Nothing Prepares You for The Pain You Cause Your Children
Divorce is breaking my kids’ hearts.
I write often about my divorce. It’s been drama-filled because I’m the brilliant genius who tried ending it during a fucking pandemic that forced us to quarantine like quarreling hamsters in a cage.
There were so many years of my heart filling with grief. Felt alone even when Joseph was around, which wasn’t often because of a job he chose over being close to his family. The arguments that fucked with my head. The times I hid in the laundry room, stuffing a freshly-laundered towel in my mouth to silence my sobbing.
It came to a peak when I would purposely schedule my crying breakdowns because I juggled work with being almost the sole caretaker for our kids. Other times, I’d curl up in a ball on my bathroom floor in emotional agony.
I didn’t know marriage wasn’t supposed to be that hard. Joseph disagrees; he believes it’s normal.
I learned that it’s not normal for a spouse to threaten divorce every other fight. It took me a long time to stand up for myself and decide I no longer want to live in a house where I am yelled at. Ever. It also felt terrifying to stand up for myself and decide I don’t want to be with someone who calls me names when he’s mad.
Why did I stick around? Because…kids. That’s why.
My children rarely saw our fights. I kept my concerns silent until I could speak to Joseph when he became available, which was almost midnight at best. I read millions of articles stating that unless there is abuse or untenable discord, children are better off with both parents in the same house.
It’s a myth that kids are happy when their parents are happy. Kids don’t give a shit whether you’re dating someone new who puts a smile on your face when they’re shuttling their stuff between homes. They care about their world and their world only.
My divorce process (oh yes, it was a process to get Joseph to agree to a divorce) began when it dawned on me while laying on a memory foam bathmat bawling, that I’m just waiting to die. I’m raising my kids as best as I can, then they’ll leave the house, and then I can die. That’s it.
Everything else felt like going through the motions. Go to work. Go see friends. Laugh at jokes. Wander the aisles at Target. Lather, rinse, repeat, then die.
If I die in my eighties, then I’m only halfway through a life of biding my time until death. That had to justify divorce…right?
Two major events sealed my decision to divorce. It wasn’t my cheating or his massage parlor happy endings.
The first was when I ended our Parenting Marriage (an agreement to stay together in one house for the kids but not being together as a couple which is what my marriage was anyway) because Joseph flipped his shit in front of our son about a benign event. I can accept a percentage of responsibility during arguments but in that case, I was 100% in the clear of any wrongdoing.
It was seeing my son, mid-teeth brushing, eyes wide open, that made me realize that we had ventured into the unacceptable area of not modeling good behaviors that our kids will mimic.
After that, I told him we could try Nesting (the parents rotate out of the house while the kids stay in one spot). But a few weeks later he was enraged again when I told him, “fine, then you do it” when he berated me over the shitty quality of my daughter’s project that I helped her with (despite both of us working from home, I’m the one who was also the full-time teacher when the kids were also home for school). Joseph called me a “piece of shit”.
Yeah…no. I’m not going to own two properties that I have to share with someone who calls me names. It’s bad enough that we owned one together.
We followed the rulebook on telling kids about divorce. Sit them down, have a united front, remind them they’re loved, tell them they’re not the cause, and listen to their concerns. Later that day, Joseph told me that he was crying in front of them because he hated lying to them; he doesn’t agree that divorce is the best option. We lie to our kids about Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and that the dirty old toy must be lost somewhere in the house despite us throwing it away. This is the noblest time of all to lie to children.
My kids are young. They didn’t take it well. My son has autism and like me, his anxiety knows no boundaries. He is adamant that divorce is like what is shown on TV and that we hate each other. It’s difficult to explain that the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.
I spin it that we’re still a family. Just a different family. We still do major holidays together. We still attend school events together. We’re doing dinner once a week together.
While we’re cool in front of the kids, Joseph’s resentment towards me grows tenfold daily. He makes passive-aggressive comments blaming me for ruining everyone’s lives. I often want to reply with the dozens of reasons why it didn’t work but in the end, it doesn’t matter. If I couldn’t convince him when we were married, I certainly can’t convince him now.
It didn’t rock their world until I moved out a few weeks ago. It threw us all for a loop what a drastic difference it would be. I tried my best to make their rooms as pimped out as possible with their current interests but there’s only so much wall decals can do to cheer kids up whose lives were destroyed.
My kids have seen both of us almost every day. I picked them up from school and drive them to their dad’s when my house was still in moving mode. We attended a school function together on the weekend. That meant my children repeatedly saw us together and then apart. It fucked with their minds.
Last weekend my kids ended up on the floor bawling over the divorce. There are no words to express the agony on their faces. I could feel their delicate little hearts shattering, over and over (as I’ve learned, the heart doesn’t break once. It breaks endlessly and the pain is the same each time). Their bodies heaving and shaking with their sobs.
I will never, ever get that memory out of my head.
I did that. I caused this momentous childhood trauma that will need a lifetime of therapy. While I’m finally moving towards happiness, my children are barreling down grief and loss of emotional security.
We’re currently on our second weekend at my house. This is kicking off our new 50/50 custody schedule now that my home is unpacked (but will be in upheaval for a month with renovations).
Tonight, my daughter wanted me to read the two children’s books on divorce when putting them to bed. So far they’ve always done “sleepovers” with each other in their loft beds (purchased to make up for their tiny rooms’ lack of space). My kids are light enough that they can both sleep on it.
I sat on the other end of the loft bed, my weight balancing out theirs. Reading the books, my kids had endless commentary, tears, and questions. Despite that it’s a school night, I let them talk about their thoughts and feelings for a long while.
My daughter simply cries. Sometimes her little high-pitched voice squeaks out, “why can’t you just stay together?” I repeat on loop the same statements I’ve said all along but it doesn’t matter. Nothing I say satisfies the question.
My son is well down the path of Doomsday. He will never be happy again. He will never build the cool robot that he wants to when he grows up. However, he also doesn’t want to grow up because he only has seven years left of being a kid before he has to get a job and pay bills. Our cat’s death four years ago came into his sobs as well (while also vying for a new pet and insisting that getting a turtle would even be acceptable since it’ll outlive us). He cried that if I don’t love his dad anymore, that means I hate him.
I explained that I didn’t want them to be around fighting and remind them how much it upset them. My kids counter back that they don’t care about the fighting, they’d rather have that than divorce.
They curl into balls at the top of the loft bed and sob the agony-filled kind of crying. I wanted to crawl between them and hug them both but my fear of the bed breaking blocked me. So I hugged their legs and told them that they’re in the worst of it all.
“We’re in the gauntlet of a video game and it’s the absolute worst part. When we get over this, it’ll be better. It’s like we’re playing a boss round. This is the worst and hardest part.” I explain.
My kids don’t believe me (rightfully so, when you’re in divorce mode you’ve lost all credibility about their emotional security). “This month will suck between the renovations in this house and getting used to the new living situation,” I explain. “But I pinky-promise: it will get better and you will feel happy again.”
With my pinky out, my son insists that it better be true because pinky-promises can never, ever be broken. I added the caveat that it won’t be right away but eventually, they’ll feel happy.
Right now, I feel like I lied to them.
I struggle with empathy in humans. While I can appreciate what someone is going through, I can plow through with the emotional level of an android.
My kids’ hearts shattering has taken it to a whole other level. The guilt I feel is unbelievable. My brain wanders down the Maybe-I-Could-Have-Sucked-It-Up path but then I’m reminded that I don’t want my kids ever seeing their mom named-called and think it’s normal.
Seeing their little bodies shaking in emotional torment is like twisting your heart in a vice grip. Their sobs and pleas make you feel like you’re the warden of a torture prison camp. I imagine their little hearts like delicate china, exposed and vulnerable to the hurt that barrels their way.
Their little hearts. My job as a parent is to keep their little hearts as safe as possible and I failed them. I didn’t just fail at protecting them; I caused the attack.
All I can do now is stick by my pinky promise and do everything I can to bring happiness back into their lives.
