I've been struggling because there's this one thing I'd love to talk about, but I don't know how to approach the subject correctly. Ya, maybe that's it.
Today, I'm struggling more than usual. I have a heavy heart, a wandering mind, and a tired soul. Why should I, though? After all, it's Christmas time! I should be excited to give presents, celebrate with family and friends, get off of work early...
Not this year, my dear readers. Not this year.
I've had no major loss. There's been no major trauma. I'm blessed beyond measure by those in my life, and I have the best husband and children possible. My parents/brother/grandmother/in-laws are amazing, I have a great job, I surround myself with great friends...
Still, this year hurts.
I'm about to embark on a post that I've been putting off, and I need to write it. I've danced around this topic, tried to convince myself that if I put it all out there then I'm the bad guy, and almost decided to sweep it under the rug. Unfortunately, sweeping things under the rug is what causes heartache.
As I've said before, I have 3 very precious children. Each one is so unique. They have certain smiles, adorable laughs, crazy looks, special tastes...but, the best part is that they are all 3 mine. I have spent the last 18 years trying my best to be a momma they could look up to, and I admit there were times I failed them miserably. I've had to admit those failures right to their precious faces, too. I've had to cry in front of them, discipline them, hold them, rock them, kiss them, feed them, clothe them, etc. They are MY responsibility, and that is something I've never taken lightly. The one thing I will never ever do, though, is LEAVE them.
Divorce sucks. There's no nice way of saying it. There are no winners. Everyone loses something. Sure, you can move on, find happiness again, and live a beautiful life. It's a beast to go through, though, and children suffer the most. Don't kid yourself. As parents, you can try to get along and "co-parent," but the children still walk away with voids that no one will ever fill.
Fortunately, my 3 C's have seemed to have dealt well with my divorce from their father. He and I were married 14 years. We had ups and downs, and for whatever reason(s), we decided it was over 4 years ago. I met and married K, and he does a wonderful job being a bonus dad to them. He works hard at it every single day, and they know he loves them. I guess I got lucky in that aspect--I have no stepchildren. I don't know what it feels like to try to raise and love someone else's babies, but I'm sure I would have been okay with that had it been in the cards. Children need love. They need their parents. NO MATTER WHAT.
This brings me to the whole point of my post, Folks.
The divorce was extremely hard on C1. Being the oldest, she felt everything piling up on her, and she felt pressured to choose a side. She's my quiet one...my sweet one...my do-anything-for-anyone one. She's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. The pain she felt (and still feels) is something I can't even begin to understand. I'm sure she was tired of the arguing, the hatefulness, the sadness, and the constant uproar. She wanted to protect her father, and who could blame her? I couldn't. Sure, I was hurt when she made the choice to live with him full time and only see me 2 days a week, but how could I be mad? She was just a kid in an adult world trying to figure out how to handle problems that weren't hers to handle. In the blink of an eye, her parents were divorced, her world was turned upside down, her father was remarried and expecting a baby with another woman besides her mom, she gained 4 step-siblings, she had 2 households to live in, her mom was seeing another man, and she was now in high school.
I think it would have been enough to drive me mad, yet she handled it with as much grace as she could.
A year went by, and C1 tried to adjust to life with her father, a stepmom, and a house filled with children--8 children, to be exact. Life was going on, and the dust was settling.
Or, so I thought.
In June of 2015, C1 brought some things to my attention that I could no longer sweep under the rug (remember, sweeping things under rugs creates heartache, right?). I made the choice to stand up for what was right...that included standing up for ALL 3 OF MY C'S. No matter the outcome of my choice, I knew they needed a voice and they needed an advocate.
It boils down to this: We, as parents with separate lives and separate homes now do NOT have to agree on everything. We DO, however, have to co-parent our 3 C's. We should respect each other, listen to concerns and address them, and not put the children in the middle every time. I know I'm not right 100% of the time. Neither is he. I had concerns that continued to go unaddressed. End of story.
I will not put all of the details of the events on a public blog, but I will say this: C1 took up for her siblings and paid the ultimate price.
She was kicked out of her father's house, harassed and threatened by the stepmom, had all--and I mean ALL--of her belongings thrown away by her father before she had a chance to claim them, accused of stealing, had police reports filed on her, called a liar, verbally/mentally/emotionally abused, cussed at, and ultimately abandoned.
Her father...the one man who is supposed to save her and take up for her no matter what...abandoned her. There was a single text on her birthday last year from him, but nothing after that. She watches every weekend, every holiday, and every summer as he picks up her siblings to go spend time at his house, go on lengthy expensive vacations with him, etc. She gets nothing. No birthday presents. No Christmas presents. NOTHING.
I watch as a precious young lady loses more of herself each day, because the man she trusted and loved picked another woman and another family over her. I spent many many many hours of emails, texts, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations trying to fix what HE had broken. I'm the momma. That's what I do. I fix things for my babies, and I make everything better...right? I tried everything, Folks. I begged. I pleaded. I even apologized for things I didn't do, just to bring some relief for C1. I'm not saying this for any reason other than to say that's what a parent does! You give your all, and you don't give in. I had exhausted all options, and her father wouldn't hear it. His response? "When C1 is ready to ask for forgiveness for everything she's done, I'll talk to her again." I even asked him what he would do or how he would feel if something (God forbid) ever happened to her? His response then? "Well, I guess that's just something I'll have to live with, huh." Wow.
Folks, how petty.
How sad.
He should be the one begging for forgiveness, if you ask me.
Yesterday, though, was the final straw...for C1, anyway.
I think she's been holding out for her father to come back, you know, like a knight in shining armor. She saw him as the type to sweep in, say he's sorry, save the day, and everything would be okay again.
Nope.
C1 turned 18 this week. My baby is no longer...well...a baby. She's a young lady. Yesterday, she decided that in order to move forward with being a grown-up, she would try to reach out to him one more time (mind you, she'd already tried to talk to him 2 other times, and that failed miserably).
She and I talked and cried. Cried and talked. Played out scenarios over and over. Talked and listened. Offered solutions and switched up plans. Ultimately, though, C1 decided to call her father. She was prompted by the hurt feelings of no calls/texts/emails/presents for her 18th birthday, I'm sure. She knew deep down that this was the last chance she could offer him. It was all or nothing.
So, I let her do it.
By that I mean, I stepped back, let her go, and watched as her father did exactly the same thing to her that he had done to me four years ago.
Some people never change.
Instead of acting happy to hear from his firstborn who reached out begging for his love...this beautifully mature young lady who is a fantastic person to know (and if you know her at all, you love her!)...he placed all of the blame right back on her, argued his points about how he is always right, made her feel like less of a person, and abandoned her for the LAST TIME.
There I sat on the other side of her closed bedroom door in a dark hallway. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I could hear her voice. Then, there was nothing but silence and a few sniffles. When she was ready, she let me in to her room and up on her bed. Her tiny little body snuggled up next to me. All I could do was wrap myself around her as I began picking up the pieces of a broken soul who has truly done nothing to deserve such treatment.
Her father will never know her pain. He doesn't have to look in to her sad sweet eyes after she's cried herself to sleep. He doesn't have to see the baby pictures she's torn him out of because she was angry. He doesn't have to see the confusion in her face when her brother and sister leave to visit him and she stays. He can get angry all he wants that another man has stepped in to raise his children, but those aren't his strong arms hugging and rocking her now when she just can't take any more. He didn't take her to get her driver's license or get teary-eyed seeing her in a gorgeous prom dress. She needs a good man to look up to who will show her how a lady is supposed to be treated, and thank goodness K is here to do just that.
Yes, she's now technically a grown up, but she's still our child.
And, he abandoned her.
He doesn't deserve her, and in my opinion, he never did.
That was the final straw.
~Andy
Divorce sucks. There's no nice way of saying it. There are no winners. Everyone loses something. Sure, you can move on, find happiness again, and live a beautiful life. It's a beast to go through, though, and children suffer the most. Don't kid yourself. As parents, you can try to get along and "co-parent," but the children still walk away with voids that no one will ever fill.
Fortunately, my 3 C's have seemed to have dealt well with my divorce from their father. He and I were married 14 years. We had ups and downs, and for whatever reason(s), we decided it was over 4 years ago. I met and married K, and he does a wonderful job being a bonus dad to them. He works hard at it every single day, and they know he loves them. I guess I got lucky in that aspect--I have no stepchildren. I don't know what it feels like to try to raise and love someone else's babies, but I'm sure I would have been okay with that had it been in the cards. Children need love. They need their parents. NO MATTER WHAT.
This brings me to the whole point of my post, Folks.
The divorce was extremely hard on C1. Being the oldest, she felt everything piling up on her, and she felt pressured to choose a side. She's my quiet one...my sweet one...my do-anything-for-anyone one. She's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. The pain she felt (and still feels) is something I can't even begin to understand. I'm sure she was tired of the arguing, the hatefulness, the sadness, and the constant uproar. She wanted to protect her father, and who could blame her? I couldn't. Sure, I was hurt when she made the choice to live with him full time and only see me 2 days a week, but how could I be mad? She was just a kid in an adult world trying to figure out how to handle problems that weren't hers to handle. In the blink of an eye, her parents were divorced, her world was turned upside down, her father was remarried and expecting a baby with another woman besides her mom, she gained 4 step-siblings, she had 2 households to live in, her mom was seeing another man, and she was now in high school.
I think it would have been enough to drive me mad, yet she handled it with as much grace as she could.
A year went by, and C1 tried to adjust to life with her father, a stepmom, and a house filled with children--8 children, to be exact. Life was going on, and the dust was settling.
Or, so I thought.
In June of 2015, C1 brought some things to my attention that I could no longer sweep under the rug (remember, sweeping things under rugs creates heartache, right?). I made the choice to stand up for what was right...that included standing up for ALL 3 OF MY C'S. No matter the outcome of my choice, I knew they needed a voice and they needed an advocate.
It boils down to this: We, as parents with separate lives and separate homes now do NOT have to agree on everything. We DO, however, have to co-parent our 3 C's. We should respect each other, listen to concerns and address them, and not put the children in the middle every time. I know I'm not right 100% of the time. Neither is he. I had concerns that continued to go unaddressed. End of story.
I will not put all of the details of the events on a public blog, but I will say this: C1 took up for her siblings and paid the ultimate price.
She was kicked out of her father's house, harassed and threatened by the stepmom, had all--and I mean ALL--of her belongings thrown away by her father before she had a chance to claim them, accused of stealing, had police reports filed on her, called a liar, verbally/mentally/emotionally abused, cussed at, and ultimately abandoned.
Her father...the one man who is supposed to save her and take up for her no matter what...abandoned her. There was a single text on her birthday last year from him, but nothing after that. She watches every weekend, every holiday, and every summer as he picks up her siblings to go spend time at his house, go on lengthy expensive vacations with him, etc. She gets nothing. No birthday presents. No Christmas presents. NOTHING.
I watch as a precious young lady loses more of herself each day, because the man she trusted and loved picked another woman and another family over her. I spent many many many hours of emails, texts, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations trying to fix what HE had broken. I'm the momma. That's what I do. I fix things for my babies, and I make everything better...right? I tried everything, Folks. I begged. I pleaded. I even apologized for things I didn't do, just to bring some relief for C1. I'm not saying this for any reason other than to say that's what a parent does! You give your all, and you don't give in. I had exhausted all options, and her father wouldn't hear it. His response? "When C1 is ready to ask for forgiveness for everything she's done, I'll talk to her again." I even asked him what he would do or how he would feel if something (God forbid) ever happened to her? His response then? "Well, I guess that's just something I'll have to live with, huh." Wow.
Folks, how petty.
How sad.
He should be the one begging for forgiveness, if you ask me.
A child stood up for her siblings. She didn't lie. She did what was right by the law and by her own conscience. Sure, she knew he'd be upset, but she had no clue he'd leave her.
Yesterday, though, was the final straw...for C1, anyway.
I think she's been holding out for her father to come back, you know, like a knight in shining armor. She saw him as the type to sweep in, say he's sorry, save the day, and everything would be okay again.
Nope.
C1 turned 18 this week. My baby is no longer...well...a baby. She's a young lady. Yesterday, she decided that in order to move forward with being a grown-up, she would try to reach out to him one more time (mind you, she'd already tried to talk to him 2 other times, and that failed miserably).
She and I talked and cried. Cried and talked. Played out scenarios over and over. Talked and listened. Offered solutions and switched up plans. Ultimately, though, C1 decided to call her father. She was prompted by the hurt feelings of no calls/texts/emails/presents for her 18th birthday, I'm sure. She knew deep down that this was the last chance she could offer him. It was all or nothing.
So, I let her do it.
By that I mean, I stepped back, let her go, and watched as her father did exactly the same thing to her that he had done to me four years ago.
Some people never change.
Instead of acting happy to hear from his firstborn who reached out begging for his love...this beautifully mature young lady who is a fantastic person to know (and if you know her at all, you love her!)...he placed all of the blame right back on her, argued his points about how he is always right, made her feel like less of a person, and abandoned her for the LAST TIME.
There I sat on the other side of her closed bedroom door in a dark hallway. I couldn't hear the conversation, but I could hear her voice. Then, there was nothing but silence and a few sniffles. When she was ready, she let me in to her room and up on her bed. Her tiny little body snuggled up next to me. All I could do was wrap myself around her as I began picking up the pieces of a broken soul who has truly done nothing to deserve such treatment.
Her father will never know her pain. He doesn't have to look in to her sad sweet eyes after she's cried herself to sleep. He doesn't have to see the baby pictures she's torn him out of because she was angry. He doesn't have to see the confusion in her face when her brother and sister leave to visit him and she stays. He can get angry all he wants that another man has stepped in to raise his children, but those aren't his strong arms hugging and rocking her now when she just can't take any more. He didn't take her to get her driver's license or get teary-eyed seeing her in a gorgeous prom dress. She needs a good man to look up to who will show her how a lady is supposed to be treated, and thank goodness K is here to do just that.
Yes, she's now technically a grown up, but she's still our child.
And, he abandoned her.
He doesn't deserve her, and in my opinion, he never did.
That was the final straw.
