Excuse Me While I Cry
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Divorce Sucks.” I was in high school when my parents divorced and it rocked my whole world, in a very emotionally damaging way. I remember, all too vividly, the heart wrenching pain that caused me to cry myself to sleep at night. The memories are so vivid, in fact, that I just want to cry when I hear a child talking about his/her parents splitting up. My son, Trenton’s, best school mate is coming over to play today. As I spoke to his dad last night, he informed me that his wife left them and it will just be the two of them from now on. I had to try not to break down as I offered my condolences.
My son’s friend is an only child. He calls Trenton his brother and follows him around like a lost puppy. They are inseparable during the school year and I wondered what he would do, come summer time, when they would not see each other every day. Now I’m just tormented, thinking about how badly his little heart must be breaking, over his family’s dissolution. He doesn’t even have a sibling to help him through this tough time. I had my sisters and we were a great source of comfort to each other. How do only children get through an experience like this?
I am also feeling quite angry towards this boy’s mother. I can’t help it. I do not know the whole situation, of course. All I know is that this mother has chosen to abandon her son. Marriage takes two people, as does the destruction of it. Parenting, however, should not be compromised just because a marriage doesn’t work out. Why doesn’t this mother want custody of her son? How can she feel okay with her abandonment? My maternal grandmother left her eight kids behind, when she left my grandpa. As much as I love her, I can never respect her decision to do such an abhorrently selfish thing. Maybe I feel so strongly about it because I was on the receiving end of abandonment and I know how badly it destroys a child’s sense of security and trust. What are your feelings about this subject?
I was an only child during divorce and oh what I wouldn’t have given for a sibling to cling to..
My mom left my dad as I was getting married, since “Her job was done.” Sucks to be her grandkids now, I can tell you that much. My kids don’t even know her.
I’m sorry to hear about your grandma. You realize that your grandmother probably had no legal way to get custody of the kids back then? The laws were very against women in custody issues.
It’s interesting that you’re mad at the mom and not the dad.
He could have said, “You’ll never get the kids.” to hurt her and used some sort of blackmail or her economic dependence against her.
Or she could have been self-less enough to let the kids (it sounds like they are old enough) choose and her heart could be crushing in a million pieces because they chose dad over her.
In my grandma’s case, she couldn’t handle the stress of having 8 kids and not being allowed to use birth control. It was a purely selfish act. My poor grandpa worked 3 jobs just to support the kids and he begged my grandma to come back.
My son’s friend is an only child, all of 6 years old. He had no choice. It was the mom’s choice to leave. I have a hard time believing that she wanted custody of the son, when the court system makes it easier on the mom to retain custody. She could have easily taken him.
There is no selflessness about it, plain and simple. If it was the man being selfish, as in my parent’s case, I would be mad at him. But that is not the case here. I give credit where credit is due. Whoever chooses to leave their children, unless they need to seek rehabilitation or something where the children are safer with someone else…I tend to think poorly of that person.
On a side note:
My grandpa got a brain tumor and died the day after my sister was born. He spent his life devoted to his kids and busting his ass for them, while my grandmother was off enjoying life w/out responsiblity. Ironically, she is still alive and living well. Life can be so cruel.
I have a friend that has had 4 kids by three men. One of those she walked away from and never looked back. He only lives a short distance away – and I just don’t see how she can not see him. I also know that the father wanted to keep the mother involved – but give the mother was cheating on the father with a high school junior for two years – ended up getting divorced the end of the guys senior year and pregnant before his graduation – I would imagine the mother is just a little ashamed – as she should be.
Now – Ironically enough – all these years later (14 years) the new husband (former high school lover) is cheating, hanging out in bars and having a good old time while the wife sits at home with the kids.
She was 27 when she started dating him.
I joked with her one day when she told me the boys mother talked about how well she knew her husband and knew him better then his mother did. I just couldn’t let it go – I had to let her know that it probably has Nothing to do with the fact that she’s had him almost as long as his mother did.
Divorce is crazy – but there really are two sides and it does take two to make a divorce. Even if one is good and one is bad.
Okay – I’m the first ‘that girl’ up there.
My maternal grandmother was a terrible mom for the most part. My mom has so much anger towards her. But during all of my mom’s horror stories I can’t help but feel for my dead grandmother that I never really knew. She was married (at 17) to a man and moved a state away from her family. She was left at home all day (sometimes for days at a time when he went out drinking) she had no birth control, 4 kids in 4 years – one a few years later, a sorry alcoholic husband, no vehicle, no money…what I’m saying is that I don’t believe she was this terrible person, I believe that she endured great hardships and stresses and they somehow changed her and threw her off course and she just kind of went crazy.
Kadi, I know that you love your grandpa, but as a mother of 7, can’t you sympathize with her a little tiny bit? Seems like you more than most of us could see how she would find the end of her rope and do something dramatic? Not saying it’s right – just saying it might not have been as selfish as you might think – maybe more self-preservation than selfish.
Certainly I sympathize with the amount of stress she must have felt. I know how much taking care of a large brood entails.
HOWEVER…
unless she truly had a medical condition that caused her to mentally snap, (which I have never heard of her having,) I will never sympathize with one’s decision to abandon her children in favor of an easier road and leave the father to play both roles. No freakin way. I did not even know that grandfather. I do know how much my mom and her siblings suffered because of their mom’s choice to leave. I don’t think that any amount of stress constitutes abandonment….period. That kind of shit is what is wrong with this country today. People taking the easy way out and trying to blame it on anyone other than themselves. It’s un-effing-acceptable.
In my humble opinion, whoever is the most nurturing, responsible, less crazy parent should take the children when the marriage dissolves. As a mother, I can NEVER see the side of a mother leaving her kid(s), it’s so against every fiber of my being to even think of that, but as an outsider, I say that if the mom is going to F the kids up by being there, LEAVE. Some moms are just plain unfit, and if the dad is able to parent, bless him. It’s such a different world and families can be made up of just a dad, just a mom, 2 moms, 2 dads, etc.
I don’t get it. I have two step kids whose mom is almost useless. I have one little girl of my own. There is such a huge difference in the way I feel about my daughter and the way she treats hers. I feel so bad for my stepkids. I try to help balance it out a bit, but they aren’t dumb. They know there mom is detached from them. Some days I want to throttle her.
I was also in high school when my parents finally decided to divorce. In fact I spent my last few months of high school in an apartment at 17, living on the OSU campus because they sold the house and left. I have to say, I have three siblings and we didn’t band together during this tough time. In fact, they were all gone while it happened, I being the youngest, and I was left to deal with a depressed mother who cried every night by myself. Siblings aren’t necessarily the answer. My daughter is 1 and I cannot possibly ever imagine abandoning her. The answer is support and I think the important thing is that your son is there for him to help him through this difficult time. My oldest friend Kyra was there for me and I couldn’t have survived without her.