Category Archives: divorce

and then life turns on a dime

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There’s something pretty major happening right now that I want to blog about, but I also have to be careful of how I choose my words, because some people who read my blog seem to have a way of twisting things around.

The short version? It appears that Dave is moving back to North Carolina. Like, right now as I’m typing this, he’s driving from Seattle back to Raleigh.

There’s a lot of backstory here, and a lot of things that led him to make this decision, but those are his personal reasons and I don’t feel like it’s appropriate for me to get into all of it. It’s one thing for me to blog about all of my own personal issues, but it’s not really fair for me to talk about someone else’s.

Boundaries, you know. I’m working on them.

This obviously means a change to our custody arrangements, since right now it’s sort of a gray, nebulous “he can visit with the kids when he’s in town” phrasing, and if he’s going to be local, we need a more concrete visitation schedule in place. We’re still working on that.

He found an apartment here, in the complex that is quite literally across the street from me. It’s a big apartment complex, and the specific unit he’s renting won’t have a direct view of my house or anything, but it’s a walkable distance. I’m not sure how I feel about that – convenient, yes, but also maybe a little *too* close? I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about all of this. My fears are things like, how will the kids adjust to this new situation? And what if Dave is only here long enough for the kids to get used to having him around, and until Lucy really bonds with him, and then he moves away again? Then I’ll have to play grief counselor for two kids instead of just one.

And also, I’ve gotten really used to being the solo parent on the scene. Sure, Chris helps out, and so do my parents, but ultimately I’m the one in charge who calls all the shots and makes the rules. I don’t think it’ll be very easy for me to shift into more of a co-parenting setup. I have some… hmm, how to phrase it nicely?… “control issues.” Especially when it comes to my girls. That whole “mama bear” thing, you know. You don’t want to get between me and my cubs.

On the positive side, though, it means the girls get to have their dad in their lives. Which is absolutely, unquestionably a good thing for them. And selfishly, it means I’ll actually get some time off to relax and do my own non-Mommy stuff. Which is sort of mind-boggling. What will I do? Take up a hobby? Learn a craft? Or just watch Netflix and sleep? (Hint: probably Netflix and sleep.)

I think the good outweighs the bad here. Or at least I hope it will. Ultimately, I can’t control what Dave does or doesn’t do – I stopped having any say in that matter a long, long time ago. All I can do is try to help my girls adjust to this new change, and hope that it all works out for the best. And I really, truly hope that it will.

on mediation

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Dave and I had to go to mediation yesterday, which probably sounds very dramatic, but in reality, it wasn’t at all. We’ve been using a temporary order for custody and child support since we separated, but we needed to make some minor changes to it, and since Dave lives on the west coast, it’s a lot easier to hire a private mediator to sort this stuff out, rather than get a court date, which would likely occur when he isn’t in town for it.

So, we found a mediator. I sat in his office, and we had Dave on via video conference. And we hashed things out.

And it occurred to me that, for all of the stuff we’ve been through, we’re sort of… fine now. Sure, there’s a lot of bad stuff that happened in the past, and I doubt we’ll ever be what you’d qualify as “friends.” But we’re alright. That was kind of a startling realization to have, believe it or not. I think it’s because we both know enough people (through friends, family, and co-workers) who’ve had really terribly ugly divorces, and we’re both trying our best to not end up like that.

And really, even with these very minor changes that we made to our agreement, there were some very hard conversations that took place yesterday. Which I knew was going to happen, and I sort of went into the mediator’s office ready for a fight. But even though there were times when we vehemently disagreed, we stayed respectful. We never yelled. We never said anything nasty to/about each other. I’d say, “Well, no, I don’t think that’s right because… (whatever),” and he’d counter with his side, but it never got ugly or mean-spirited.

And even though his parenting style is totally different than mine, and we disagree on a lot (oh man, A LOT) of things as far as how the kids are raised? I do know that we’re both doing what we feel is best for the girls and we’re trying to work together for their best interests. And I have to think that even though we approach these issues from completely opposing viewpoints, the fact that he and I both love Catie and Lucy, and that we want what’s best for them? That’s going to be the thing that helps our girls most, in the long run.

So, hey, maybe we won’t ever be friends. But we’re ok. And that’s a hell of a lot better than I ever thought I’d be able to say.

my life without kids

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Catie goes to a year-round school, so she just finished her first term of first grade, and is now on a three-week break. (That’s how it works, more or less – 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off.) Since it’s her track-out period (that’s what they call it, I don’t know why), Dave flew out for a visit. It’s easier on everyone if he comes to visit when she isn’t in school, since it doesn’t throw her routine off as much.

So, last Thursday morning, I dropped the kids off at daycare and kissed them goodbye, and I haven’t seen them since then. Dave stopped by to pick up my extra car seats (I keep a set in my garage so he doesn’t have to deal with adding them to his rental car every time), and all of the clothes and toys and other gear that they’d need for a few days with their dad. (Which, let me tell you, is a metric crap-ton of stuff.)

Dave flies out tomorrow, so I get the kids back tonight. He has a morning flight, so it’s easier to have the kids here, rather than wake them up at 4 a.m. or whatever.

So, basically, the last six days or so have been a little glimpse of what my life would be like if I didn’t have kids. It includes things like:

* Sleeping late on the weekends.
* Sleeping without a certain little girl (cough*Lucy*cough) climbing into bed between me and Chris in the middle of the night.
* No wiping butts and/or changing diapers and/or cleaning pee out of the carpet (again: cough*Lucy*cough).
* No breaking up fights.
* No cutting up someone else’s food.
* No negotiating at mealtimes.
* In fact, mealtimes can be whenever and whatever I want. Last night, we went out for dinner at 9:30 p.m. It was fantastic.
* Getting to watch whatever I want on TV, and it doesn’t have to be either animated OR child-appropriate.
* Shopping alone.
* Being able to leave the house without the need for a sherpa or a pack mule to haul all of the kids’ stuff along with me.
* No packing lunches or rushing to get everyone dressed and out the door in the morning.
* Working out whenever I feel like it.
* Sex in the morning.
* Sex in the afternoon.
* Sex pretty much whenever and wherever because there aren’t kids in the house so WOOHOO! NAKED TIME! (Side note: sorry, neighbors.)
* I know I said it before, but seriously: sleeeeeeeeeeep.

And it’s funny, because that all sounds pretty nice, right? And I won’t lie, I have really enjoyed having a break for the last few days.

But the thing about not having the kids around, is that it also means:

* No spontaneous hugs and kisses and “I love you, Mommy”s.
* No little voices singing along with the radio from the backseat.
* No big girl who cracks me up with her stories every day.
* No tiny girl who climbs up next to me and says, “Mama snuggle.”
* No watching my girls hang out with Chris (which seriously does make me melt; when Lucy pats her hands on his cheeks and says, “you MY Tiss,” it just gets me every time).
* No hanging out at my parents’ house and seeing how my girls adore their Mimi and Pop-Pop, and how they have them both wrapped around their tiny fingers.
* No listening to my two girls play and giggle together.

So, although the break has been great, and lord knows I needed the downtime, I pretty much can’t wait to pick them up from daycare this evening and cover them with hugs and kisses.

I guess the point is: being a single mom is really hard, no doubt about it, but I can’t imagine my life any other way. Because yes, my kids can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but man, I miss those little boogers like crazy when they’re not here.

a different new normal

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Random side note: I started to just call this post “the new normal,” then realized I already had a post with that title, written a few months after my separation, and about a month after moving into the rental house I currently live in. Even though that was less than two years ago, it’s a bit surreal to go back and read blog posts from that point in my life.

It’s strange how quickly life can shift and you can fall into a new routine. Over the past few months, Chris has become such a part of my daily life, and the transition has felt completely natural.

On the evenings he comes over, he walks in the door and the girls run to give him hugs. Lucy is particularly attached to him. She can’t say his name quite right – she calls him Tiss instead of Chris – but she wants him to carry her everywhere, she’ll snuggle up to him with her face in his neck, and she’ll put her hands on his face and say, “You MY Tiss.” (She does the same with me – “you MY mama,” and my dad gets a, “you MY Pop-Pop,” etc. It’s basically her way of saying “I love you” in Lucy-speak.)

He keeps Lucy distracted for me while I help Catie with her homework, and he does the dishes and cleans up while I give the girls their bath. Lucy always wants me to snuggle with her at bedtime, so Catie will ask Chris to come snuggle with her, and I’ll hear them across the room in her bed, whispering about video games or dinosaurs or whatever as I get Lucy settled to sleep.

When he sleeps over, he helps me get the kids ready in the morning by getting Lucy dressed, brushing out her hair, and getting her shoes on.

A lot of times on the weekends (like this past Sunday), we take the girls to IHOP for breakfast.

IHOP on Sunday. I like these little traditions.

We even have our little IHOP routine down: Catie gets her create-a-face pancake (no bananas, extra strawberries), Chris gets a chicken fajita omelet, and I order too much for myself and share with Lucy because she can’t eat a whole kid’s entree by herself. I take Lucy to use the potty before the food comes, because it keeps her distracted so she doesn’t get grumpy in the restaurant. It’s like a drill that we have down pat.

Both kids hid from my camera at the same time
(No reason for this picture, I just think it’s funny – Catie was hiding from my iPhone camera, so Lucy decided she would hide from my camera too.)

And it’s totally easy and everything just sort of falls into place. People see us and just assume that we’re a normal couple with 2 kids. Unless they check our left ring fingers, I suppose.

Having Chris around so much makes my life easier in so many ways, and for that, I am so incredibly grateful.

It’s also incredibly scary, because it makes me feel so much more invested in our relationship. Before, my only concern was about my own heart getting broken if things didn’t work out with us. But now, I also have to worry about Catie and Lucy too. They really have gotten attached to Chris, and I love that they love him. But they’ve already lost one father figure (ok, Dave is still around, but he’s 3000 miles away, so… yeah), and while Chris is not their dad or even a step-dad (and won’t be, since I’m still firmly in the I-will-never-get-remarried** camp), I love that he’s a positive male influence in their lives, and I don’t want them to lose that.

But then, maybe it’s a good thing that it scares me. Maybe it’s a good motivator to do the work to make sure our relationship stays healthy and strong, to make sure we keep communicating well, and that we don’t take each other for granted.

Because honestly? I really love where we are right now, and I don’t want it to change.

And then Lucy clocked me in the eye right as I took a pic.

Even when Lucy clocks me in the eye right as I take a picture.

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** About the not-getting-remarried-ever thing: a lot of people have mentioned this to me, because it seems like a lot of y’all want me to get remarried. And I kind of get that. But there are a couple of factors here: one, that my own personal experience with marriage is that it pretty much sucks. And two, I have to consider how something like that would affect my kids. My rule for now is that marriage is not for me, but I reserve the right to change my mind when I’m 53 years old. Which is how old I’ll be when Lucy turns 18. So for all of y’all who want to see me get married again: ask me about it in 2029. Until then, no thanks.

learning how to get mad

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A few months ago, when I started seeing a psychiatrist about my anxiety issues, she tried changing my meds. It didn’t really help, and the new medications had some really awful side effects. There were a few other factors in this decision-making process, but working with my doctor, we decided to try weaning me off of all medications to see how I’d do.

I added in a magnesium supplement and a couple of other herbal remedies that are supposed to naturally help with anxiety. And for the most part, I’ve been doing really well.

One weird thing, though: not being on an SSRI means that I’m suddenly feeling ALL of my feelings. I’m happier, yes absolutely, but I also cry more easily and I get frustrated more often. These are not bad things, mind you, just part of the basic human experience which I more-or-less medicated myself out of, for the past two years.

But I have a very hard time dealing with anger. When I’m in a relationship with someone, I don’t know how to fight. It basically scares me to death.

Growing up, my parents argued a lot (they still do, really) – and I remember going to my room and turning my music up so I wouldn’t hear them. They fought dirty, and they were mean to each other. I never wanted a relationship like that.

When I was married, I thought it was great that Dave and I never fought – how perfect is our relationship? We never even argue about anything! Turns out, that’s actually not a good thing, it just leads to years of anger and resentment build-up. And we all saw how well that ended, right?

I don’t really know where the in-between is, but I’m trying to find it with Chris. For the most part, we’re still in the shmoopy lovey-dovey phase where everything is all passion and sex, but we’ve talked about how this is something I struggle with, and I don’t want it to become a problem in our relationship.

And last night, I got angry. Well, specifically, he made me angry. I’m not even going to get into the whole backstory because it’s just way too long and drawn out to even start, but it happened. And I said the words out loud, “I’m really mad at you right now.” And the world didn’t end. He didn’t dismiss my feelings, or emotionally shut down and withdraw from me, or say something nasty and hateful in return. He hugged me and tried to make me talk about it. Which I couldn’t really do (there was a lot of “why do you think [whatever]?” questions which I could only answer with an “I don’t know”), but we tried.

Whenever we hit some new emotional raw nerve, I always feel sort of shaky and needy the next day. This was no exception. He spent the night last night (something he’s been doing a lot lately, which makes me happy), and before he left for work, I hugged him as hard as I could and buried my face in his chest.

He asked if I was ok.

I said, “Promise me you’ll still come back tonight.”

He said yes.

I said, “Then I’m ok.”

I don’t know if this is normal, I feel like I should be doing a better job at keeping my shit together emotionally than I do. But I appreciate that he’s trying to help make me stronger and more articulate about my feelings.

That whole personal growth thing, though. Man, that’s tough.

the first boyfriend sleepover

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I’ve mentioned before that Chris and I have been taking things pretty slowly and carefully with our kids and what they’re exposed to, as far as our relationship. And I think it’s gone really well – our kids get along well together, and his kids seem to like me, and my girls adore him.

One of the things that he and I have talked about many times, but hadn’t actually done yet, is having a sleepover when the kids are in the house. On the nights when Chris doesn’t have his kids, sometimes he’ll come over for dinner and hang out until after the girls go to bed, but typically he’ll come over around 9 p.m., after the girls are already asleep, and he leaves to go home long before they wake up in the morning.

Saturday was a little different. We met up with our kids at Pullen Park and let them play together. Chris’s mom was also there, which made me a little nervous, but this is the second time I’ve met her, and she seems to like me as far as I can tell. (Older Southern women can be hard to read. They’re going to act like they like you, no matter what, because that whole Southern Hospitality Gene is fully ingrained in their personalities.)

The kids had a great time, although it was ridiculously hot and sweaty at the park. After a couple of hours, we split up – he took his kids to their mom’s house, and I picked up Jasmine (my girls’ favorite baby-sitter) on our way home.

The plan had been that we’d go back to our respective homes and clean up, and then Chris would pick me up for a date night on Saturday night. I showered and got dressed while the girls hung out with Jasmine (seriously, teenagers are the BEST), and I ordered pizza for them to have while I was out. It was getting kind of late, and Chris hadn’t gotten to my house yet, which was odd.

Then he called and said, “Sooooo, I think we’re having dinner at Bonefish Grill.”

Me: “Ok, that’s fine with me, but why there?”

Him: “Because my car just broke down next to it.”

Yikes. So, instead of him picking me up, I hopped in my car and took off to pick him up. He had managed to get his car into a parking space by coasting downhill into a shopping center. He called his mechanic (who happens to be a friend of his), and he said he’d come out to meet him the next morning to look at the car. But basically he was stranded with me from Saturday night until around 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.

And that’s the backstory on how we had our first official sleepover with the kids in the house. He couldn’t leave before they woke up, because his car was dead in a parking lot five miles from my house.

Around 6 a.m. on Sunday morning, Lucy came to get in bed with me, the way she always does. I let her climb in, but I said, “Look, baby, Chris is here too, see?” I didn’t want her to be scared, and she wasn’t, she just looked kind of confused. I scooted into the middle of the bed and pulled her up next to me, and she kept craning her head up to look over me at Chris, like, “Huh. Well this isn’t part of our routine.” Then finally she lay back down and went to sleep for a while.

(Side note just because some people may read this and wonder: everyone was sleeping fully clothed. T-shirts and pajama pants all around. Just in case anyone was worried.)

By 8:30, Catie came into my room too, which woke us all up. She saw Chris was there and was totally unfazed. Lucy was happy by then too, and I turned on the TV in my bedroom for the kids to watch cartoons for a while. They climbed all over us and tickled each other and laughed, and it was a really great little moment there.

Finally, we got out of bed and got dressed, then went out for pancakes, before taking Chris to his car to meet up with his mechanic friend. (It turned out to be a dead alternator. It’s fixed now.)

I love that my girls love him and are totally at ease with him. In fact, on Sunday morning, I fussed at Lucy for something (I don’t even remember what, it just got a, “no ma’am, we don’t do that” from me), and she ran to Chris and buried her face in his neck for comfort. And Catie gives him hugs and kisses whenever she can.

Lucy watches Bubble Guppies on The Guy's lap while Catie shows him her iPad game. #love

Watching how easily their relationship has developed makes me really happy. He’s great with his own kids, I should’ve known that he’d be equally great with mine.

Later on Sunday, I had this conversation in the car with Catie:

Me: “Hey, Bug, I need a favor. How about we don’t tell Pop-Pop that Chris spent the night?”

Catie: “Ok, but why?”

Me: “Well, Pop-Pop thinks that boys & girls shouldn’t spend the night together unless they’re married.”

Catie: “Why does he think that?”

Me: “You know, babe, Pop-Pop is just old, and there were certain things people believed when he was young that we don’t believe anymore, but he still does, even though it’s stuff that doesn’t matter anymore. Does that make sense?”

Catie: “Is this like how he sometimes says bad things about black people?”

Me: “Yes, exactly like that. We know that’s wrong, and we don’t believe that anymore, but that’s how things were when Pop-Pop was growing up, so he still thinks that way.”

Catie: “That’s silly.”

Me: “Yep, it sure is.”

And then she dropped it, and she hasn’t said a word about the sleepover since then. I know my dad will eventually find out, and I’m sure he’ll flip his lid, because even after two kids, he can’t handle the idea that maybe I’m not a virgin anymore. But as much as I love my dad, he doesn’t get to dictate the rules of my relationship. So, if/when he finds out and gets upset, we’ll deal with it. That’s just life.

But right now? Life is really, really good.

divorced mom rules

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I suppose it’s universally known that divorce sucks, right? I mean, that’s no secret. And it’s worse when there are little kids involved. Again: not a secret.

But I’ve always had this rule, that I will do everything in my power to limit what the kids are exposed to. Dave and I go through phases where we get along, and phases where we don’t, but the kids don’t hear about it when we’re fighting. I never want them to feel like they’re being put in the middle, or forced to pick sides.

Since Dave lives in Seattle and we’re in North Carolina, I do whatever I can to try to facilitate the girls’ relationship with their dad. If they ask to have a FaceTime chat with him, unless it’s in the middle of the night, I always text him to see if he can talk to them. I try to make sure they get as much time with him as possible when he’s in town. Sometimes it’s inconvenient or hard for me personally, but I put my own feelings aside for their benefit. What am I going to say, “no I won’t text Daddy to see if he can chat, because I’m really annoyed with him right now”? He’s their dad, they have a right to a relationship with him, and the way I see it, it’s my job to help that along however I can.

I thought this was just a common sense rule of divorce. It seems so basic, doesn’t it?

It’s interesting, dating someone who is also divorced with kids, and seeing how other people handle the same life situations. And I have learned a lot about the kind of ex-wife I will never, ever be.

Chris told me ages ago when we first started dating that his ex-wife had some “anger issues” (phrasing it nicely), and I knew some stories of things that had happened between the two of them (and I’ve seen the court papers myself), but I naively thought that the kids weren’t exposed to any obvious hostility between the two of them.

I was wrong.

Based on his ex-wife’s behavior, I’m now coming up with a list of things that I vow to never do as a divorced mom. For example:

* I will never tell my kids that their dad doesn’t love them.
* I will never tell my kids that their dad didn’t want them.
* I will never call my ex-husband names in front of my kids.
* I will never tell them that they aren’t allowed to hug their dad.
* I will never tell my kids that if Daddy gets mad at them, they should call 911 and say that he’s trying to kill them. (No, really. I’m not making that up.)

This list could go on and on. There are also things that don’t involve the kids that I will never do. I mean, just as an example? I will never randomly text my ex-husband in the middle of a workday to call him a c*cksucker, for no apparent reason. Which has very little to do with my relationship with Dave, and more to do with the fact that I would never text anyone in the middle of a workday (or any other time, for that matter), just for the purpose of calling them a c*cksucker. I mean, honestly. That’s just rude. What would Miss Manners say?

Up until recently, I didn’t think that I had some superior moral compass or anything, I just thought that I was doing what all grown adults try to do when faced with a divorce while their kids are young. Now I’m wondering if her “do everything possible to alienate the kids from the other parent” scenario is more common. I really and truly hope that’s not the case, though. Because I cannot imagine how much that sucks for those two sweet kids.