When a parent leaves

My dear bloggy friend Melissa has this awesome little blog which landed her on a little show called Dr. Phil (well not EXACTLY like that, but thats not the point). She was called to be a part of the show because of her very STOUT opinion about motherhood and parenting. Her post and her position on the show resonated with me as a mother and with my inner child.

I am an abandoned child. No, my parents did not necessarily leave me at the firehouse to become a ward of the state. I was raised by both my parents until their divorce. My father moved out and then checked out, emotionally, physically, and mentally. His ties to his children were non-existent, if ever ties were present, hard to tell based on his actions. My mother, her sole focus was to be sure we were taken care of physically and basically. Food on the table, clothes on our back, roof over our heads. I do not blame my mother at all, she did what she had to do as a responsible parent and she went into survival mode. Nurture was not a priority when coming straight out of a nasty and bitter divorce. My mother did right with myself and my siblings, I commend her for all that she endured with raising three kids alone and the trying years we gave her. She could have made the choice to leave. To leave her three children in the care of a man who was not even half able to care for himself, who had (and still has) addiction issues, denial, emotional detachment, strong sense of egoism. While my father was not the fittest parent to care for children he mentally, physically, and emotionally made the decision to leave. Which in my opinion is more damaging than a parent leaving based on a divorce.

While watching the bits of the show I was angry that mothers, MOTHERS, do this to their own children. They make the decision to leave, possibly out of the whole feministic movement, who knows. What I do know is that everytime I leave my house without my children my uterus turns in knots. I know when my oldest does something he should not have before my husband even calls, I can tell when my twins have gotten hurt before I get a call, before I run to their aid I know exactly what is wrong. I feel like something is missing when they are not there. While I enjoy my personal time, I feel my sense of responsibility to them, ALL THE TIME.

I am not saying I am a perfect mother or a mother that has some tremendous bond. As a parent myself I have days, moments, hours where I want to escape. Escape the pressures of being a parent. But only for a moment, until I am brought to center. Where I have my three feet of personal space, to take some deep breaths, to have a moment of Zen. Then I can tackle yet again, this job, duty, the love of being a mother.

I watched as these mothers left. They felt no attachment. None. None to care for their children. To provide. To nurture. To build a protection and level of security that all children need no matter what their age. While my mother provided basics during and after the divorce was finalized she began to nurture again and still does. My mother is the sweetest most hearty woman I know. Her goodness is what makes me what I am today with the balance of my father and his not so stellar qualities. Which segues me back to my father and his detachment. When parents divorce and leave they make the physical decision to leave the shared home, stated fact. Okay, these two people clearly cannot be under the same roof. However, the decision to leave should not include the decision to check out emotionally.

I am tainted goods. I have an inner child with deep rooted damage of a father who left. A parent who abandoned not just because of the divorce, but because he chose NOT to care for his children. Father's to some degree I can see how this is easy, to disconnect from children, they do not have the internal bonding that a mother shares with her child in utero. At times when I think of my pregnancies I can pin point each rib that each child dug a heel or elbow into. I still get a wince of pain. So I can see how fathers may checkout. But I cannot understand for the life of me why a mother would leave. HOW? How can she live with herself? Is she so delusional to think that she has no responsibility to that child? I commend Melissa for what she does.

She is a step-mother to her step-children that live with her and her husband (children's father) FULL-TIME. You can read all about her story here. I connected with Melissa because when my father divorced my mother he was immediately "dating" his previous ex-wife. Yeah, my mom was #2. My father makes the wise decision then not even a year after they are separated to "date" and three months after the divorce is finalized in January of 1988, April 1988 my new half-brother is born. O.K.A.Y. But at least my less than acceptable father marries and impregnated (twice) a good woman. Yes in 1989 a half sister arrived. Nonetheless though, my step-mother was my surrogate mother every other weekend that we were in the drunken custody of my father. If not for this woman life would be unbearable, scary, and downright suicidal if not a complete free-for-all. My step-mother took myself and my two siblings in as her own. She loved us, fed us, clothed us even. She would take us on hikes, plan day trips, dance with us, color with us, teach us to cook. Sounds like any normal mom right? Except she did not bear us from her womb, she merely married my sperm donor, who divorced MY mother.

I truly understand and feel the pain of the loss of a parent. The disconnect. The abandonment. But I have to say I would be devastated, I would not be who I am today if I did not have my mother nor my step-mother. I have been blessed to have had TWO extremely beautiful, strong, loving women in my life who taught me love, respect, and beauty. They taught me that even when the going gets tough, you dig in, bear down, and fight. My mother fought for us in the divorce, she fought to not let my father make any attempts to rip us from her. So for those of you who have lost your mothers I am so sorry. I know your feelings, but cannot begin to feel your pain. Your pain is like no other than can be healed. The loss of a parent to death can be grieved through the stages of grief, but a parent and or mother especially lost out of her own self-decision is devastating. Mothers are the world. They don't call everything her mother Earth for no reason, because a mother is our entire worlds.

For those mothers and fathers who have left I wish I could wrap my head around your reasoning, your disconnect, your emotional detachment, your failure to adhere to the unwritten laws of parenting. I do not judge, I just wish some of us could understand. Are your motives selfish? Are they the inability to cope? How can you abandon your child? YOUR CHILD?

Going Through the Big D

No I am not going through the big D..."and I don't mean Dallas" cue music. But I have been reading, listening, and quite frankly sick and tired of all the speculation, theories, unnecessary anger, and minutiae from other people about divorce.

Let's get real folks....how many have you experienced divorce? Now put your hand down if you are talking about your BFF "and like her parents got divorced" or "and like my best girl friend, yo she got all screwed over by her man....mmnnnmmm."

Yeah....I so do not think so. Here is the skinny on divorce and what people fail to acknowledge.

Divorce is like marriage, takes two of you to get there, no one person is at fault, no one person can fix it, no one person is without fault, no one person did not see the Big D coming, and no one person can be blamed for the entire marriage crumbling to pieces.

Marriage, you can not get married alone, no one person can go get the marriage certificate signed, no one person can fall in love, no one person can accept to the proposal (um one says yes, but the other said YES to asking Nimrods), no one person can build a marriage.

See where I am going....divorce, just like marriage is a TWO WAY street.

I say this and I can say that divorce is the best and worst thing to happen to two people.

How can this be some of you may ask? Again, Lucy be doin' some 'splainin' here:

I am a product of divorce. *GASP* Yes, my parents divorced in the late 80s when divorce was the hottest thing next to the financial fallout then. I have to say I thank the higher powers for my parents divorce. I hated that my parents went through the ugliest divorce, my mother checked out, my father was an ass (being very PG about that), leaving three kids to figure out if their square peg would fit into a round hole. Now as an adult, I see how damaging my parents were together. My mother was, and still can be, the Ultimate Enabler. I say that with the most love. My mother is a good good woman with the best of intentions, but her intent was to "for better for worse, in sickness and in health." However, she reevaluated the health issue and the sickness. My father, the classic alcoholic, abuser, addict, drug aficionado. He knew no boundaries, no limits, and at the time the most aspiring business man and could care less who got in his way to the top. He reminded me of Michael Douglas in the movie Wall Street.

So my mother weighed the sickness against the duty as a mother and wife. Her duty to stay married to a man for the sake of her children. But their health was not to be compromised. My father refused help, in pure denial as any addict is and always will be. To this day, I am not sure he ever admits any fault...ah hell, he blames the world for everything who am I kidding!

My parents divorced in January of 1988, I was 10. Yup...just dated myself.

The thing with divorce is that I am so thankful my parents, especially my mother did not stay married to my dad in spite of what she learned. She went with her gut, she did what was ultimately right for her too. I think that is what people FAIL to realize in divorce. You cannot stay married for the kids, the kids were not always there, they will not always be there in the end. Kids grow, move out, have kids of their own. The beautiful cycle of life. When you marry there are no kids involved (well not traditionally, some are unconventional....like my sister...love you!!), but in the beginning only two people exist. Individually. Together. So if no kids were involved is divorce that much more okay than if kids are involved? I think not.

I have read so many bashing's about divorce, about celeb divorces, like Jon and Kate Gosselin. I mean for Pete's sake. Yes, awful they are getting divorced, no one can point fingers, each is at fault somewhere. Each lost their way in the relationship, grew apart and never back together, or they are to the point where the road can never be mended, but at least they are doing the most healthy thing for their kids. They are each going to find a happiness they obviously do not feel with each other anymore.

Divorce is also tricky because family is involved on many levels. When my folks divorced my paternal grandparents took sides at first. My father was and is a fantastic "salesman" (aka manipulator). So my G-rents bought the stories hook line and sinker. Eventually though they saw that my mother was not only at fault and many apologies were made. My maternal grandparents did not take sides, they truly tried to stay neutral, but eventually just grew away from my father because of his "illness" and his damaging ways. Friends took sides. I watched my god parents divorce and each of them grabbed one of my parents, I felt like I was watching the partings of the Red Sea. The way I see divorce is that both are not happy, but the one person who makes the decision to say "Hey this is not working, we need to get a divorce" has either tried everything, or nothing and merely is throwing in the towel. Either way, they made a decision! They made a decision they do not want to be unhappy and with that person anymore. I am not saying that any one person can make you happy, but misery loves company. The other person is in denial, they do not want to admit that they ignored the writings on the wall and that they have grasped at every ounce of bullshit to stay together. Other divorces are totally amicable, my friend recently got divorced, he said they divorced because she was going to go to med school, and that was not conducive to their relationship. They both are friends, they both still care for one another, but the marriage was going to go down hill so they caught the shit before it rolled. Awesome!

I guess I am confused as to why people judge each person in a divorce. I mean why? I know that if DH and I were to come back to a point where we said "Hey, we tried, we tried everything, now lets try not being together" I would sincerely hope that sides were not taken. That the decision we made is that we are more damaging together than apart. We need to be healthy for our kids to be healthy and if that means divorce, so be it. We are lucky, we have weathered some nasty storms in our 12 years together. I dug in my spurs and bore down, I was in for the long haul with my big fish. We found each other again, we found our love, and we found we are stronger than we have EVER been. But we were lucky. We were lucky to have found a great therapist who helped each of us, we were lucky to have time to find who we were again, to find us and then we found two more kids!

We also agreed that we would never be dirty. That in all the hurt of a divorce, the nasty back biting, judging, side taking, name calling BS that divorce brings out, which is the worst in all of us, the people that are hurt the most are the kids. By sitting down with your kids and explaining that you still love them, this is not their doing, they did not cause this, and explaining that mom and dad just are not good together, this will ease their pain. I only know this now after years of therapy, of watching my father marry and divorce wives like a private harem, by watching how nasty divorce can be on the outside with watching DH go through his divorce when I met him, by watching my BIL go through his divorce, my god parents, my dear friends. As an outsider you gain insight, you learn to not take sides, not listen to the bitching and crap but still lend an ear for constructive bitching, by still loving each person. I can say I have never taken sides, well with the exception of DH and his ex, but even still, I think the relationship takes two. So next time you hear someone is divorcing because someone cheated on the other, or she is a bitch or he is an A*hole, just remember that could be you! So try not to judge, try not to take sides, support and love them, they are in for the worst, which in time will turn out for the best.