Those people took my boys "on vacation" while their dad is "at work" (anywhere you see quotes you can either read it as a nasty little sneer, or if you like, it also works as air quotes. As in, a so-called vacation while the dad is supposedly is at work. Because for numerous reasons I have my doubts about these types of things.) This is Wednesday and my non-rational self is wondering where my children are. The rational self says this is nothing new. My non-rational self has this problem a lot when they are not with me. This means they are "at their dad's" (i.e. at their grandparent's) and so every week I have these moments of panic, anxiety whatever you want to call it, because to be honest, my kids are supposed to be with me. I gave birth to them. Where are they? Why wouldn't they be here? Ooooh that's right. Yes I am still resentful. Wouldn't you think I would be "over it" by now, not that anyone else really has business putting a time limit on these types of things? Yeah, no. Because what I have here is the feeling that I picked a really lame human in my opinion, as far as I can tell, to be the father of my kids. I'm not sure how to explain it! Like, if he would just live up to some standards as a dad, the kids would be more emotionally healthy. I'm sure he would probably benefit as well! And there is nothing I can do about it! How can I ever get over that?
So for vacations when we were hashing this divorce b.s. out, we agreed that each parent could take the kids for up to 2 weeks of vacation in the summer no matter whose weekend/day of the week it was. My thought right now is, the dad would want to take kids on vacation with him. He should. Even if he does not want to. The boys would be in a much better state of emotional health if the dad took more interest in them as human beings. In reality he seems to think that to send them off somewhere with his parents, but without him, counts as "his vacation time" even though he will be staying in town. Because he has such an important job he can't possibly take some time off even though he claims to make no money. I guess where he works can't get anyone else to do his job for a week for free. Essentially his parents are taking my children on days they would ordinarily be with me and I hate it. (If he were going along with them too, everything would be fine because then I wouldn't be such a bad-guy for wanting to spend all my time with them... does that make sense? My middle child resents me because the other parent does not spend as much time with him as I do?)
I hate it for many reasons, not least of all because of the conversations that come up with the boys before hand. At least one of them thinks I should get back together with his dad. I'm not sure if he is serious or not. I wonder sometimes if he is trying to start a fight with me. That one seems to fight with me a lot. The other two aren't like that. The oldest is old enough to know the basic idea of why it wouldn't work. The youngest is devoted and one of those kids that never wants anyone to get into any trouble or have any fights and always wants to make me happy. That's a whole other story of not-necessarily-healthy-behavior but I'm not on the subject of him right now.
As a mother I'm never sure what to think about this type of discussion. It starts to feel like he thinks I'm the bad-guy for leaving his dad. He says that type of thing, and those are my feelings about what he says. He said once, "You act like you're the only one who wants to spend time with us!" which I translated as, "Dad doesn't act like he wants to spend time with us!"
I asked him if he really thought any of us would be happy if I went back. {But I'm
But how do I say that to a 10 year old? I can't!
Oh and then there's the back and forth gay thing. Like if he's with a man, they seem aware their dad is gay, but then if the guy goes away, he's not gay anymore and somewhere in their hearts or heads they think we should get back together. Then if they think he's with a new guy, then they think he's gay again. The actual concept totally escapes the little kids. For which I suppose I should be grateful.
1 comment:
You have to re-think this--like think about how nice it is that they get to spend time with their grandparents. Or that they are doing something that they can tell you all about when they get home. And then they will be grateful to see you when they get back--because they MISSED you.
When you are feeling low, try to think about the positives--even if you have to make them up. Do this for your kids. And then go have a glass of wine and a mani/pedi. Breathe deep and enjoy the few minutes of being just you--so that you can that great mom with a smile on her face when they walk in the door.
Hang in there, pally.
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