were met, not just mine.

Credit

Part of this 50/50 arrangement involves Thursday night dinners. So on my weeks, their dad and stepmom pick them up for a few hours to hang. And then on his week, I get a few hours which helps normalize things a bit.

This past week when I picked my kids up from school on our special Thursday date, there seemed to be some mixed emotions. Per usual, any transition back to me is fraught with emotions and frustrations and dissonance and confusion. Even though we have been living this life for years, it is still just not ideal for kids.

So when I start trying to help my daughter through some issues (and failed miserably), she begins to lay into me about taking all the credit for parenting them, reminding me very truthfully that her dad is just as much of a parent as I am. Somehow, somewhere in the throes of divorce we begin to adopt this mindset that one parent is above the other- some myths the 1981 classic Mom’s House, Dad’s House works to dispel. My gut tells me it’s self-preservation, my daughter tells me it’s not fair (again with the justice, that one).

While I’d love to take all the credit and sometimes I feel I deserve it, my daughter does not deserve it. And who cares who gets the credit? We want our children to grow into good people, not for people to pat us on the back. It’s, again, about them, not me.

Big Feelings

I have been reading through a book called “Listen” which I highly recommend to all parents everywhere. Just this week, I’d been reading about when kids have big feelings that most often it’s something deep down that has been suppressed or that the child hasn’t found words for yet. The irony of our timing is not lost on me.

As my daughter kept escalating about me taking the credit, she began, through tears, to ask questions about things that had happened years ago (that I will withhold for the sake of her privacy), things she’d never brought up, things I didn’t know she’d remember. (“Oh no, I remember it all,” she says.)

And suddenly it all clicked- her big emotions when she comes back to meboil down to this tucked away fear of abandonment that follows so many children of divorce.

Because our family shift was so many years ago, you’d think we would have all moved on by now and in so many ways, we have. New step-parents, new babies, new homes. We all go out to dinner together and sit together at events (a new and incredible development in our modern family). But in other ways, we are still tied to the old and it comes up in the most unexpected of ways.

What I learned through this, most of all, was that most times what my kids need through this never-ending transition is for me to sit quietly, leave my opinions to myself and listen.

If you are looking for a good sounding board and some help with tricky parenting situations, check out Kate Dailey with Wholehearted Family, who uses the Hand-in-Hand parenting method and is located here in Charlotte.

 Photo Credit: Randy Rivera

 This story was written for CharlotteFive’s latest channel for parents in the QC, called QC Playground. Sign up for the weekly QC Playground newsletter here.

This story was originally published August 13, 2017 at 9:00 PM.