Another one down in flames... fndcourage: Picture this, as I'm sure some of you are visualizing your own marriages...
Boy meets girl in college. Boy falls in love with her and asks her to marry. Two years later, married they are! Four years later, after two years of trying to conceive without medical assistance, no baby and things are very disheartening. Then an incredible doctor does everything medically necessary and boy and girl have beautiful baby boy just a year later! Boy gets new job with normal 8-4 hours and finally, a family they are. Two years later, with the assistance of that incredible physician, along comes baby girl.
That was in May of 2005.
Then, on our anniversary, while our daughter was just 5 months old, I found out he was confiding in another woman. Devastation as many of you can understand. We go to counseling, as all he had done at this point was confide in her, and I am convinced it is over with er, before it even started.
But in December, I find out by tracking his email, it is not over. After confronting him, he tells me the truth, she is a person that is at his work. He leaves and after I said come home, he decides he doesn't want to. Divorce was filed for on January 27 and the judge will be signing this Friday, March 10. Ridiculously fast.
Now I am grieving many things, but htere were some parts of our marriage that were never "normal". SO I had given up many aspects of a normal marriage to cope with and accomodate some issues he had, without divulging too much information. So here is my biggest obstacle.
My children. A three year old little boy, and a now ten month oldy baby girl. She doesn't have a clue...he does. We all know how smart our kids are, and my son is so perceptive. He struggled to sleep and do anything the first six weeks, and the last five or so has done better.
But how do you explain, wihtout damaging him and letting him think that leaving your family is an option, what has happened? Right now we both tell him taht daddy doesn't live here, that he lives with grandparents, but now my son asks whey he wants to live there. I'm worried we will send the message taht what my husband chose to do was acceptable. I know he is young, but I also know because of my career, that what we teach our children when they are young stays with them. Their life experience is all they have to help them make decisions when they are adults. So how do you do that without damaging them any more than necessary?
Re: Another one down in flames... Topaz: Simple and direct seems to work the best, along with lots of loving reassurance. Something along the lines of: Mommy and Daddy love you very much and will always be there for you, but they have decided it's better for them not to live together anymore. If your little boy asks why you don't want to live together anymore, you can explain that mommy and daddy get along better not living together and will be able to love him and take care of him best while living apart.
Re: Another one down in flames... lkt444: I agree, I guess the most important thing is to reassure him that you both love him very very much and that will never change no matter what happens with mommy and daddy.
Good luck. Your strength and love for your children will guide them, trust in yourself.
take care
Re: Another one down in flames... fndcourage: Thank you for the responses. I know reassuring him is the best thing, and I tell him every night how much I love him and how much his daddy loves him and that it is okay to feel sad about him not being here.
The hard part is, my xh and I never had a fight in nine years-in many ways we were best friends and had the most fantastic friendship ever, just some issues on his part in the bedroom (due to some things somewhat out of his control, some obviously directly in his control or he wouldn't have cheated). So to tell our son that we will be better parents to him separately seems dishonest in this particular situation. He is a good father (up to the point of leaving and deciding to be single and not seeing the kids more than twice in nine weeks), and I want our son to always know that.
I know he will learn the most by what he sees being modeled before him, and if I model what is right and wrong, he will know the difference. I assume the two people who responded also have kids and can understand where I'm coming from. I don't know if your children were as young as mine but I know for me, they are the priority in all of this. I'm confident things will get better for me as they do in most days. I just want to know they will grow up knowing the choices their dad made isn't normal or acceptable-especially when you have a family.
Re: Another one down in flames... humblecaterpillar: Courage,
I understand what you are going through...we had to decide how to tell our children when we recently decided to divorce. I was the one who had cheated (I won't go into details here) and for our four year old, we constantly reassured her and I got children's books from the library about divorce to read with her. I modified the language of some, though, because we did NOT tell her that we no longer loved each other, as one book said, for that can cause a child to wonder if we will ever no longer love them. As far as my daughter is concerned, Mommy and Daddy love each other but came to realize that we needed to live apart and that we are still a family, but we are a family that lives in two houses and are getting a divorce. In her mind, no one has left, we just don't live together anymore. Our situation is unique because we share a job and care, so we both see our daughter about every other day and she has continuity of care between us. She is handling it very well - we are trying our best to make it fun for her - she got a new cat to go with the new apartment on the Plaza that we moved Mommy and her to. We highlight the blessings of each day and every day model aloud how Spirit takes care of our every need and how we are never alone, even when we are scared. I also talk to her about how I am sad that Mommy and I no longer live together and that it's ok to be sad about that and that she probably will be sometimes. She agrees when I say this, but otherwise she seems to be doing great. I worry how she'll react when she's a little older and unlike my stbx, who feels she is protected from harm, I worry about the scars that divorce will bring her over time. I do believe, however, that she senses our emotions, and that I can best reassure her by consciously choosing to focus on the positive, find the blessings, have gratitude for what I can, and trust that we are taken care of - that all of our Good and Love and Prosperity comes from Spirit and that it's none of my business which channel or person it expresses from. Easy to say, but hard to do in the tough times ;)
I also have a fifteen year old from a previous marriage (I was a teenage parent) who lives with me half-time (one week w/ me, one w/ his mom, who lives a block away). He is the biggest loser in all of this, as I will need to go to a more traditional Dad schedule in the wake of the divorce - I travel w/ my job and am not able to offer him the stability and consistency he requires w/o my stbx to help. I also need to sell our home and get an apartment I can afford further away. With him, I am transparent. I see alot of me in him and he deserves to see the consequences of a life lived out of integrity and to see a model of recovery. I can't make his mistakes for him, but I can damn sure ensure that he is not unaware of the dynamics that his personality is prone to. Over the last few weeks, I've been realizing the connectedness that he and I share and am becoming more engaged in fathering him at a level previously unavailable to me. It's these type of blessings that I am thankful for - that thrugh this I can choose to grow and become more kind and open my heart to let more love through. I suspect that when we do this and our kids see us become more for ourselves and for them, even though it's tough, that that kind of love produces a kind of protection from some of the damage that would otherwise be unavoidable. I know it's tough, hang in there, and good luck. We are wishing you the best.
Humble Caterpillar
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