The other day when I was writing my post What Men & Women are Looking For & What They Should Be Looking For I talked about how my mom and step dad ended up getting a divorce. I also talked about how I then didn’t understand why they got divorced because he seemed so good to us and her. I wondered why my mom always fought with him and ran him off. Then this thought hit me.
I wonder what my kids think about me and my ex. The fights we had the fact we split up and are getting a divorce. I wonder if like me they think it is all my fault and that I ran him off. I wonder what he was doing that made me not want to be with him anymore.
I tried to keep the fighting a way from them but things happen and things get said. You can’t always keep it from them.But they never really knew what the fights were about. I am sure from a kids point it didn’t make sense. Of course the fact that ex always said stuff to them and in front of them about me and what happen and me being with someone else to make me and him the bad guy hasn’t help whatever they were thinking. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking that I ran their daddy off and made him leave. But they are so little how do you explain things to them? They are already going through so much they shouldn’t have to be and they are already learning about things way beyond their years.
How do you explain that mommy and daddy are no longer going to live together and why without making it seem like someones fault. If it seems like it is one or the others fault already to them how do you make them understand it isn’t one or the others fault. Despite all that has happen I do not want them to think badly of him or me. That is their dad and I’m not going to talk badly about him or say things about him to make him look bad just to make myself look good or to try to make it not look like my fault. If that makes sense.
I do tell them the truth about things. Like when they didn’t go over the summer to spend half the summer with him. I told them that he couldn’t work things out to keep them like he needed to and that is why he didn’t have them. I also told them we didn’t get to move because since their dad didn’t take them for half the summer and I had all of them I wasn’t able to work and save money like I had planed so that we could move when we planed on moving. I was going to put money a way for daycare and to move on. That way when they came back I could afford to pay it, rent and have money to move on. If he don’t do what he says he is going to do I tell them why. I am not going to lie for him when he is dropping the ball and making them feel like they did something wrong is why he isn’t doing what he said. If I tell them I am going to do something and something happens I tell them the truth. I also tell them upfront, as soon as I know we are not going to be able to do it and I tell them myself. I don’t wait until last-minute to tell them and then just tell them we aren’t doing it end of it and wait for their dad or someone to tell them. I tell them myself. A lot of times I will find something else we can do instead if I can. Or I set it up for another time when we can go and do it. He avoids it or gets mad and tells them it’s just how it is get use to it and get over it or blame it on someone/something else.
But I know I always felt like my mom ran my step dad off. I could never really see why she didn’t want to be with him. I was really young when my mom and dad split up so I don’t remember too much about that. I do remember fights bad fights and the house being broken up and things when they were together. But I use to think she ran my step dad off he didn’t do anything wonder why she fought with my dad so much and made him leave. If she would do it to one she must have done something to make the other so mad and fight like that right.
Wow too much to think about. Makes me feel so bad now thinking that my kids think I ran their dad off for no real reason and that this is all my fault like everyone else around thinks and says. As if I needed more to feel bad about and think about.
Single___Parent___Life 
I suppose when I remember what that felt like I was never understanding of what caused it either. Pushed away and abandoned from both parts mother and father! I am sure all of these things come into a child at that point. I suppose what would have made the difference in my life would have been if my parents found happiness. I knew my mother had not! She passed and she lived alone after raising us 3 kids. She drank to numb the pain! All she wanted and what was her happiness was that we 3 kids stay together within each others lives. I feel we learn our path to happiness in the choices we see that are made before us as a stream of what our lives will turn out to be, rather than seeing the guidelines to what will be in our lives based on what is familiar to us. The times I can remember my mothers smile was when she was proud of me in some small way. Yet when you are unhappy with your life situations. You often fail to see all the other reasons to seek or find happiness. I am the man my mother always knew I could be. If you were not happy and now you are, as a child I feel that is what you want to see as any end result. After all if you can’t be happy within yourself and never seek it you will only have someone follow in your footsteps if you are their primary source of love or understanding of it. Be of love my friend, if this split was due to unhappiness, show your kids how happiness is found in it! For they will only repeat what they know until a light turns on inside of them to understand the free will of what it is to feel happiness inside!