Today, I Destroyed My Kids’ Lives
Dropping the divorce bomb.
People who say, “don’t stay together for the kids” probably don’t have kids.
Because staying together for the kids is exactly why many people stay together. If it weren’t for kids, divorce lawyers would be up to their eyeballs in business.
The grind of living every day in misery for the sake of the children turns at least one parent into a martyr. There’s no greater sacrifice that is worth misery like the emotional safety of your kids.
The whole, “kids know when their parents are fighting” spiel doesn’t help much either. My parents were violent and verbally aggressive. I begged my mother to leave my dad. But in the absence of an abusive household, children are more than fine keeping the status quo. After all, they aren’t shuttled around like cattle and their quality of life is higher (anyone who doesn’t think finances is a massive contributor to quality of life has never jumped financial life tiers to note the ginormous difference).
Kids may not need stuff to be happy, but they do need money to do things with friends or join clubs. When people say that experiences matter more than stuff, they aren’t factoring in that experiences require funding. Divorce nukes the freedom that money provides.
I agonized over the divorce decision. For years. This isn’t what I wanted for my kids. It wasn’t a choice of whether the kids would be better off with divorced parents. It was a choice of which was the least-worst option. Because staying together was not a good option, not by a stretch.
Even thinking about divorce and the ensuing trauma creates piles of guilt.
Today was the day we pulled the trigger.
My divorce drama is chronicled ad nauseam on Medium. Joseph and I tried a Parenting Marriage (living under one roof as roommates) but that didn’t work. I briefly entertained the idea of Nesting (the parents alternate moving out while the kids stay put) but that wasn’t going to work either when I realized that I’d have the burden of two houses to share with someone I couldn’t make work with just one home.
Covid was a blessing and a curse. Social distancing allowed us to keep our situation private while we navigated our changing life. However, we couldn’t move forward while the world was on pause. Playing stay-at-home teachers and employees was a two-parent job. My kids struggled without being in school and having friends; simultaneously ruining their home life would have been a dick move.
As things opened up, we agreed to wait until I bought a home to break the news. It didn’t make sense to tell the kids we were getting a divorce, have them emotionally destroyed, only to have them think divorce meant both parents living together. Then, we’d have to break the news all over again whenever I eventually moved out. I wanted to have answers to all their questions and not create a false sense of what divorce means for our family dynamic.
I’m officially in escrow. I’m grateful I found a place (a delightful fixer-upper for almost a million dollars, hurray) but that also means it’s time to rip the bandaid off.
The meaning of “sweet and innocent” is demonstrated in children right before they’re going to learn bad news that will change their lives forever. Whether it’s divorce, death, or an illness, it’s enough to shatter everything they know. Who they are before you say those words is completely different than how they’ll be after. That innocence of not knowing the reality of their world is the one thing as parents we want to protect. You might as well throw in “Oh, both Santa and the Tooth Fairy don’t exist either, sucka!” to further cement how shitty it is to take their innocence away.
Today was the day I had to take my children’s hearts and twist them in a vice grip.
Strategizing bad news is the worst. Joseph and I knew it had to be done over a weekend because this isn’t the kind of life-changing news you want to do the night before your children have a test.
I figured a Saturday would be ideal, providing them a night to sleep on things and continue processing the next day.
My escrow is short and two weekends have planned festivities for my son’s birthday. That’s definitely not the ideal time. I couldn’t wait until the weekend before escrow closed because I need to focus on packing (it’s not like my kids wouldn’t eventually notice the piles of boxes piling up with labels on them).
That left this weekend. Eva had a birthday party to go to in the afternoon so we agreed to talk to them after she got home. In the meantime, Joseph took Ashton to see a movie.
After attending the birthday party while barely forming complete sentences when having adult conversations, I took Eva home and asked Joseph if he was ready for The Talk. My son was jumping around in excitement over the latest Marvel movie. He said it was his third favorite movie and spoke nonstop about every scene.
“I think we should wait until tomorrow” Joseph whispers. “He’s so excited over this movie and if we tell him today, he’ll always associate it with the movie.”
I thought back to something Marc (a guy I briefly dated) told me about his parents’ divorce. He said they told him at their favorite pizza place and to this day, he still can’t order pizza from that chain.
Joseph was right. We’re a big movie and comic book household. There’s no way we could ruin his view of this movie with our bad news. We love MCU movies; it’s one of the few series we collectively enjoy.
Waiting until the next morning was torture. I wasn’t eager to kickstart ruining my children’s lives.
The next morning, I got up early and showered. Joseph and I agreed that we’d spend the day together as a family to show that we can still do things together.
The plan was to tell them the news, go somewhere they like for breakfast, then swing by an overpriced animal convention. Joseph dragged it out even further by deciding to shower late in the morning.
Finally, it was time for The Chat.
I started with the cliché “you know mom and dad love you very much, right?” schtick. I then pointed out how when they fight, we tell them to separate. And that’s what we were doing: mom and dad were going to live in different houses because we couldn’t get along but we would still join together to do family activities.
It took a moment for my older one to clue in. “Are you getting a divorce?” he trembled. When I replied affirmatively, he curled into a couch pillow and began crying.
We did everything according to the textbook. We had a united front. We kept saying how much we loved them. We tried to spin the positives. We insisted none of it was their fault. I even threw in that it meant they’d get cell phones much sooner than they normally would. We told them we’d make sure to have dinner once a week as a family (a suggestion provided by Joseph’s coworker whose parents divorced at the same age).
Eva was shell-shocked. She’s seven and couldn’t wrap her head around it. Tears quietly poured down her face. Ashton was in full meltdown mode. For a child with autism, ruining security and routine is torture.
He referenced the portrayal of divorce in movies. Thanks Hollywood, you melodramatic fucker. It was difficult to point out that movies portraying divorced parents, typically with one parent getting minimal visitation, are only for drama. We repeated that they’d have the same amount of time and they weren’t forced to choose. Ashton cried that people in movies with divorced parents turn out to be bad people.
Also courtesy of movies, he cried about us getting remarried. Ashton wailed that stepparents are always evil. I attempted to counter that with Ant-Man and how the stepdad in that one was a good guy because he was a great parent when Scott Lang was in prison. Joseph then contradicts me and says how he wasn’t a good guy in the first movie. What the fuck dude, we’re supposed to be on the same side. I drilled my point home that the stepdad did the right thing because at the time, Scott was a criminal. But, more importantly, we weren’t going to remarry anyway.
Joseph cried a lot. I can’t stand when he cries because he makes a high-pitched wail and is ultra melodramatic. Don’t get me wrong, it was hell watching my kids’ process this bad news but if you cry, it’ll only reinforce how terrifying and awful this will be. Keep your shit together, dude.
“Can you guys wait until after my birthday to divorce?” Ashton sniffles. We reassured him that we could do that. “Can you not tell my friends? I’m okay if you tell their parents.” Again, we agreed we could do that. He turns to Eva and says she’s only allowed to tell one of her friends because that girl’s parents are divorced.
Unfortunately for my kids, they aren’t close with anyone who has divorced parents. While they certainly won’t be the last, I’m not happy they’re the first and feel isolated as a result.
That was rough.
And it’s only the beginning. Later that evening, my daughter burst out crying. How do you respond when they say they don’t care if their parents fight, they just want everyone to be in the same house? How do you convince them that it won’t be that bad when in reality, it will suck balls for a while? How do you stop the guilt of feeling like you chose yourself over your kids’ well-being?
I have to hope that in the long run, I’ve stopped modeling for them an unhealthy marriage. The cycle of misery stops with me.
I hope.
