Powerless

These days, I feel pretty powerful.

I am juggling housework, employment, finances, a series of broken objects such as a car repair, the dog, friendships, etc.  And I'm being a pretty awesome single mom, too.  On my next-to-nothing budget, I'm finding fun things to do with my beautiful daughter, treating her to things like a henna tattoo at the festival we went to, smiling and saying "No, you go ahead" and not letting on that I'd like one too, but it's not in the budget.  Sleepovers at our house with home made chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes on the weekend.  Helping her to make her dad an awesome birthday present, with the requisite shopping trips and time and such to make it happen.  Snuggle time, time with friends.  I make sure her teeth are brushed, her chores are done (so much easier to do them myself but I want to teach her), etc.

And I never, never, never belittle her dad.

I feel pretty good about myself.  I've got some swagger back - the kind that makes men hold open doors for me, the kind that makes little old ladies smile at me.

Powerful.  It feels good to be powerful.

But there is one area in my life in which I am completely powerless, and that one area tries to diminish all the others.

I can not be a father to my daughter.  I can not meet her need for him.

And today it has had me in tears.

This weekend, Katherine got a bit angry with me, and said, "It's not fair.  I spend time with you, but hardly any with Daddy, and it should be half and half.  IT'S NOT FAIR!"  I can see clearly that in her mind, this is something I've created, and she wanted me to fix it.  Quietly, I tried to say something about how I've always been the one to help with homework and before school routines....but she pointed out that it was summer.  I finally told her that I wanted her to have a good relationship with her dad, and I would support that, and that she needed to tell him that she wanted more time with him.

I did not say, "Your dad refuses additional time with you.  He shows up late, drops you off early, and asks for "help" on his weekends because he has other plans."  I said, "Honey, I want to support you and your daddy; I know how much you love each other.  Why don't you talk to him?"

But today when she was elsewhere, I talked to him.  I told him about our conversation, and he sighed heavily and told me how sad that made him.  I told him about a childcare bind I'm in for this week, where I've asked girlfriends to help out with Katherine's care, but said he could take those days.  Out of two full work days, he said, "Well, I could take her for a couple of hours...." and I thought I'd fall off my chair.  I said, "She is homesick and tired of being away, and wants to come home early from the grandparents, but I have to be at work.  She was crying when she went to my parents last night.  I have to work, and since you're not working, would you be able to take her?" and he said "I guess I'll think about it."  I said, "I am trying to figure out the Rubik's cube of my life between work and childcare," and he laughed, "Well, I'm trying to figure out my own Rubik's cube!" and then mentioned a hobby project he is working on.

Our daughter is begging for him, and he is holding her at arm's length.

I hung up the phone, on my lunch break, and sobbed.

I am certain that he is punishing me, thinking only that creating convenience for me outweighs his daughter's need for him.

I will figure out the money.  I will figure out the time.  I will figure out the fatigue.  I will create fun between the hard work.  I will care for our home, for our lives.  I will stroke her hair when she's sad, and I will dance with her when she's happy.

But I can't be her dad, and watching her hurt is far more painful than chemo ever was.

Transference or the world's meanest mommy?

Currently, my beloved daughter is in her room, down the hall from mine, sobbing noisily and with effect.  My attempts to soothe her have been greeted with angry words.

She is mad at me because she missed a school social event - my least favorite of the year, one that many of the parents/kids skip, but apparently this year it's a major deal simply because we're not going.  I have been informed that I "never" let her do anything fun.  She had piano lessons tonight, and it's almost the recital, and her best friend ALSO skipped the school evening social event in favor of piano (their lessons are back to back), AND I had a playdate at our house today after school...

Dear readers, please pray for my sanity.  I want to yell "SHUT UP!" at the top of my lungs, something I have never done to her and never intend to do.  I want to yell "THINGS ARE HARD ENOUGH WITHOUT ALL OF THIS!"

Most of all, I want to join her in noisy sobbing, because things are not the way I wish they were, either.

And I'm not talking about piano lessons or school events.

---------------

She has recovered.  That was one hell of an hour.  I wish I liked drinking more, because if I did, I think I'd drink liberally tonight.  I can not wait to go to bed.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Giving it our all

I find it very hard to do anything halfway.  I'm either in, or I'm out.

This is very true for me in divorce, too.  I fought hard for my marriage.  I told myself repeatedly that we could work through our problems, that I could try a little harder, that my husband was a good man and so surely we could make it work.  We had problems, even serious ones, for a decade before I even used the "d" work, even in my own mind.

Reading things on the internet and in the media, I sometimes wonder if I'm an anomoly.  I know I'm not alone, certainly (thank you, dear readers, for sharing your stories with me), but I read something like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/series/diary-of-a-separation

...and I am profoundly lost.  I can not relate to the author of this series much at all.

Have you read it?  It's called "Diary of a Separation" and it was a series in The Guardian (UK).  For about a year, a woman chronicled her separation, including telling the children, moving out, adjusting to the new life, dating, and the rest.  I can't read enough about separations and divorces right now - I desperately want to understand, to feel connected - so when I found this series, I read it from top to bottom, beginning to end.

And I don't get it.

The author of the series seems ambivilant.  She seems to want a fantasy life that is interesting and far from mundane, so she leaves her marriage, only to live a life that isn't particularly interesting and has plenty of the mundane (starting with the house she rents, which she describes in such gray, sad language).

The series ends abruptly, and I want to know what happens next.

Did she go back to him?  If she did, would he take her?  (Her life got more cluttered and confusing; she made his seem at first bleaker, but then, possibly, much better than it had been during marriage.)  Did she meet someone new and decide to stop blogging about divorce?  Did she lose interest in the topic?  Did she enter therapy and decide to work it out less publicly?  Speculation won't answer the questions, but I do wonder.

But most of all, I wonder about this: how come she was so uncertain in her posts?  How on earth could anyone go through all of the pain of divorce, the financial hardships, the wear and tear on the children (dear God that is an understatement), if there was no abuse, but also no real, concentrated effort on making it work?  What about therapy?  What about talking to a pastor? What about going to mom and dad or some other older couple and asking about marriage?

Did I miss something here?

I gave it my all, and my all wasn't enough.  I was as "in" to my marriage as I could be, until the writing was on the wall.

Every divorce has its story.  The anonymous poster in The Guardian series has hers, and I have mine.  I found hers interesting, but I just don't get it.  Perhaps I don't get it because it's more Bryan's side of the story than mine....he didn't give it his all, either, and he wouldn't put the work in to try on our marriage.  He showed up to counseling because I dragged him, but that was all.

What is it that makes some give it their all until the bitter end, and others barely participate in their own marriages?  What am I missing here?

If anyone can shed some light on this, I'd love to hear your theories.  And if you don't have answers, read the series that I've linked to, and let me know what you think.  What do you make of it?

Thanks, readers.  Have a great day.  After yesterday's emotional roller coaster, today's post is less personal, because I am still completely, utterly wiped out from from yesterday's heartache.

Does Daddy really have to move out?

Another busy day.  Work, work, work, run to get child, come home to dog (unwalked) and house (uncleaned) and no dinner.  Make dinner.  Tidy up breakfast dishes.  Sit down to hot home cooked meal (late but I did it, tasty and balanced), feeling like maybe, just maybe, I can do this...

And then the question, like four thousand bricks flying at me, hitting my body, bruising me, knocking me down, suffocating me with their weight when I fell.  Accompanied by Katherine's flushed cheeks, and tearful eyes the color of the sky in summer, it was hard for me to breathe.  My own eyes filled with tears immediately.

"Yes, baby, he has to move out.  I am so, so sorry that I can't make our family work together.  I would do anything to give you a great life..."

"Then Mama, can't he just stay in the basement?"
(More tears.  Mine.  I was powerless to stop them.)

"No, baby, it's time for him to move out.  It will be really hard at first, but we will all adjust, and I'm just so, so sorry that it has to be this way.  This is not what I dreamed of for any of us, and I wish it didn't have to be this way, but your dad and I aren't good together.  We weren't good for each other, and that is not how we want to teach you to have a marriage.  In good marriages, people have fun together, and they don't yell at each other, and they work hard together.  We just weren't good at that, and we tried, but we couldn't do it..."

Silence.  I tried again.

"In some divorces, the parents just yell at each other and it's hard for the kids.  We're trying not to do that to you.  When you're with me, you can visit Daddy just down the street whenever you like as long as it's not bedtime or something like that.  I want you to love Daddy, and he wants you to love me.  We don't want to put you in the middle, honey, and we want to give you a great life.  We will try to make this as good for you as we can."

She just sighed.  And changed the conversation.

I still feel sick to my stomach over it.

I didn't say "Daddy shouldn't have yelled at Mama" and I didn't say "Daddy wasn't trustworthy" and I didn't say "Daddy tried to make Mama do all the work" and I didn't say "Being with Daddy made me feel more lonely than when I was alone."  I'm giving myself a gold star for that.  Two or three gold stars, actually.

But I don't want gold stars.  I want to make my daughter's life lovely and beautiful and I don't want her to feel any pain.  I especially don't want to be a source for her pain.

Divorce hurts her.  I was never under any illusions about that.  No child hopes that their parents will have such a bad relationship that it will lead to divorce, and she is no exception.  When he moves out, it's going to hurt her like nothing else in her life.  (My cancer hurt her, but she was so little, she has forgotten so much of it.  This is a blessing.)  I can not protect her from that pain.

I can not protect her from that pain, and it's all I want to do.

I believe that ultimately divorce will help her by teaching her to stand up for herself, and by my modeling of strength and compassion.  She will draw her own conclusions about her father.  She will also draw her own conclusions about me.  I will do everything in my power to model of life of integrity, to lead us both to joy, to be a pillar of strength, to create a beautiful life for myself and for her....but I will not have the proof of my decisions, good or bad, for many years.

I believe, in head and heart, that I am doing the right thing ultimately for her as well as myself.

But please don't mind if I cry myself to sleep tonight.

Move Out Date

Bryan and I have set a move out date of July 1st, less than two months from now.

This is the ultimate leap of faith for me, because I would be in financial trouble if he moved out tomorrow; I still don't make enough to cover the household expenses, and he can't make up all of that money.

But I am going to make this work.  I am.

I am working half time.  I have hope for making that full time, and I'm working my network as hard as I can, and I have possibilities for extra work.

I also have one more resource, one that I've never called upon.....a wealthy grandmother.  She keeps saying "If you need something, let me know," and through cancer, through all of this, I never asked her for a cent.  In my life, I've never asked her for a cent.  But I'm going to ask.  I'm going to ask her for a sum of money that seems staggering to me, but is what I need to keep going and keep the house.

Because Bryan has to, has to, has to move out.  His depression makes him lie on the couch all day on most days, doing nothing but playing video games.  He is usually snarky and rude to me.  He is unhealthy in so many ways that it is painful for me to watch.  He models behavior to Katherine that makes me cringe.

I actually believe that his life will improve immensely when he moves out, contrary to what he may or may not believe.  I think that our relationship feeds his depression because he feels that I am unfair to him in some way, and I think when he's lying on the sofa watching me scurry around taking care of our daughter, working, making meals, caring for the house....some part of him knows he is being a total schmuck.  I don't know what he sees when he looks at himself in the mirror, but I know it's not pride.

I am pretty sure I am going to have to help him find an apartment, get him packed, and deliver things there.  I am already resigned to that.

Our deal is that he gets a place walking distance from our home, which should be relatively easy because we are not too far from a street lined with apartments (though we live in a single family homes area, it's close to an urban village area).  Katherine will be able to run over to say "Look at my cool ______!" and say hello whenever she likes, within reason (e.g. not at bedtime, not when she should be doing homework).  If she forgets something, it'll be easy to go back and forth.

Katherine has had a year to adjust to this idea, and we've had a year of the custody schedule that we agreed to.  Her counselor has seem dramatic improvement in that time and has suggested we scale back on appointments.  We can now talk openly about "when Daddy moves" and she doesn't skip a beat.  It will be hard when he's in a different home, I know that.....but my heart tells me it's going to be okay.

And no, it's not ideal for her.  What's ideal for her is that she grow up in a home with two parents who love her, who model great behavior to her, who teach her how be in relationship to a partner.  What she got instead was two parents who love her, who taught her tension, anger, frustration, anxiety.  She got a parent who yelled a lot, who lost his temper, who shut down in the face of conflict and stormed off; she also got a parent who tiptoed around trying to make everything perfect so that things would be okay, and then would occassionally erupt in tears or anger and say "Why do you act like that?".  It was at the  point at which I realized that I was teaching her to live life that way that I got the courage to say "Enough."

Katherine knew how bad it was.  She would try to make it better.  She would look sad, and shut down.  Her grades fell.  I kept trying to make it better, and it kept getting worse.  I tried to compensate in every way I could for the tension in our house, but she had a lot of stomach aches.

After a few months of adjusting to the idea of divorce, her grades started climbing.  She started to seem happier.

I can't give her the childhood I dreamed of for her.  But I'm going to give her the best I can, the best within my power.  I haven't lost sight of that.