I Didn’t Want People to Side With Me in Divorce

This is what I really wanted.

I’ve told this story more than once but not in this entirety as you will find further down. I was chatting with a friend who said, “We don’t want to take sides.” At this point, I am three-plus years into a financially and emotionally abusive divorce. My kids and I are hanging by a thread. We can’t take any more.

I am shocked.

I get that her husband knows my husband.

But at this moment, I am done. I lose all respect not to mention any good feelings I have for her. I walk to my car, sit down, and literally find myself talking out loud.

“There aren’t sides b*tch, there are children.”

What makes me say the B word? The mother in me. I’m too confident and too good a mom to need people to gang up on another human being. Even if he’s not my fav anymore. And more importantly, my mom was a really great role model. She didn’t need us to hate our father.

In an average divorce, taking sides will only hurt the kids.

But here’s the thing.

The woman of whom I speak? A couple of the men in that group actually DID take sides. One of them had a holiday party and invited my husband and did not invite me during our divorce.

I later found out it was intentional and complicated because they felt they had been lumped into a ‘boys behaving badly’ situation. Meaning I blamed my husband’s antics on them but I didn’t. However, I did have a negative association with it.

And you know what??!!

Hold your breath, guess who got hurt?

My children.

They didn’t want to go with their father to the party. They found it confusing my friends didn’t understand what was really happening in our lives. One of my children refused to go. One stopped by for a short time to get a friend. And my youngest initially refused to get out of the car when I dropped him off. But I forced him to go so he would be able to celebrate the holiday.

“How can they not know all the bad things dad has done?” one of my children asked. “And how can they not know who you are?”

Had I been invited too, my children probably would have been fine.

But kids live the truth. They fully understand what is happening in their home. They know which parent is trying to keep a family together and which parent is behaving badly.

All the more reason it is cautionary to take sides.

Children are craving stability and reality in divorce. They are also in dire need of being surrounded by love. And many of us have friends who become family. Our children grow up around people they believe to have this strong connection to them.

While a few grown men were pledging allegiance to their father…

My children felt like they lost some of their family friends. It was painful to hear them articulate this. It made me furious and honestly shake my head. What are adults thinking?

I’ll tell you what they’re thinking.

They’re not.

They are foolishly trying to make a point to other grownups. What they should be asking themselves is, “How are the kids doing? Do they feel loved? Do they need support? Do they need some things in their lives to remain the same?”

By the time my then friend told me they didn’t want to take sides, they not only had but we were suffering full-blown abuse. Everyone knew it. Even some of those original guy friends didn’t want anything to do with my husband anymore.

Few men stay loyal to a man who will hurt his children to hurt his wife. Divorce or no divorce. Sadly, however, they will stay silent. I’m not sure why. Even otherwise good men will let a man bully a woman and children.

It was confusing to me.

And guess who else?

Yup, my children.

One exception I will point out is abuse. When I spoke about my husband and vented about what he was doing, I wasn’t asking for anyone to choose sides. I was begging for help. I was no match for him. I was fighting to protect my children. He didn’t care if they were in the way of making me pay.

I had made myself vulnerable by being a stay-at-home mom.

I couldn’t free myself or halt the financial and emotional abuse.

In the end, my kids clung to the families who were loyal and loving overall.

It could be the ones who ultimately only invited me because they knew of the financial and emotional abuse. It’s hard to keep that a secret when kids are friends because the parents find out. Or who invited us both. Or who supported us overall but would never be unkind or rude to their father.

Because again, it only hurts the kids.

My family and friends were furious.

But overtly mistreating their father would be unbearable for any child.

And I’m glad I raised boys like that.

They are deeply loving and empathetic. They have a strong foundation of values. They fully understand the bad things their dad has done. They don’t agree with any of it. Even if only their mother had experienced it but they also lived it.

But they’re kind and no matter what they love him.

Even if he’s disappointed them again and again.

I understand this. Because my dad left when I was five. He physically, emotionally, and financially abandoned me. I went years at a time without seeing him. He never overcame his alcoholism.

But I loved him.

Because in the end, even my mom taught me I didn’t need to take a side.

I needed to live in reality. I knew exactly what had transpired between my parents. Even with my dad leaving when I was so young, and coming back for a year here and there.

You can be loyal to a friend.

Even angry, crazy mad, and outraged without hurting someone else.