On Wednesday, the kids go back to their dad’s home. I get them back a few days later for about a week. It’s all even-steven around here this summer. And that will be my last week for a long time and we’ll be back to Wednesday after school ’til 9pm and three weekends out of four a month.
At the beginning of the summer, I told the kids that we would try this half-and-half thing out. Just see how it goes. Just see if they like it. Just try it! You might like it! They reluctantly agreed. And I’ve been keeping an eye out for problems. Issues. What have yous. And for the most part, I think it’s worked. But that concern, that heavy sigh on trading day, that frustration at not having the right gear at the right time – it’s not gone away for them, despite my planning. You just can’t plan and remember everything.
I watch my boys grabbing clothes, sports equipment, Mp3 players, computer games and other things that you don’t think about. Daily use items that it’s not really possible to have at both houses. You can get two of things to a certain extent but there are some things that you just have one of and you only need one of and only want one of. I watch them try to think of everything so we don’t have to go back or make a special trip. And we always forget a few things, even when we make lists. Carrying everything back and forth is laborious enough without the forgetting part.
Finally, a few days in, things start moving smoothly and everything that’s needed is at our home. And then it’s trading day again and we do the same routine in reverse. With deep sighs.
My daughter is a bit different. She’s older, more mobile. If she forgets something, she just takes her car to go get it. There is an occasional sigh or two but it’s not as audible. It’s different for her because she’s never really moved in here like her brothers have. Yes, she is the first to decorate her room, but her heart doesn’t live here. She refused and has held her ground. She’ll stay a few nights but just as often she’s sleeping at a friend’s home or back at her dad’s. She comes and goes as she wants, which I suppose is fine and age appropriate. Her reasons are different than the boys. For her, it’s less a stress of logistics and more the fear of our relationship changing. We talked about it again just the other night. Me giving her curfews and talking to her as a mother would – no go. She wants us to be friends and she wants me to be the one she can confide in. If I’m her Mom, she can’t tell me all her secrets because I become The Mom. But if things between us don’t change, she tells me everything and I stay in the loop. I hardly know what to fight for anymore. Perhaps I need to stop fighting all together. What does John say? “Love more, fear less. Float more, steer less.” It’s the fighting part that gets me so tired.
School starts in a few weeks and things will go back to how they were. It’s not best for the boys to be stressed about where their stuff is. It’s not best for them to not have a centralized location, a place where they instinctively call home, a place where they are expected and needed and don’t have to think about – it just is home. I wanted so badly for it to work. For there to be two equal homes. Two places where they blend in and feel needed and fit and don’t have to think about, but that is not the case and something has to give. And that ends up being me.
It’s kind of like when the company goes through the firings during downsizing for the good of the company. Last one to be hired is the first one to go. The Kids At Their Dad’s Regime has been standing the longest, or at least as long as any of them remember. The Kids At Their Mom’s Regime came along later and thus is what gets cut. To hear them tell it, I just up and left one day and then another day, later on, decided to come back for whatever reason. It’s been ingrained in them and no matter how many times we talk about it or they ask me and I tell them again what happened, it’s just in their heads that way and it doesn’t change. That is their reality. And that is what I have to work with.
This is all the underneath stuff. The guts of the thing, if you will. The underpinnings that somehow allow the top layers to work and function. And the upper levels are all fine. The kids come over and sometimes stay the night. We laugh and hang out and play games. I run them places. We tease each other and hug and sit on the couch and eat popcorn. All the top layer things in our lives are fine. As long as I don’t want to be their mother, things are fine. As long as I remember to shut that part up and not resent that I don’t get to nurture them and do That Thing, whatever it is, things are fine. They shouldn’t be ashamed to feel how they feel. It’s my job, as their mother that loves them, to make it fine for them to be how they need to be and accommodate our relationships so they are comfortable and get everything they need. I’m the adult and must be selfless to some degree and allow them to call their dad and his wife ‘My parents’ to their friends and talk to me about their step mom as ‘my mom’ and not show how much it stings and eats away at my heart.
As long as I remember that the most important things are that they feel loved and have their needs met and are safe, everything is fine for them. But most of the time, it hurts me like hell.
Oh Leah, you are so brave, strong and as exhibited by the last two lines of this post, a better mother (and person) than most.
Oh Leah. I’ve been meaning to e-mail you about this situation for a long, long time. I’m the child of divorced parents (an extremely hostile divorce), and it’s really, really hard being the kid, too. Really hard. I loved everyone so much, but I couldn’t be everywhere with everyone, and I felt so shitty explaining to my parents how I felt, because I knew it hurt them, and finally, at 13, I moved in with one set full-time and relegated the other to every other weekend.
I had to, I know, but now, as an adult? My heart breaks for my parents, for my dad. For my step-mom who just wanted to be my mom, even though I already had one.
They weren’t nearly as graceful and mature as you are. They had none, and I mean NONE of the self-awareness that you do, or the selflessness you’re exhibiting with your kids. And even without that — even with all the pain and misery and tears and misery back then — I love them all so much now, as an adult, in part because they’re fantastic human beings, and in part because of what I know they went through.
Much love to you.
🙁
sweet leah, i wish i could give you a hug. i lived with my dad after my parents got divorced, and my mom and i struggled for quite some time to find a way towards a positive relationship. but now, she’s amazing, and we’re very close and i love her like tons. that didn’t make any of those years that she had to be any easier, of course, but i hope it’s solace for her now.
i don’t actually expect any of that to do much good for you, but i guess i wanted to share just in case. i hope the hurting isn’t unbearable, and that the love you feel for your kids more than makes up for it.
It’s so goddamn hard. Someday, I suspect they’ll understand; but in my experience, keeping that in mind doesn’t make the pain any less. It only makes it possible to keep living through it.
Leah,
Hugs. Secondly, read your own post again. You ARE being their mother. You’re sacrificing for their well-being. That is what mothers do. I know this is not an easy situation by any means. My heart aches for you. My parents were divorced very early on. I don’t even know the whole story and they say it’s not my business (whatever). What I do know is that it killed my dad every summer when he had to drive me to the airport. I did not see this until I became a parent myself. It seemed so easy for him to hand me over. I thought he didn’t want me around. It always appeared that he was fine so I vented and possibly mistreated him w/o knowing it.
Now, I am most proud that my dad & I developed such a relationship that I can go to him for anything with my heart wide open, with trust, and love. He is more my Father now than he ever was. My relationship with my mother has too many “complicated angles” so I can’t say the same for her.
oy vey. i’m a step mom and i would never have wanted the kiddo to call me mom if would estrange her from her own mother. and yet, i did want to be a trusted parent, just not her mom.
i feel for you so much on this, leah. it’s so hard to be selfless as a parent when your heart feels like it’s being ripped out. one can only hope that over time they come to see what you’ve done for them and see your sacrifices.
i admit i was an adult for quite a while before i saw it from my parents’ view. it was when i first became a (step) parent. i hope it doesn’t take that long for your kids.
becky
So amazing. So honest. I’m hurting with you as I read through this and I know that doesn’t even touch what you’re feeling.
You are a true survivor. Amazing woman.
My heart is aching reading this.
So incredible, your love for them, your gift of you to them, your incredible way of putting it in words.
Also, that terrified part of me that knows this could be me.
You are an inspiration to me Leah. I wish there were ways to make it easier.
Take care.
Rule #1 – Moms never win. In fact, moms suck. The fact that mom is a woman (eewww) is a huge strike against her. In my experience (divorced mother with 2 sons), I am the lame ass who couldn’t hold it together (never mind that he left me–another story). When I could hold it together, it was minimized and ghetto-ized as being an aberration of My True Self. My True Self equals Lame Ass, of course.
Over time (and I do mean 10+ years), my kids grew to see their dad for who he was, and me for who I am. And I hope they continue to grow in their relationship with each of us.
Before splitting up, my ex and I went to a therapist who said, “Never bad mouth the other parent.” My tongue has permanent bite marks.
I’m with Jonniker; my parents divorced when I was 4 1/2 and it’s interesting reading/hearing things now as an adult, how hard it was for them to have to go through the motions of back and forth. Of course it was hard for my brother and I but when you’re younger – a teenager – it’s all about you and your needs. There were a million times when I was like “Umm, I really just don’t feel like going to dad’s house this weekend because I have plans.” Which made sense to me but after speaking to him about this and then reading this from your point of view as the mother trying to get her children to test out the waters, I feel like such a shitty daughter. Like I should have realized that what was difficult for me was probably difficult for them. And…ugh.
I should send my father flowers or a Titleist or something.
Sigh. I did this to my mother. When I was 9 and 14 she had breakdowns and was hospitalized. I could not see it as something happening to her and later would throw it at her, the line, “You weren’t there.” I imagined it slayed her and reading your words now, I know it did. As I’ve grown up, obviously I understood that she couldn’t be there. I’m sorry, Leah. We do understand, the children, it just takes some tiem. Bless you.
Self sacrifice is a real punch in the gut. SO sorry Ms. Peah.
I agree with your last sentence. But I don’t agree with the rest.
I do understand that it is the way it has become, and they way they are comfortable, but bottom line is you ARE their mother whether they want to relate to you like that or not. And you should be able to behave like a mother. I have two step-children, and we have one bio child together. Sadly, my husband sees them only on weekends and not every weekend. But he is still their dad, and he still talks to them and disciplines them as a dad would. He is their friend second, for sure. He does have an open relationship and they talk to him about most things. I think though, that as they get older (13,16 now) that their relationshiop might turn more as yours is with your boys. It must just eat you up. But I don’t know .. if they are teenagers, aren’t they always trying to be friends with parents rather than accept being parented? I’m sorry it is like that for you. But then again, seems that you are able to be the bigger person and look past your feelings of hurt for your childrens sake, and I truly DO admire that Leah.
I wish I could find the words to tell you what I want to.
I want to tell you that my brother and I pulled our mother close and pushed her away as we changed and grew, and pushed her away more as we grew older, and it didn’t matter that she was there the whole time. We did it anyway. When I read about how your kids talk to you, I am envious that they have that with you, because I have never had that with my mother.