Divorce Support: For the Children *and* the Parents
We need to dispense with the pleasantries right up front. (You are welcome to let me know how you feel about this in the comments. They’re always open.)
- Divorce is an awful hardship for everyone in the fracturing family.
- With two professional parents, the man is likely to make more money.
- Two homes costs more than twice as much, for the person paying child support.
- Child support is not an entitlement, even if the law and the benefactor might see it this way.
- The financial bindings of the family exist long past 18-years-of-age.
- Both parent deserve food, clothing, and shelter.
- When adversity strikes, both parents are affected.
- 50/50 parenting after divorce is not the norm.
- If your former partner struggles for a few years after divorce, with emotional issues, financial issues, etc. this is an opportunity for continued compassion, not legal action.
- Some fathers will be assholes and try to get out of paying child support or (in the case of 50/50 custody) their fair share of the expenses.
- 50/50 custody and a 50/50 financial split actually keeps the father closer to the family.
- If you married and parented 50/50, regardless of how you feel about the divorce, regardless of which side you were on (stay married or leave), you should work together towards a 50/50 divorce.
You can’t ask for primary custody and then start complaining about having too many parenting responsibilities. Well, you can, but the argument says more for 50/50 custody than it does for your obvious hardship. Of course, you complained during our marriage that I didn’t do enough. Didn’t pay the bills right, didn’t mow the lawn enough, didn’t put the dishes in the dishwasher every night before heading to bed.
So we’re divorced. And in the eyes of the law you are the custodial parent. It’s what you wanted. I’m sure you had your reasons, I’m sure you could’ve told the judge, with a straight face, how you do all the parenting. But you know it’s not true. Not even close.
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She didn’t care about me or my house. She wanted the money. She was entitled to it. Obviously. It was right there in writing.
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Let’s say you get married and both of you work. In the negotiations for how kids will be possible you both decide that the mom will work significantly less, so that the kids have their mom with them at all times. As they enter school, perhaps you will start back to work, so we can share that load again. And we may decide that you will still meet the bus at 3:00 every weekday, but it’s a privilege not a chore. It’s a benefit not a burden.
So when the grand consul de divorce asks, “So how do you share the parenting duties now?” You can answer, I’m the primary care giver. And I know you honestly believed it. Well, okay, maybe a tad of it was vindictive and defensive. I mean, you had to say that to even begin the discussions at anything other than 50/50 custody. How old school.
Falling back on the line, “It’s what she will get if you go to court,” I was handed the options. Non-custodial parent, SPO (standard possession order), and a hefty child support payment.
But wait… Didn’t we agree to the parenting arrangements? And now it’s being used against me? Didn’t we agree to a cooperative divorce? How is this cooperative, when you come out of the gate asking for well-over half?
If I had really gone the cooperative route, I would’ve hired an attorney right at the beginning as well. She did. Instead I put my faith in the counselor, and in the good will of the mother of my children. I was wrong, or misguided, on both counts.
Here’s the situation. When the court awards custodial and noncustodial roles, a nice child support formula kicks in. That’s how the state likes it. Somebody is going to pay. And in your decree, if you are as lucky as I am, you will have a document that even allows the court to garnish your wages first, before your take-home pay. The message is this. You cannot be trusted to pay in a timely manner. And even if you are having financial difficulties, the child support payments come first.
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At least my kids have rooms to sleep in when it’s my time. But did she think of the consequences of taking legal action against me?
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I don’t argue that my kids deserve the full benefit of both of our salaries. But when I lost one of my primary clients, and was about to slip into a late-payment status, my ex-wife pushed everything into the Attorney General’s office. Putting my livelihood at risk and preventing me from taking any measures to save my house. She didn’t care about me or my house. She wanted the money. She was entitled to it. Obviously. It was right there in writing. I signed the decree. What was I arguing about.
I wasn’t arguing. I was pleading. “Please don’t do this. I am not trying to hide any money. I am looking to replace the client. I am looking for a job, to leave the consulting practice I had built over the last four years. Just hold off. There is no need to bring the state’s lawyers into this.”
Here filing our case with the AG’s office was akin to her shouting “Fuck You.” Of course, that’s my opinion. And, of course, she is entitled to her money. That’s the law.
But what is the law of human dignity? What does compassion for your co-parent mean? What does co-parenting even mean, when one of the parents has a loaded gun pointed at your head? At this very moment, my attorney tells me, the AG’s office could have my ass thrown in jail for failure to pay child support. A criminal? How cooperative is that?
As we moved closer to AG day, I was asking my ex-wife to understand my situation. “Don’t you think a father also deserves a place to live, and the electricity and cell phone service to continue gainful employment?” She answered, “I don’t know what you want me to answer to that.”
Um… What I wanted her to do was not file suit against me with the State of Texas and turn me into a deadbeat dad. What I wanted was to keep the house I had fought so hard to buy and afford, just barely scraping by, even in the good times. What I wanted was a tiny bit of compassion. “Just pause for a second and think about what you’re doing. Do you think it’s going to help the situation by filing suit against me? Do you think that will make me work harder, or look for a job harder?”
No answer.
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I’m not sure what her motivation was at sending me pictures of HER with the kids. Maybe it’s motivation to get a job and get back into the swing of paying for her vacations with the kids.
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And she filed. And now I’m a deadbeat dad. I’m lucky. My mom (yep, 51 and living with mom) had some spare rooms in her house. At least my kids have rooms to sleep in when it’s my time. But did she think of the consequences of taking legal action against me? Did she imagine how that might damage my credit? Might take my house out from under me? That it might even show up in my background checks as I’m looking so desperately for those full-time jobs that would afford me both a place to live and her child support checks?
I don’t know what she was thinking. I don’t really know what she thinks today. She’s still hoppin mad about something. The money. My 50/50 effort in getting the kids to doctor’s appointments, after school activities, etc. She’s just mad. But she’s been mad at me for years. At least one full year before she divorced me. So she’s gonna be mad. That’s a fact of life. I hope she gets better. But I can’t count on that.
I’ve had fantastic interviews all summer long. Five of them turned into final-round negotiations. And I still haven’t gotten the offer. Hmm. I’m not sure what’s in that background check. I’m hoping that her AG action did not put a “do not hire” mark in my file. But I guess I won’t know.
Anyway, it’s a long road back to having a BIG CORP job and a happy home. Even getting back into a house, now is going to be a long way off. She took… Wait, it was my fault. I should’ve done better. It’s a long way back. And I’m not sure she would’ve fired off the final “Press Charges” missile had she known her actions would damage my ability to pay her the money she was demanding.
It’s all okay. We’re going to make it. All of us. Her too. She sent pictures tonight of her and the kids at the beach. (That was our family vacation.) I’m not sure what her motivation was at sending me pictures of HER with the kids. Maybe it’s motivation to get a job and get back into the swing of paying for her vacations with the kids. (Sorry, that was bitter and sarcastic.) I’m sure she was just sending me happy pictures along with her happy thoughts of me getting that next big job. I think that’s what she wanted all along. Maybe that was even the unconscious reason she divorced me. (see: please stay gone < poem)
Onward and upward. I’ve been asked to a full-day interview next week with a company I’m very excited about. This is my fourth full-day interview this summer. How do I get a look at that “background” file? (grin)
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
@theoffparent
this post recast in a poem: please stay gone
back to The Hard Stuff
related posts:
- My Divorce: A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory
- Waiting for the Other Person to Change
- Love, War, Divorce: Why I’m Not Fighting My Ex-Wife About Custody
- Terms of Surrender: Our Divorce Papers
- No Divorce Expert: But If You Parent 50/50 You Should Divorce 50/50
image: thai boxing | the boxer, marshall astor, creative commons usage
No Divorce Expert: But If You Parent 50/50 You Should Divorce 50/50
I’m kinda sick of the divorce experts and family law (meaning un-family law) solicitors who are hovering around the business of divorce. The only problem is, it is a business. And divorce is a business decision. And without some good counsel you might get screwed. Still, calling yourself a divorce expert sounds really stupid to me. I want to ask them, “Oh, so how many divorces have you been through, and which one turned you magically into an expert?”
I’ve been divorced twice. And what I can tell you is, I’m no expert, I’m no advice columnist, I’m no self-help blogger. If you’re heading towards or in the middle of a divorce I recommend you get some help on your side. And providing your are not in a high-conflict divorce situation, you might include your future-ex in the discussions about finding counsel. That’s not exactly how the sequence went down in either of my divorces, but that ultimately became the intention and result. We wanted to collaborate on our divorce not drag each other through the legal halls shedding thousands of dollars along the way.
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So we decide to divorce, or one person decides, and then we divorce. Our kids world’s are split into two parallel universes.
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Here’s the big ah-ha for me about divorce: If one partner wants a divorce there’s not much hope for a reconciliation. In the case of my second marriage, when the partner has consulted a divorce attorney before raising the issue with you, you’re pretty well on your way to being handed a divorce whether you want it or not. I didn’t. It didn’t matter. We’re divorced. I’m getting over it.
The second ah-ha about divorce was: how you got into the divorce process is probably how it’s going to go. In my case, if my then-wife had gone to see an attorney, even while we were actively in couple’s therapy, there is some sort of major emotional disconnect that is not going to be resolved in the divorce. But knowing this is where she was coming from, that even with a counselor involved she was not able to get her needs met, I was able to let her go more easily. I knew that nothing I had done had caused her to seek divorce. In fact, I was doing everything I could to keep the marriage together. I was working harder. I was improving my chore-tackling attitude. I was trying to be more empathetic to her complaints. But the complaints were getting longer, and it seemed like our therapy sessions stayed focused on these surface “You didn’t do” issues rather than the kind of tectonic hurts that drove her to seek divorce advice before letting me know she was leaning away from our marriage. I was shocked and hurt when she admitted the fact in therapy, but I immediately had a better understanding of this person who was asking for her exit pass.
If you’ve got kids you’ve got to make them the focus of the hopefully-peaceful divorce. In our case the kids did come first, though I might have negotiated things differently had I been less empathetic. Heading into the new kind of therapy sessions, the one where you are writing the rules of your divorce, I was disoriented and depressed. We even stopped the negotiations for a week as I made my case to my wife about why I didn’t want the divorce. We then moved along towards a parenting plan with her help. At least I got the moment of pause and reflection. But I could see in my wife’s face and hear in her responses, that she was done. Done done. Not just done.
So we quickly moved to the logistics of the divorce. I came with a plan to go for 50/50 custody. My wife had other plans. And unfortunately in my state, Texas, the laws were very much on the mother’s side in 80% of all divorces. I understand from my lawyer (who I hired last year to protect me from my ex’s unreasonable child support demands) that in 2014 things are looking up for the dad who wants 50/50 custody. It appears the judges are more likely to hear both sides of the story and make a ruling that is based on desire and fairness rather than legal precedent.
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And somewhere along the way, perhaps when things looked a bit more locked up than she was used to, our “impartial counselor” suggested to me, “That’s what she’ll get if you go to court.”
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Unfortunately I got divorced in 2010. The legal precedent was with the mom all the way. And our divorce counselor quickly moved our discussions to how things would look with me being the non-custodial dad, and how the “time was not really all that different.” What I did not know, and I did not have an attorney tell me, so listen up: if I had gotten 50/50 parenting, as I wanted, I would not be forced to pay child support. We would do our own thing, we would pay our own way, and we would part as 50/50 responsible co-parents, just as we had parented. But that’s not what happened.
I did my research. I brought books and selected copies from those books to our sessions. I drew up some creative 50/50 schedules. And I was politely humored, but somewhere, in the cabal of women, they both knew I would give in to reason. Or the powerfully sounding, “In the best interest of the children.”
Wait a minute.
I understood that the kids needed both a mom and a dad. And I also understood that at the moment my soon-to-be-ex was making more money than I was. And I was paying this counselor to represent my side of the case as well.
And somewhere along the way, perhaps when things looked a bit more locked up than she was used to, our “impartial counselor” suggested to me, “That’s what she’ll get if you go to court.”
Yes, but…
Today I can look back and see I was railroaded. Perhaps in the name of efficiency and lowering the conflict I was given the verdict. Settle for non-custodial, or go to court and pay to be given non-custodial. This sucked. But again, I was depressed, I was living in my sister’s house, away from the kids, and I was desperate to get on with whatever life we would have after the business of the divorce was settled. So, I succumed. I agreed to the SPO and the non-custodial role that was offered to me. And the negotiations went pretty quickly from there. To be honest, I just wanted out of the meetings with my still-wife. I was still in love with her. I was holding back all efforts to plead with her. And her steely eyes showed me she had other plans. She was more prepared for the divorce negotiations because she had been thinking about it and maybe even planning her actions, long before I was aware there was a divorceable-rift in our marriage.
“This often happens to the dads,” our counselor told us. “They are not aware there is a broken marriage until the divorce is in progress. And they are often slower to accept the breakup.”
Um… Yeah. I was fighting from within the strength of my marriage one minute and then being told she’d already consulted an attorney, those are two different universes in my life. And I was struggling to let go of the first one and begin to accept the second one. The universe where she would go on to be with other men, where I wouldn’t see my kids every night, where I was going to be alone again.
Divorce is the most painful and life transforming thing that I’ve ever been through. Perhaps as each of your kids comes into the world your life is transformed, and you grow into a parent. But as a divorcing parent, you are looking at losing a good portion of your kid’s lives. No way around it. The pictures my ex-wife takes of the kids are always painful. The vacations they now take without me, with mom’s boyfriend, are always a bit tender. I don’t really want to see them. I’m glad they had fun. I’m very happy when they return. But it’s like a two different lives they lead.
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If the other person is unwilling to give up 50% of their parenting time, perhaps they need to reconsider the decision to divorce.
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So we decide to divorce, or one person decides, and then we divorce. Our kids world’s are split into two parallel universes. One that they experience with dad and one that they experience with mom. Suddenly they have two homes. Maybe a new person in their parent’s lives that they have to adjust to. And the stories they tell around the dinner table are no longer shared in both universes. There’s mom’s universe and dad’s universe.
As parents, divorced parents, we have to do our best to fill in the gaps alone. As our kids are away, doing other great things, we have to keep our chins up and our spirits positive as we look towards building our own lives, now separate from them and their mom. It’s okay, I’m not whining. We all make it. But there were are few things I didn’t know going into the early part of the divorce process. And this most significant thing, that our “divorce expert” failed to tell me was also the part that has caused me the most pain and drama.
The Two Laws of Divorce:
- Kids first
- If you parent 50/50 you should divorce 50/50
Without exception, especially if that is what one of you wants, you should push for 50/50 parenting. If the other person is unwilling to give up 50% of their parenting time, perhaps they need to reconsider the decision to divorce. That would not have made a difference in my then-wife’s decision to divorce me, but it would have had a significant impact on my ability to thrive financially post-divorce. I was asking for the half parenting for purely emotional reasons. I cannot say what my then-wife had in mind, but she’d gotten some legal advice by this time, and I had not. Perhaps that was my own fault.
Do not go into divorce naively. Get informed. I came to my divorce counselling meetings with books, information, scholarly articles, and I still lost the negotiations. Today I would not make the same mistake. And if I am telling you this story so you don’t make this same mistake, then good for both of us.
If you want 50/50 parenting, and are ready in your heart and mind to step up to the large task of co-parenting, then you should go for it. And for the health and well-being of your kids (if you are a mom or a dad) I hope you get it.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
@theoffparent
related posts:
- Waiting for the Other Person to Change
- Divorce is Not About What’s Fair, Let’s Get That Straight
- Getting Angry, Reaching Forgiveness, and Moving On After Divorce
- Losing Touch In the Off Times
image: in the dog house, alan ellis,creative commons usage
My Divorce: A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory
Step 4 of AA: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Today is a day of reflection. I am examining what I’m doing here on The Off Parent. Assessing the damage and progress of my self-observation, self-obsession, self-centered divorce blog. Let’s see if we can get to the heart of the matter.
- Strive to cut deep into the pain and healing of divorce recovery.
- Express anger and hurt without blaming the other person.
- Eliminate cynicism.
- Always go for the truth, my truth, the painful truth.
- Protect the innocent through anonymity and discretion.
- Write for my own personal journey and healing, if there is a reader that’s fine, but I am not writing for anyone but myself.
- Lift my psychology out of the hurt and sadness of depression and towards the healing and recovery for all the members of my family.
- Do no harm.
- Take on no more shame.
- Leave this discussion behind in favor of the next love and romance in my life.
Those are my goals. I’m not sure if I hit the mark with 100% of what is left here, but that was (is) my intention. I have progressed from a confused and angry soon-to-be-ex-husband to a hopeful and romantic single father. That’s the ultimate goal, and for that I give thanks.
Writing is therapy.
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I hope you find love along your journey through whatever challenges you are facing. We can live through this shit together. And I will continue to light the way along my path so that you might learn from my trespasses and mistakes.
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For me, when I write down an experience, I begin to understand it in new ways. I find common threads with other experiences in my life. I hear echoes of past hurts. I recognise the hopeful little boy who survived a crappy divorce and has now grown into a divorce and family of my own. And here on these pages, sometimes, I process the hard stuff, I leave behind puddles of blood and anger that I no longer need. I am discarding these stories as fast as I can write them. Discharging the energy they might still hold on my emotional life, by putting down the bones of truth, as I remember it.
I am not writing for you.
I am glad you are here. I have gotten a lot of support and love through the four years that I have been writing this blog. I have been amazed by some of the comments, troubled by some of the misunderstandings, and encouraged to keep digging for gold. Digging for the heart of joy that is still inside that needs encouragement to hope and dream of loving again.
And I have found the language for that love again. I am writing aspirational love poems. There are still a few divorce poems, but for the most part, this blog has transformed from angry/divorce/rant to relationship/love/discovery. Sure, there will always be flares of anger and sadness when managing the ongoing life of a single parent, but there are also great wins and joys that I am determined to celebrate here, right along side the struggle.
Next Steps
As I continue to change and challenge myself in the coming years, I hope this blog will continue to evolve with me. As I do find that next relationship, I hope that I can write with care and tenderness as “we” this woman and I, journey down the next road of our lives together. Or maybe that will be a different blog. I don’t know. And I’m not trying to get too far ahead of myself, here, or in my relationships.
As I grow and parent this blog will still be the rally point for my emotional triumphs and struggles. And as I struggle with depression, or employment difficulties, I will also try to pull back the armor and release the dragons that still loom ahead for me.
In all cases, I thank you for coming along for the journey thus far. I encourage you to start with the INDEX and read chronologically from the beginning. Or jump to any subject or thread that interests you at this time in your life. And if you have a comment, I value the feedback of my readers more than you can imagine. So tell me.
I hope you find love along your journey through whatever challenges you are facing. We can live through this shit together. And I will continue to light the way along my path so that you might learn from my trespasses and mistakes.
Final note: Why why why write about this painful stuff? My kids were 5 and 7 when my then-wife decided for all of us that she was done with this marriage and wanted to move on to some other configuration. We’re still reeling from the fallout. Not all of it has been bad, but all of it has been transformative. I give thanks that she had the courage to step into the unknown and make the choice she thought was right for her and thus for all of us. Whatever the motivation or past, we are now a family in divorce. We have commitments and connections that will never cease between all of us. And in my attempts to heal myself I hope to continue to be a positive influence in my kids and ex’s lives. We’re in this together. Let’s evolve to a higher discussion.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
@theoffparent
related posts:
- About The Off Parent page
- The Hard Stuff < selection of the angrier and edgier posts
- Waiting for the Other Person to Change
- Love, War, Divorce: Why I’m Not Fighting My Ex-Wife About Custody
- Divorce is Not About What’s Fair, Let’s Get That Straight
- Getting Angry, Reaching Forgiveness, and Moving On After Divorce
references: The 12-Steps of AA – wikipedia
image: practice, fabio bruna, creative commons usage
Dating A Divorced Dad: We Might Be Good For Each Other
This isn’t a mating call post, but more a look at some of the ways divorced dads are cool, flexible, and likely to understand divorced moms.
FIRST: Let’s compare notes on our kids. We’ve got our priorities straight. Our kids come first, our dates come second. Got it? Good. I don’t think any single parents will ever need to debate this. Now, dates without kids, or even parents who’s kids are long out of the nest, might present a bit more of a problem. There is an imbalance of time. I do spend more time with my kids than with my date. But, that’s only while we’re getting to know each other. But let’s stop right there and not get ahead of ourselves. We are talking about dating, after all.
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So if this partner has their act together, even after a divorce, they’re probably pretty flexible and understanding when it comes to compromise and negotiating wants and needs.
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SECOND: Let’s compare notes on our exes. I can lend a sympathetic ear to your stories about your dickish-ex. No problem, I’ve go my ex-y who can be a handful from time to time. I’m likely to take your side in any debate. And if you just need a sounding board, I’m here to say, “Wow, he really is a dick.”
THIRD: Let’s just say sex was getting less and less frequent and a bit less fun towards the end of my marriage. So, to say I’m hungry would be a bit of an understatement. Attentive might be a better word. I am so ready to make you feel good. Sure, we can get to me in a minute, but let’s just enjoy you for the moment.
FOURTH: By this time, even with a divorce and child support, we should have the money thing dialed in. Sure, there may be some setbacks (heck, I’m in the middle of the biggest one of my adult life right now, but…) along the money trail, but a partner with some history probably has found a way to make a living.
FIFTH: A well-balanced partner with kids and an ex has learned to get rid of the drama and strife. Divorce is one of the biggest stress potentials of our adult lives. So if this partner has their act together, even after a divorce, they’re probably pretty flexible and understanding when it comes to compromise and negotiating wants and needs. An unbalanced divorced parent is pretty easy to identify as well. Listen. Are they complaining about their ex? Do they have more drama than most people? If so you can move right along. But if your divorced partner still has a healthy sense of humor, they are likely to have a positive approach to navigating the path of developing a relationship.
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If we can build our alignment of priorities around our kids health and happiness, then we can both relax when we are able to find time alone as a couple.
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SIXTH: We’re going to understand if you’re too tired for the dinner and dancing plans. So you want to curl up on the couch, watch a romantic comedy and order chinese food? Sure, we get it. We’ll even rub your feet during the movie.
Relationships are not easy. But a divorced dad has a lot of experience under his belt that might come in handy as you too are dealing with parenting and dickish-ex issues. I’m pretty certain my next relationship will be with a divorced mom.
If we can build our alignment of priorities around our kids health and happiness, then we can both relax when we are able to find time alone as a couple. Perhaps that scarcity of time can build and sustain some of the honeymoon phase of the courtship. There is something quite motivating about sexual hunger for someone you are getting to know. Use that energy, prioritize your parenting, and have some fun. After all, we’re still talking about dating, we’re not going to get married or anything. (see What’s This About: Marriage?)
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
@theoffparent
related posts:
- 5 Wonderful and Unexpected Benefits of Being a Serial Monogamist
- The Sensual and the Sexual: Dating After Divorce
- Divorced and Dating Again: What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
- The Malleable Trajectory of Desire in Online Dating
- Sex Rules: the Frequency, the Fun, and the Fantasy
image: always kiss me goodnight, courtney carmody, creative commons usage
Deadbeat Dad Doesn’t Strike Back
This is not a particularly interesting story. It’s more common than we can imagine. And it’s carried out with swift precision and support of the courts and counselors across the country. Women get the kids, men get the bills, and that’s the beginning of the trouble for the single parents. In my state, Texas, 80% of decrees give custody to the mother with the dad getting non-custodial rights and often a hefty child support payment.
I admit, I was depressed and hurting when I was “negotiating” my parenting plan and thus my divorce from the mother of my children. Right in the middle of the negotiations the counselor rightly slowed the process, as I was more and more aware that I did not want a divorce. But a divorce is what my then-wife wanted. And I learned, pretty clearly, that you cannot continue a marriage when only one partner is IN.
Okay, so the story goes along then in common fashion. Dad leaves the house moves in with family until he can get reoriented and settled in his new role. Except there’s one huge new problem. Not only does he have to look for a new home but he’s got a new debt that decreases his opportunities for re-housing. I could forget about moving back into the neighborhood my kids were growing up in. And I agreed to let my ex keep the house “for the kids.” And while that was the right decision, it did not take into account “where Dad would go.” I was sort of on my own.
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It sure stripped away all my pretense of success. I have failed. I have fallen from the “owner’s” status to “living with my mom” and “deadbeat dad” all in the course of a few months.
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Okay, so I struggled with the sadness, the loss of my marriage and closest ally. And the loss of my full-time access to my kids. And the list goes on and on: the loss of my house (which we had proudly purchased on money I had gotten before my marriage); the loss of the pets (I didn’t have a place to keep them); the loss of the neighborhood and community (tennis club, pool, neighborhood friends for my kids). And essentially for about 9 months I was homeless. I was living with my sister, but had zero privacy and very few of my material possessions. They were in the garage of my old house.
The only way out of the situation for me, was to find the next BIG JOB. There was no room for self-employment or consulting if I was going to ever be able to get back into a house. And something about apartment living didn’t resonate with me or my idea of who I had become nearing my 48th year as a man.
Finally, the call came, the big job started and I went looking for a place to live. I was lucky. I had not let enough time lapse between my last big job and my new big job to damage my credit or earning power. I was able to qualify and buy a much more modest house in a nearby neighborhood. And I was happy for a bit.
Six months into the new job, the company restructured and eliminated the entire service offering I had been marketing. And with one week’s severance and no notice I was out. And guess what? I still had my mortgage and my child support payments to cover. And then I was sad for a bit, with this new challenge of faith and ability and willingness to pack in my aspirations and just take whatever job came along.
But the remarkable happened. I didn’t find the next big job. I worked my ass off, sending in resumes, networking, social media-ing (this is what I do for a living) and looking for work. And while I got some contracts and some consulting gigs I have still not been able to replace the BIG JOB income that would allow me to pay my child support AND have a place to live.
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The DEAL I got, the deal that was sold to me by our impartial divorce counselor was the non-custodial parent, who sees his kids less and pays for a good deal of their expenses.
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And this is the situation with a lot of single dads who were given the same deal I got. And a lot of this I covered in my last post (Love, War, Divorce) but the thing that became apparent, when I was reading the comments on my UNFAIR post, was… This is not right.
The assumption that the non-custodial dad will bear the lion’s share of the expenses after the divorce, is simply not equitable. It’s the law. But it’s not fair. And in our case, my ex-wife got a full-time job (her first since we had gotten married) in order to divorce me, and has been able to keep mostly employed this entire time. What a blessing. And with the child support she has been able to keep the nice house in the nice neighborhood. And that’s what I want for my kids too.
The hard part is, I’m burdened by an additional $1,500 per month, even before I get to think about where I can afford to live. With 50/50 parenting it might have been more difficult for her, and thus we are stuck with a dilemma. I want what’s best for my kids over and above even my own needs or living quarters. But I do need to live somewhere. I do need to make enough money to provide food, shelter, and entertainment for my kids when they are with me. Right? It’s hard either way. Two homes is obviously more expensive than one. Where can we find the balance? Sure, I can make more and more money. And today that’s my only option.
But the real issue is, my ex-wife and I are still in this financial boat together. So when she got frustrated with my fluctuating income, and my two months of late payments of “her child support” she filed the whole issue with the Attorney General’s Office, basically threatening me with a lawsuit and (horror of horrors) completely damning my credit rating.
So wait, now I’m a deadbeat dad? In what way was I trying to skip out on my child support? Is it fair for me to have shelter as well? Is there any consideration about where Dad will live with the kids when he has them?
The DEAL I got, the deal that was sold to me by our impartial divorce counselor was the non-custodial parent, who sees his kids less and pays for a good deal of their expenses.
Okay, so I hear the women in the audience groan with each retelling of this story. And the comments on earlier posts bear this out. Women don’t want to hear how hard it is for a man to get by after divorce when his living expenses just doubled. They tell me how hard it is to be a single parent with the majority of the family duties, and very little money to do it all. But wait, that’s the DEAL they got, right? The got the TIME with the kids. So don’t complain to me about how hard that is. I was asking to do it 50/50 just like we discussed our parenting when we were imagining our first child.
I’m a 50/50 dad, but I was sold the non-custodial parent role by a system that favors mom’s in this situation about 80% of the time. And I did not want to FIGHT my ex, I was trying to fulfill a cooperative divorce agreement. We were trying to be non-confrontational. And so I got the bill and she got the kids.
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This is the summer of my discontent, and something will give. And then I will give my ex-wife the money to continue in the lifestyle my kids grew up in, even though I cannot afford to live it with them.
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I don’t know what the right answer is, but 50/50 is where we should’ve started. I should not have had to fight with our well-paid counselor about how 50/50 parenting might make sense for us. And I don’t know what I’m going to do now.
The rest of the story: I lost my house. I tried to file for bankruptcy just to keep the house, and my ex-wife’s AG filing prevented that from working. And I offered to give her a secured loan agreement if she would allow me to move forward, and she threw up her hands and said, “The AG’s Office has said I cannot talk to you about money.”
Fuck. That just about put me in a bind I couldn’t get out of. But I have family here. And my family came and helped me fix up my house and sell it, for a gain. And I moved into a garage apartment on my Mom’s house. Fuck again.
As we liked to joke, “It’s better than being under the bridge.”
Yes, it is better than being under the bridge. Or throwing myself off the bridge in a fit of masculine depressive acting out.
It sure stripped away all my pretense of success. I have failed. I have fallen from the “owner’s” status to “living with my mom” and “deadbeat dad” all in the course of a few months. And this is not how it should’ve gone, nor did it need to go this way. While we are in this together, the money is another issue all together.
Fortunately, my ex-wife and I have agreed to keep the money matters out of our parenting matters. But I fear this issue is about to come to a head, before the kids return to school in the fall. And I’m not sure what my options are. I have had THREE BIG JOBS within spitting distance of an offer and all of them went to someone else. And that’s the way it goes. And I’m even looking to go back to my old BIG CORPORATE GIG where I gained 15 pounds from the grind and stress of the place.
At this point I will do anything necessary to restart my life. I am willing to pay her what she is owed, and not contest the amount, even though it is $20,000 over what she would’ve gotten had it been tied to my actual earnings over this time. But I’m in a catch 22. A: I have to find the next BIG JOB to support her payments and have a half-way descent place to live and B: I could fight for 50/50 custody and not have to pay her any additional child support payments, but then that hurts my kids as she would be pressed even harder to keep their childhood home.
Of course I lost that home a long time ago. And now I’ve lost my do-over home. And I don’t have a home. But again that’s not the point, that’s whining. My actions are what matter. I’ve got more job interviews this week, and a call back from the BIG CORP for next week. This is the summer of my discontent, and something will give. And then I will give my ex-wife the money to continue in the lifestyle my kids grew up in, even though I cannot afford to live it with them.
And I seem to be complaining, but I don’t feel defeated. I’ve had a major setback. And there were lots of factors at play. And not unlike my divorce, I didn’t get what I wanted out of the deal. But everyday I have a chance to make a new deal, set a new plan in motion, get back on the road to recovery. I’m happy I have this insight, because things have been pretty damn hard.
Thanks for listening. Keep coming back, it works if you work it. (12-step rejoinder after a hard sharing)
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
@theoffparent
< back to The Hard Stuff
references:
- How Can I Argue for Joint Custody – DadsDivorce.com
- The Problem with Child Support Laws in Texas – Fathers for Equal Rights
- Child Custody – Facing the Statistics – Benkelaw
related posts:
- my dos equis < poem
- Love, War, Divorce: Why I’m Not Fighting My Ex-Wife About Custody
- Divorce is Not About What’s Fair, Let’s Get That Straight
- Divorce Recovery: Loving Yourself Better, So You Can Eventually Love Again
- Giving Up On Me, and Why I Still Hate What You Did
- Creative Parenting and the Gifts of Enthusiastic Participation
image: veronica lake and joel mcrea — sullivan’s travels , robert huffstutter, creative commons usage
Best and Worst of Father’s Day This Year
Father’s day is always in June and always after the kids are out of school, like an after thought. And maybe it was really just a marketing ploy to sell more Craftsman tools and ties and cologne. I’m not a big fan of any of those things. Oh well…
But father’s day is important to me. My role as DAD is the biggest challenge and joy of my life. And I thought I’d roll up some of my past Father’s day posts and some of the appreciations as well. I’m going to stay on the happy/positive side of the entire discussion. And wish you all happy father’s days, even if you’re moms or kids. Someday my son will celebrate father’s day, and if I’m lucky I’ll get to live to see that.
- A Son’s Sadness on Father’s Day – 2013
- This Father’s Day Is Better Than the Rest – 2012
- Missing My Dad and Becoming a Better Dad on Father’s Day – 2011
- Team Dad, “Even When We Can No Longer Be Together” – 2010
And a few of the rest:
- Fathers Teach Their Daughters What Honest Love Looks Like
- Single Parenting Magic – The SPO Has Given a Happy Moment
- Cherry PopTarts and Love (fathers & daughters in divorce)
- The Good Side of Divorce – Making Things Go Easier
- Just Being Dad Is Enough: A Hot Summer and a Ghost Horse
- Ferris Bueller Gets a Divorce – My Dad’s Divorce Blog – The Movie
- perhaps you were a cat from another country , a poem
And from buzzfeed
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Too Positive, Too Optimistic? A Blind Side.
I really want to blame this last sag on my exey, but it ain’t so. The morass I have just been climbing out of was mine and mine alone. Sure there were some inflection points, post-divorce, that could’ve been mitigated with some cooperation from the exey, but the fail was really mine.
I don’t want to write about this.
My Achilles heel is being too optimistic. And certainly, at times, too forceful in my positive (possibly aggressive) approach to life and problems. I recall the “muse” saying to me, “You’re just about the most positive person I know.” I felt proud of that. But…
Well, occasionally my happy outlook and plans don’t work out the way I hope. (This is everybody, I know.) And this time a few things fell through to make my recent transition much more swift and dramatic than they needed to be. Had I been working a more realistic and pragmatic life program I think I could’ve done a better job and saved myself and my family a bit of heartache.
Again, I’m not talking about the divorce, I’m talking about … money. (Frown.)
Not what I wanted to admit to or blog about, EVER. Of course I have blogged about it, a lot. But I was on the “it’s going to work out” side of every story. It didn’t work out.
Now I’m in regroup mode. My lovely but not ideal house is sold. And I’m in a total rebuilding process. It’s good. It’s going to be better. And there are things I was neglecting. Now, with eyes, open, I’m conscious of bringing down the YES-force a bit, and get back into the “what needs to be done” mode.
New beginnings are always hard and exciting at the same time. I’ve gotten back on the tennis court. I’m about to start Aikido again. And my focus has returned to the loving support of my family, ex-wife included, and how I can best provide for all of us. It’s hard to imagine how intertwined we remain even after the divorce, but it is clear we still need each other.
If I have one Sagittarius trait in spades it is positivism and energy to carry out those plans. But it’s also my weak point. If I put too much faith in my “win” attitude, the losses can set me back more deeply than if I had also been making contingency plans.
Onward.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
Related Posts:
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Dating Etiquette – This Is How I Want It To Be
A STUDY IN DATING ETIQUETTE:
I took my daughter to a Father/Daughter dance this evening. She’s 11 and in 5th grade. And I thought, this is what a “date” is supposed to be like.
Very respectful, interested, open. We talked about a lot of things. Then she ran off with friends and kicked balloons for a while. Then we did some swing dancing lessons. Then she ran off with her friends again. Then she came up to me and gave me the usual, “Daddy, I’m bored.”
We left. On the way home we held hands. I asked her, “Do you want to go get a yogurt, or something?” I was looking to extend our time together.
“Sure.”
“I mean, only if you want to go?”
“I want to go,” she said, with confidence.
That’s the standard I have to look for in my “dating.” We genuinely want to be together. We are interested and interesting. And when the question is asked, “Is that really what you want to do?” The answer is a swift and decisive, “YES.”
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
< back to On Dating Again index
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Tell Me Again, Why You Think This Is a Good Idea?
So you sued me. Um… For the last six months, you won’t talk to me, other than texts and emails. Okay. I think it’s a terrible idea, but okay.
Money has never been easy to talk about for me and the ex. And the awful realization, probably for both of us, is even in divorce we are strapped in the same financial boat together, for the duration of our kids’ young lives. Ack. It doesn’t have to be terrible, or adversarial, and it didn’t start out that way, until this summer.
The economy… Yadda yadda. My primary contract hit a snag in April, and my income was cut in half. And I have been working in a number of ways to replace that gap since even applying for full-time gigs and giving up my on-going business development. Everything is on the table. I’m scrambling.
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The reality was that our two household family unit, required even more money than when we were married.
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When we defined our agreement I was anticipating a quick-hire, buy a company that was “working up an offer” for approximately 80k per year. (great money if you can get it) The contract didn’t go through, but my divorce did, and I agreed to child support payments in the amount that would be in-line with that income level. The problem is, I have not yet achieved that income level since, at least not for more than 6 months at a time.
Okay, so, as things are getting REALLY tight, I let the ex know that I was going to get behind, but that I was going to keep her informed of my income and potential to pay as soon as I had the information. This did not go over well.
I understand.
She too has bills to pay, and her projections were based on counting on my support. I was apologetic, but I didn’t have an answer to her question. The question she began to hammer home week after week. “When” and “How much?”
So I was sliding, unwillingly, down the slippery slope towards becoming a deadbeat dad. The reality was that our two household family unit, required even more money than when we were married, and she was as dependant on my job as she had been when we were married. The fact that she was still living in the very nice house in the very nice neighborhood was a bit of a sore subject, but I wanted what was best for my kids. And uprooting them during the divorce, three+ years ago, was not an option that either the ex or I considered reasonable.
Today, however, the kids are older, well-adapted to the divorce routine, and she is sitting on a house that is nearly double what mine is worth, in today’s hot market. So she’s got that as an option. But let’s go back to early summer.
As the first month behind wore on my ex-y’s patience also began to fray. Her emails became more accusatory and demanding. I even started taking them into my talky therapist to see if he could help me parse out the anger from the request. With his help, I tried to craft week-after-week reasonable responses to her requests. The demand for payment or an exact payment schedule was not something I could produce. And I kept looking for work.
During the second month (again I am behind, it is my fault) she began to rattle a different saber at me. She started mentioning the Attorney General’s office. As in “maybe it would be best just to turn the whole thing over to the AG’s office and you can sort it out with them.”
My initial reaction was disbelief. I was not hiding anything from her. In fact, my talky therapist and I agreed that giving her a weekly update would alleviate some of her anxiety and stress. We were wrong. She wanted her money and now was prepared to turn me over to the state.
At this point, I took my first defensive posture of the entire process. I told her, “If you do this, I will want to go back and review what our decree said and how much I was agreeing to pay you and reset that amount based on what I actually made.” But I was asking her not to take such an adversarial position, I was trying to give her information and updates, but I could not agree to a timeline and budget that I had no idea how I could project or meet.
She presses on and says she’s going to file. I do a rough (and very conservative) review of what I had actually made in three years and that initial 80k per-year estimate that my child support was calculated on. I sent her my back-of-the-napkin calculations showing I had over-paid her 16k over three years. And again, asked her to reconsider filing against me with the state. I was happy to give her all the information I had.
She took my calculation and plea as a threat. Again, never once, did I dispute the amount she was owed, nor say that I was not going to pay all of it when I had the means. But at this point, I had missed a mortgage payment as well and was taking action to try to prevent losing my house.
In a seminal email in August, one day before my house was to be foreclosed on, she asked, “Any update on your house?” It seemed like a caring question. I reported back that Wells Fargo had given me another 30-days to provide additional proof of income. Five minutes later her reply came.
“I know this is bad timing for you, but I filed with the AG’s office, today.”
The story continues: Can Things Get Worse? Yes, Easy!
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
< back to The Hard Stuff pages
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Candy Crush in Co-Parenting: Here Comes Halloween
Let’s get straight to my complaint: sugar is poison and a highly potent drug. Your kids are susceptible to its powers. I mean, who’s not susceptible to chocolate? And when my kids arrive with large bags of candy, three weeks before Halloween, I need to have a talk with their mom.
I have a love hate relationship to candy. I love it. I hate what it does to my brain, my cravings, and my body. But in my little nuclear family, I am the only one with a weight problem. I work to keep from getting fat. So when my then-wife would bring home junk food for the kids, and the costco bags of candy, I would not be happy. For me personally it felt like an assault. Maybe it wasn’t passive aggressive, but it wasn’t healthy parenting either. I control the candy in my single-parenting life. For myself first, but also for my kids.
So, almost three weeks before the holy grail of candy, Halloween, for my kids to show up at my house with literal bags of candy… well, I am not pleased. And I’ve had a few too many sweet-tarts at the moment, so I’m cranky too.
Why would you EVER buy your kids a 12-pak of Dr. Pepper? Even when they profess their undying love for the elixer, and promise to do chores, homework, and brush their teeth “without a fuss” every single day.
“Please, dad. Please,” they plead in the store. And then the inevitable, “Why not?”
I’m not saying it’s bad to occasionally give in. But as a routine, having sodas and candy and junky food in the house is not good for your kids. And they have a lot less self-control than we do, as adults. At least that should be the case. When candy or ice cream is around, in my house, that’s not the case. I am an addict.
So… Here comes Halloween, and I think this year the kids are with me, for the first time in a long time. WHOOPEE. And they were already saying, “Yep, Dad, time to get some candy for Halloween.” But with me, they knew it was a joke, and didn’t expect it to happen. I’m not in control of what happens when they are with their mom, but I get from them, that it’s not a big deal.
Sure they know candy and sugar is bad for them. And my ex-y has been great at explaining to our son, who suffers fairly severely from seasonal allergies, that sugar hurts your body’s ability to deal with your stopped up nose and achey head. AND THEN SHE BUYS THEM BAGS OF CANDY. WHAT?
Okay, so my two kids and my beautiful ex-wife do not have weight problems. In fact, in some cases I’d say it’s the opposite, we have to make sure they are eating enough. An occasional candy bar, or slurpee isn’t going to trip the scales for any of them. So that argument isn’t valid for them. But it sure was for me.
I’m still getting better about food, but I’ve eliminated candy, sodas, and junk food almost entirely from my house. And I’m working to become a better cook, for myself and my kids. Our health depends on it.
So we enter Halloween season with bags of candy. And I guess this is an opportunity to continue the discussion with them about candy, health, and brushing their teeth. But it should be a holiday and not a season of sweets. I’ll talk to their mom about these early bags. Bags! Of! Candy!
I’ll be positive about it. I’ll let it be the babysitter’s fault. But I can’t just let it go. I owe it to myself and my kids to stand up against what I know is a bad idea, regardless of body fat composition. Their mom and I are on the same page about sugar, but we’re on different planets about the availability and consumption of it.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
< back to The Hard Stuff pages
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Happy Mom Chat About How I Got Here: What I Figured Out
I took lunch to my mom’s house today, just to stop by and say hi. We talked about this blog for a bit.
See my ex-y left some sort of message about something I was doing that was damaging my family. My mom wanted to know what it was. I showed her The Off Parent and explained how it was anonymous.
“But it’s on Facebook,” she said.
“Yes, but it’s not connected to me in any way. I don’t even LIKE my own page.”
She was happy with my explanation. And she said something next that brought the conversation to a different place.
“I’m glad to see you taking a different path than your father.”
She went on to tell me about how he once told her that she was the reason he drank. “So, I told him I wouldn’t be that reason any more.”
We talked about my dad and how he went on to marry another drinker and eventually drank himself and her to death. And I told her, that her survival after the divorce had colored a lot of my childhood, and probably formed a good portion of my personality. She was always quoted as saying, “I’m turning X’s into plusses.” And that’s kind of a maxim that I have learned to live by.
Even as things got hard for us, back in my elementary through high school years, she would keep us pointed at the good side of the situation. A lot of the time I thought it was bullshit. Just a way of escaping some of the pain of the moment. But eventually I heard myself using the exact same phrase when talking to myself about bad situations.
I told my mom about how this blog had given me a voice, a place to process the anger and frustration at the divorce. And how eventually those parts of the blog began to subside and a new part of the story began to emerge. As I transitioned out of anger, depression, and divorce mechanics, I started moving into how to turn this major X into a major WIN.
The divorce is the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my life, and I’m 50 years old. What ripped through my safety and joy has now become the fire that has burned away the bullshit and brought me down to WHAT’S IMPORTANT.
Here’s what I figured out about the positive side of this blog, and the positive part of the divorce, for me.
1. Self-care. Physical and mental health are a full-time process for me. While I’ve never had a substance problem, I have used the 12-step program for various parts of my recovery. What I am working on is EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY.
2. Kids First. There is nothing in my life more important than the love and support of my children. Keeping them safe from the bitterness and anger that could’ve erupted in my divorce was always part of my agreement with their mom.
3. 100% Positive. While there are plenty of times I’m angry with their mom, there is NEVER any reason to voice those complaints to my kids. I remember how horrible my dad was at speaking about my mom. And of course, she was doing only a little better at voicing the victim side of the horror. And it was pretty bad. Eventually, in high school my dad began taking it out on me, saying that the divorce was my fault and saying that I didn’t love him. These will never be words that my kids hear from me. And I believe the ex-y has the same intention.
4. Lead With Love. I may not be in love with their mother, but I will never stop loving her. It’s often that love that turns to bitterness and hate when it’s flipped around. But I won’t ever go there. She is gone. She is someone else’s. And I can do better each day remembering the relationship of the divorce is about my kids. And if she’s happier, they will benefit.
I don’t always get it right, but I keep trying to return to these principles. And as my ex-y has now turned me over to the Attorney General’s office I guess we will see what it’s like trying to abide by these principles while she is suing me. I imagine that she is doing the best she knows how. At least, I suppose, she will know with the bankruptcy that I’m filing, that I’m not secretly stashing money away, or trying to keep her from child support payments.
Even in cutting off most of the conversation between us, I think she must be doing that for some personal, self-preservational reasons, rather than hate at me. We’ve got these great kids. And we do everything we can to support and encourage them. If she no longer wants to sit face-to-face to map out some plans with me, that’s okay. I guess we go back to emailing each other. That worked some while we were married.
And I’ll keep mapping my own path along this journey here. Turning my ex into a plus.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Moving Forward and Reassessing In The Moment After a Breakup
So, how am I doing? (The photo represents my current location on the path of life. Each day we have an opportunity to travel down the path of GOOD (San Juan = Saint John) or the path of MAD (De Vaca = Cow Path). Each day I make a conscious choice to find the good side is a day that I am happier, my kids are happier, and by extension, even my ex-wife is happier.
I wanted to take a moment of pause to look back over three years of processing my divorce through The Off Parent and see what I can learn about myself, about the changes I’ve made, and the growth I still need to keep aspiring towards. Self-observation has been the most powerful tool I’ve had in my healing and recovery. This blog is a reflection of that process, and thus a good opportunity for illumination.
Intention: I am not here to make you feel better. I am here to get it out. I am here to share my journey. To make me feel better. But mostly to FEEL THROUGH this bitter, enlightening, transformative experience. (from my about statement)
Major Topics Content Mix:
Anger – 44
Dating – 92
Depression – 39
Divorce – 115
Kids – 41
Love – 43
Marriage – 35
Money – 26
Poetry – 41
Self-care – 34
Single Parenting – 30
Stepping back the progression and change seems clear. I can see how this blog afforded me a sort of Divorce Recovery Roadmap.
As I began to ascend from the darkness of depression and anger, the energy also opened up and allowed more hopeful ideas to enter my daily activities. My recovery and my kids’ health became priorities in my life by year two, and more recently, in this last year, I have found myself ever more arching towards a next relationship and the imagining of what that might look like.
So, according to me, I’ve moved from the darker parts of divorce toward the hopefulness of dating again and aspiring towards simpler and healthier relationships with my ex-wife. I don’t think I will leave any of the elements along this path behind. There will be days when I’m angry or sad. But as I can direct my life and thoughts more towards the aspirational parts of the process, the happier I will become.
Without this blog, I don’t know that I would’ve had the outlet for the anger. And for me, that’s one of the issues I struggled with during my marriage. I was “too nice” most of the time. And I sublimated my own needs and desire in the name of being a loving husband and good father. But the anger is power, in some circumstances. And even pushing it somewhere else (overeating, acting out, rage) doesn’t really get rid of it.
There’s a great phrase from Reshad Feild that often helps me remember to deal and open up to the anger.
“There is no time to slay the dragon. The dragon is your friend.”
In fact, during a highly creative and emotional time, about six months ago I went through a “tattoo desire” phase. I was certain that some ink would help establish my new creative promise, and my own promise to myself, never to sublimate my joy, sadness, or any other emotion. Ultimately I purchased a package of temporary tattoos of the design I created from a drawing off the web. Here’s what it would’ve looked like.
The beautiful part is, I can have the tattoo anytime I want. To make the statement. But on days when I’m no longer in that mode, I am just fine with the fade and loss of the tattoo dragon.
To summarize: I have moved from anger and bitter darkness towards dreams of doing it all again. Better, smarter, and with more self-awareness, but getting back out there and giving my heart another chance to connect and soar. That’s what most of the poetry is about. Imagining poetry on the left side of the recovery path would yield a very different voice. I prefer aspirational love poems. And with that, The Off Parent has been transformed into the Poet of #Desire.
So yes, I’d say, this has been an amazing journey. Goal setting for Year 4 is next.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
Reference: Steps to Freedom
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Separating Stories and Seeking Purpose After Divorce with Kids
It’s time to sort this story and pull apart the tasty bits, throw away the vitriol, and find the pure “off parent” story. Like pulling apart the colorful threads that are bound together in a rope, if you begin to separate the various issues you can focus and perhaps solve them independently. As a whole, the strength of the problem is overwhelming and seemingly unsolvable. But taken as smaller parts, with diligence, you can find your way into a solution, or at least resolution.
In looking back at the three years since my divorce, I see how this writing journey became an important part of my recovery of self. As I was able to articulate the pain/joy/struggle of finding myself alone again I gave voice to my own recovery. What started in anger and confusion, has risen through many ups and downs into something of an anthem to self-examination and (in my humble opinion) victory.
And all the parts of this expression have formed who I have become, as I walked, crawled, cried, and sang through my journey back to wholeness. As I reflect on the content now, I see some very distinct threads.
- Divorce Process, Mechanics, and Resolution
- Kids, Parenting, Single-parenting, Fathering
- Pure Anger and Bitterness
- Depression, Loss, and Recovery from Depression
- Dating, Desire, Sex, Relationship Journey
- Poetry of Desire, Loss, and Aspiration
Assessing the strength of this rope, I see one “voice” that needs to go away. (Not be deleted, but not be encouraged either.) The vitriol and black anger that has come out may have felt justified and righteous at the start of my fall from the family as it previously existed, it does nothing but feeds on itself and stir up more of itself. Time to acknowledge it and move on. Turn it over to a higher power, if you’d like a platitude. There is no growth or healing from bitter focus. It is a step you must pass through. The hope is you move through it with great passion and without much damage to yourself or (more importantly) others. Even your ex does not deserve the vile that is likely to come up. But get it up and out, you must. In my case, this blog was started with that bitter voice. Titty dancers, Fuck Yous, and “You really fucked up,” all formed some of the energy that got me started.
Next on the list of “maybe this should go somewhere else” are the aspirational love poems. While they too have given me great hope and insight into my dreams and desires, AND they are part of the divorce/recovery journey, perhaps their song should be published elsewhere. As part of a divorce story, they are tinted by the rest of the rope. But pulled away from the whole, perhaps those prayers, laments, and songs will gain a lightness. I believe they belong here, but I also know that I was probably publishing them here because of the audience that has developed.
And finally, the exciting part for me, the Single-parenting content. (Here’s a prime example: Just Being Dad Is Enough: A Hot Summer and a Ghost Horse) This thread runs brightly through the narrative as it unfolded, but the energy and focus were always mixed with the other “colors” of the writing. How could I be bitching and praising their mom in the same place, much less the same post?
The first vacation (alone) to the beach with my kids was an eye-opening experience. And the joy that emerged on that first journey was one of strength and hopefulness. And the idea for The Whole Father emerged. I wasn’t ready, at that time, to really begin imagining myself as a teacher or model father; I’m still not.
But, the awareness that was so exciting to me was this. In getting divorced we have to regain skills, chores, and parts of our whole selves that we had parsed off to the other parent. My ex was really great at the beach. She loved it. She loved shepherding the kids and giving me some hours to lounge, sleep, read, whatever… But without her, there would be no downtime. I had to up my game. I had to become more whole again and recapture and rework those parts of myself that had been languishing.
This was a wonderful insight. And today, I’m going to begin expanding that concept and giving voice to The Whole Father as a new blog for all the positive and negative aspects of becoming a single-dad and having to learn all over again how to be a parent. I had to fill myself back up enough to become whole again, and while I had the vision early on, it is only now that I feel competent enough to expand on that gift and road to discovery.
So I’m not leaving The Off Parent behind. But I do think there are other places for me to find joy and focus, and perhaps the weight of the “off-ness” is heavier than it needs to be for poetry or joyful single-parenting. That’s where I’m headed.
Here’s the first post: A Return to Wholeness After Divorce | The Whole Parent
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Marriage and Money: A Fairy Tale
Maybe I seemed rich to the first two women who became my wives. Perhaps my downtown condo and simple lifestyle appeared to be something other than it was. I had/have potential, yes, but the real world has a way of changing the game on you, frequently and with indiscriminate outcomes. Maybe the fairy tale went something like this:
- Marry a fine gentleman of money.
- Have children in a nice house in a top school district.
- Stay home and work on parenting and yoga.
- Hire weekly housekeeper and part-time nanny.
- Live happily ever after.
Something always changes. And when the plans were reset in both marriages, the “stay and home and live the life” part didn’t work out as planned. I had hopes. I had means, during various periods in my life. I still have promise and opportunity. To hone in on the mother of my children, there was never any resistance to working. In fact, for much of the early stages of our relationship, she made more money than me. (Yay!) And we had a coordinated idea of how we would finance the children and give her the “stay at home” life, as much as possible. We both agreed, we would like one of us (Mom) to meet the bus when the kids began going to school. And when they were infants, well, of course, she would stay at home with them. That’s how we imagined it.
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The fact that my dad died of a 4th heart attack and cancer at the age of 55 is not lost on me. But my dad had problems. Mistakes I learned from. Fears I’ve recoiled from. And a devastating divorce I have striven not to repeat.
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For the most part, the birthing and getting to school-aged progeny worked. There were some tumbles, mainly 9-11, but we soldiered through, as a family. And reached the “meet them at the bus” stage without too much damage to our credit scores. But the dream (examples set by so many lucky wives in our upscale neighborhood) was not fully realised.
She did have to return to part-time work. We still maintained the nanny and housekeeper, but mid-day yoga classes would have to wait. (Bummer.) And I was bummed. I thought that the dream I saw paraded in the HEB and at our kid’s schools, the cars, the house, the fit-happy-zen wife, was supposed to be within my earnings. I needed to earn a bit more.
So I traveled the big corporate route, to seek relief, for my suffering and the suffering of my family. But even that wasn’t fulfilling the dream. Sure 20-hrs a week beats 50+ with a 2-hour daily commute, but it wasn’t a competition, it was cooperation. Still, the dream was suffering. I was suffering. I think the wife was suffering. My suffering had to do with my childhood and my father’s extraordinary success. And through many gross legal stories, 15 years after his death, my inheritance was null and void. But I grew up in the most famous house in our town. While things were never very happy there, the outside world must’ve thought we were living the high life.
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While I was hammering away and being hammered from both the job and the wife, she was actually losing money? Tough times, yes, but perhaps her encouragement of my career had just a twinge of self-motivation behind it.
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Aspire as I might, I won’t likely achieve the financial riches my father accomplished by the time he was 40. The fact that he died of a 4th heart attack and cancer at the age of 55 is also not lost on me. But my dad had problems. Mistakes I learned from. Fears I’ve recoiled from. And a devastating divorce I have striven not to repeat.
Back to me and the ex-y. So, things change. The big corporate job (which had be getting grayer and fatter by the week) went through a major contraction in anticipation of the 2009-2010 financial collapse.
While I saw this as a golden moment to redefine our lifestyles and priorities, my then wife, was panicked. And the road ahead WAS hard. But I imagined that together we would survive and ultimately thrive again. Of course, the economy was hard for everyone, not just us. And the job market was fragmented and getting more ageist by the year. What had been an asset (we’re hiring you for some of your wisdom) became a badge of failure.
I was heading towards 50 and interviewing with 30 year olds. My gray hair had to go. And on the financial front, things didn’t work out as planned there either. The ex-y was fired just days after the big corporate layoff was announced. The good news: my fat corporate job provided for 6-months at full-pay, with benefits, and 70% of my annual bonus. The bad news: with the ex-y out of work that windfall would be eaten away in three months.
Okay, so the work was set out for us. And it was hard. COBRA payments for child insurance are very high. Occasionally we were paying almost as much for our mortgage. And the job hunt was challenging. At one point, nearing a crisis, I sold most of my music equipment to make a couple of mortgage payments. (It was a bit like O’Henry’s story, but I wouldn’t know that until later.) Dark times.
And then another fat corporate job came through, for me. This time with even more promise and excitement than before. The ex-y went through some kind of mid-life work reassessment and fished around for multiple job ideas, considered going back to school to learn to code. I shipped off to San Francisco on my first day on the job, to meet the creative team I would be joining. The relief didn’t really come soon enough.
The ex-y was fighting with me on the phone, during my second day in San Francisco. She was demanding to know when the insurance would kickin when I would get my first full check, and why I had put the room on my credit card. Sure, she was feeling the heat. And sure, she had been paying the bills over the previous six months, while looking for herself and satisfying work. (That’s what we all want, isn’t it, “satisfying work?”) B
ut the proof came out later, something I was unaware of, being focused on breadwinning and not the daily bread. When we pulled the information together for the last year of our joint tax return she actually had a negative contribution to the family budget. WHAT? While I was hammering away and being hammered from both the job and the wife, she was actually losing money?
Tough times, yes, but perhaps her encouragement of my career had just a twinge of self-motivation behind it. See, if I would just get that big corporate job again, we could return to normal, “meet the bus after school” part-time livin. Except that’s not what happened.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
An earlier run at the Stay At Home Mom story
Note: After an early morning chat with my talky therapist, I’ve come up with a catch phrase to frame the renewed attitude of detachment from my ex-y and her future struggles. “Oh, I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you.” It’s more compassion than I ever got from her while I was struggling, and certainly more than I got yesterday. I guess I have to consider the worst outcome and at least have that in mind. I suppose she could have me thrown in jail for not giving her the money I don’t have. I’m already skating above bankruptcy and just trying to keep a roof over my head and the heads of my children. But I suppose she might do it.
< back to The Hard Stuff pages
related posts:
- I Was a Happily Married Man, and Now I’m Not: Tiny Hints of Doom
- My Divorce: A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory
- Waiting for the Other Person to Change
- Love, War, Divorce: Why I’m Not Fighting My Ex-Wife About Custody
resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
And a wonderful song about it all from Blur, Country House.
click for video
Maybe My Unhappy Ex-Wife Is Simply Unhappy
Last night I attended back-to-school night for my son. And of course, the ex was there. And I had a big realization, as I was looking over at her, she just looked unhappy. At rest, she looked unhappy. Glued to her text messaging phone, she looked unhappy. Any time she wasn’t being engaged by another parent, she looked unhappy. And a lyric from a recent favorite song came to mind
You’ve got that special kind of sadness
You’ve got that tragic set of charms
And it occurred to me, perhaps that’s part of what I was drawn to, back in the day. Not a rescue, per se, but someone who might need me. UG! Let’s update that bad idea and move forward.
This morning she sent a check-in email. And completed it with this sentence. “Any news on your house?” I had been threatened with foreclosure by Wells Fargo and the date for the sale was yesterday.
I replied that I had been given an additional 30-days to complete the paperwork, crisis temporarily averted. And things are looking up.
Her next response was more to the point. “I know it’s terrible timing for you, but I had to go ahead and file with the AG.” Oh, yay. So, the logic goes, he didn’t have to declare bankruptcy, let’s start drilling for child support. There is no question that I owe her the money, I’ve never asked for a reduction or said I wasn’t going to pay. Still…
Okay, so the one good outcome I can see from this. I will not accept or respond to another money email again. We put the AG’s office between us. But I tell ya, unless she’s going to start having me arrested, there is no extra money here. I’m not hiding anything. I’m working and looking for work. And I really don’t mean to be whining, but perhaps I am. Busting ass to get back on the high-level of earning that I’m used to, and I’ll get there. Today, that is not her concern.
Well, let’s see how this progresses from here.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
< back to The Hard Stuff pages
related posts:
- My Divorce: A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory
- Waiting for the Other Person to Change
- Love, War, Divorce: Why I’m Not Fighting My Ex-Wife About Custody
- Terms of Surrender: Our Divorce Papers
- No Divorce Expert: But If You Parent 50/50 You Should Divorce 50/50
resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
Some stronger lyrics to express my goodbye to the drama.
So break me down, if it makes you feel right
And hate me now if it keeps you all right, so,
You can’t break me down if takes all your might
Cause I’m so much more, than all your lies!
Gone. A Pause at Summer’s End.
And out of the clear blue sky, it is gone, and I am sad.
It’s been a great summer. Through many challenges and growth opportunities, but we made it. And with the school drop off today, after a three-day weekend, I find myself struggling to maintain momentum. I’ve got plenty of work to do, so it’s not lack of requirements. It’s something else.
Little reminders of the loss of my children sometimes sneak up on me when I’m not paying attention. And the coffee doesn’t stave off the bummed out feelings. The nap that sounds like an escape is really just a temporary sedation.
In divorce you lose everything.
Maybe this is preparation for the empty nest that’s at least 5 years away. Or this is just part of being a single parent with less than half-time custody. But I’m not sure it’s about custody, or schedules, or even the divorce. I think it’s me. My sadness. My losses. The grip of my daughter’s hand as we walk into Starbucks for her lunch sandwich. Those things that we take for granted, the ever-present child, is stolen away by the changes required by divorce.
And as always, it is a growth opportunity to me. It is a moment to pause and reflect. Remember not to fall into soulful revery and sadness. And pickup with the work to be done. But the pause IS important.
This is what we’ve lost.
And with so much to gain from the newly available time, the nights and weekends “off,” the opportunities to find what makes us GO again, there are still these little pauses, setbacks, to remember our own pain. And to walk on into what’s next.
This is not about them. It’s not about her. It’s about me.
The journey is long. And, for the most part, we travel alone. And we have choices about how we move and grow with the changes, losses, and new wins in our lives.
Time for a walk in the sun. The work will get done. The days will grow shorter. And another chapter is waiting to be created.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
< back to The Hard Stuff pages
related posts:
- Of Course You’re Not Happy With Me, We’re Divorced
- Losing Touch in the Off Times
- On the Turning Away: Fighting with Your Ex About Money
- You Know They’re Watching You, Right?
- The Divorce Whisperer
resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
DIVORCE: What I Need To Tell You: Take Heart. It Gets Better.
I’m happy.
My posts/poems about desire are really about hoping and striving towards “what’s next.”
I had a friend ping me on Facebook yesterday after reading one of my poems. She said, “They make me so sad for you.” I was surprised. But I can understand how things might come off that way, especially if you are entering The Off Parent from one of the more emotional posts. But I want to be clear, this is a process, and this blog is large enough to contain the anger, the depression, the joy, the thrill of new relationships, and the frustration at dealing with a woman who no longer thinks I’m hot shit. (That’s okay, it’s mutual.) Overall, the picture I am hoping to paint… WAIT. That’s not the idea. I’m not trying to put a bow around the process of divorce. Let’s try again.
I would not want Divorce for ANYONE. That said, my divorce, has become one of the defining and re-defining moments of my life. I would not say I wanted the divorce, or that it was MY idea… BUT… I was starting to stand up for a situation that had become unbearable for me.
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The points of leverage changed dramatically when she let me know, in therapy, that she HAD consulted an attorney.
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The difference between my ex-wife’s perspective and mine was minor. Critical, but minor. In the large scheme of things, I was also demanding a change.
MY PERSPECTIVE: this demand was the only way I had to effect change from within my marriage. I was arguing and demanding answers to some dark questions from the perspective that I WANTED THE MARRIAGE TO CONTINUE.
HER PERSPECTIVE: (somewhat paraphrased, but we went over it a number of times in therapy, so I’m not putting words into her mouth) she was unhappy with the marriage and saw no signs of things changing or getting better, thus it was better for her to move to something different.
The points of leverage changed dramatically when she let me know, in therapy, that she HAD consulted an attorney. I was crushed and panicked, but unsurprised. The anger she had been demonstrating in action and words over the previous 12 months had all but wrecked my positive outlook. And this admission, only revealed by my direct ask, “Have you already been to see a lawyer?” When she said yes, I just about hit the eject button right there. I did the sober thing, and expressed my dismay in a rational manner and left the session feeling absolutely lost about what to do next.
In the process of the next few days, primarily via email, I ranted and demanded she make a decision. She demurred and deflected for a couple of days. But in the end I was asked to leave the house and give her some space, so relief from the stress and tension she and the kids were experiencing. Um, what?
In the end, I refused. It was March. My line, “The process of divorce takes time. There is no hurry. And I’m not going to throw my kid’s lives into this hell before the school year is up. We’ve been living as roommates for a year, we can do it for another two months. We can split sleeping on the couch.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, in my rapidly crashing heart, I was certain she would see the error of her ways and come back. I knew, however, in my rational mind, that this was not going to happen.
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Today, three years later, I am happy. Alone. But happy. And I won’t pass judgement on her and the boyfriend who has given her strength and steadiness.
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A few sessions before the hammer fell the therapist had asked a pivotal question, “How do you feel about the marriage and this process at this point.”
I went first. “Hopeful.”
Her word, and I knew more than I wanted to admit actually how hopeless I was feeling, was “Cynical.”
Fuck.
I think that was the beginning of my revelation into the darkness that now separated the two of us. It was different for each of us. But the pain, sadness, and anger was just a potent for each of us. I like to think I was on the optimist-side of the whole deal, but I was pretty disheartened.
All that said… as water under the bridge…
Today, three years later, I am happy. Alone. But happy. And I won’t pass judgement on her and the boyfriend who has given her strength and steadiness. My daughter likes him. That’s enough for me.
As I cursed, raged, pleaded, and cried at my wife trying to get her to come back to the marriage, I was also certain that I could not do it alone. Two people have to be IN for a marriage to work. So she exited before me. Probably, maybe, that whole year of blinding anger, was really her way of trying to help ME exit. But I’m projecting now.
When the agreement was made to divorce I also demanded the right to stay in the house until the kids were out of school. A shitty-hard decision, but I did not want to reenact the gross and bitter divorce struggle of my parents. And it was my argument, even against the therapist, that remaining in the house while the kids finished their 1st and 4th grade years at elementary school was much better than me leaving the house immediately.
Take heart. It gets better.
And today, I would assure you that my kids are thriving. And while the ex-y and I don’t communicate much, we have kids who love both of us and are seeing how we can still care about each other while moving in new directions with our lives.
So as I write poems about being “a poet rather than a player” I mean to be happy about it. This journey has taken some amazingly wonderful turns. And the next one is coming right up.
Sincerely,
John McElhenney – life coach austin texas
Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | @theoffparent
As a certified life coach, I’ve been helping men and women find fulfilling relationships. If you’d like to chat for 30-minutes about your dating/relationship challenges, I always give the first 30-session away for free. LEARN ABOUT COACHING WITH JOHN. There are no obligations to continue. But I get excited every time I talk to someone new. I can offer new perspectives and experiences from my post-divorce dating journey. Most of all, I can offer hope.
related posts:
- The Divorce Whisperer
- On the Turning Away: Fighting with Your Ex About Money
- Re-finding My Dick After Divorce
- The Light At the End of the Tunnel, It’s Yours
resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
image: broken dreams, brandon satterwhite, creative commons usage
Last Good Moment Before the Storm: Rockstar Fantasy Camp
It may have been the last good day of my marriage. Though I can see from my weight that I was stressed beyond belief. And it was only a few months later that I sold the prized Strat I was playing, along with several thousand dollars worth of music gear, that seemed to be saying, GROW UP, get a real job, forget this hobby of yours.
We pulled up out of the debt crisis and I landed a job just before Christmas, that put us back in the black for a few short months.
This was the last time my band played live. And it was the first time in 4 or so years. Of course I had given up the rock star dream many years ago, but the dream-fragments linger long. And what I am learning now, is my passion to write, sing, and perform live music is a CORE piece of my happiness.
As I was struggling to understand my parents hateful divorce and my dad’s drift even further away from us kids, and further into alcoholism, I turned to Lou Reed and the Ramones to express my anger. But something else was happening in the basement room that became my “studio.” I was learning how powerful music could be in my life. I have never mentally left that tiny room-of-my-own where I played Lou Reed’s Vicious, over and over and over with various friends holding down whatever instrumental duties they could muster.
Ears ringing we would emerge dazed, but somewhat empowered, by our ability to make a cacophony of notes organize into the semblance of a song. The first SONG I wrote was just before I checked into a mental hospital for a bit of aberrant behavior in my teens. It became an anthem, even for my friends who supported and stood by me during this difficult period. It was called The Shoal Creek Blues. (The name of the kid’s ward was Shoal Creek.) The second song I wrote was a bit more direct.
You’re gonna die, you’re gonna die
Like an animal
While the first one captured the ennui I was experiencing the summer my life came apart, the first time. The second one captured the anger I felt at how things were not going according to any plan I was offered growing up.
I can almost recall the melody to the first one. And I can sing “Die Like An Animal” right now, though I’ve never recorded either of them.
As I was selling my musical instruments to make a couple mortgage payments, and the ex-y and I were looking at “options” I now know that her total contributed income that year, after deducting expenses, was LESS THAN ZERO.
So, can I infer from that, that the money stress that was killing our marriage, was MY FAULT? Or, now in hindsight, can I see that she was hammering me to get it together, and “looking for a job” herself, but the selling of my musical gear was… (I’ll leave that thought right there.)
So after the hardest economic period of my marriage (because we had burned through any money from the sale of my condo – owned before marriage) I finally landed a job with a company that seemed ready to finally fulfill some of my economic promise, and reward me for the hard work I had been doing trying to launch this social media consulting thing for three years. So after that…
I was in San Francisco the first week of my hire. I was amazed that things had happened so fast, but I’d gotten a competing offer from Dell and this new company snatched me up and whisked me off to CA to introduce me and get me oriented to my new team. It seemed like a win to me.
The ex-y was also relieved, but her response was very different. Within 24-hours of hitting San Francisco we were fighting about money. And she was hammering me about when the new insurance would kick in so we could stop paying COBRA (from my last job) on the insurance for the family.
No honeymoon. No celebration. Just “where’s the fucking money?” At least that’s how it felt. Of course she was in a more feral position. She was probably feeling backed into a corner with me, the now “sometimes reliable” breadwinner. And IF she had been looking for work, that had not turned out as easy as she imagined it would. She hadn’t submitted a resume since right after college.
Well, things at the new SF company were not as they had been presented. It was hard. Not only was my then-wife giving me hell, my new manager, the Creative Director of this “life saving” job, had indeed approved my HIRE, but he was not happy about it. Apparently I had been strong-armed onboard by the new CMO-CTO a former colleague at Dell.
He was uncooperative from the moment my plan was delayed in LA en-route to SF. And things went from hello to fuck you pretty quickly. Still, I felt, under the wing of my former colleague and the head of this company’s social media division, I would weather any asshole’s diabolical plan.
In the meantime, things at home did not lighten up. I recall a phone conversation I had with the ex-y a few days after I’d arrived in SF.
“You should come to San Francisco and meet everyone. We could have a second honeymoon. My mom said she’d take the kids.”
“We can’t afford it.”
“We can figure that out. We need some together time. We need some vacation.”
“It would not be a vacation to me. It would be insanity.”
There you go. Two very different approaches to life. On a collision course through marriage to hit the iceberg. Well, I did not see it. She was drawing maps to the lifeboats.
Still, that summer before I had demanded, again on the promise of a NEW CONTRACT GIG that was paying me well.
“I’d like to go play the California festival this summer. They’ve asked me.”
“We can’t really afford that.”
“And I’d like you and the kids to come with me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
I’m not sure if it was or was not a good idea, but my daughter still remembers seeing me live on stage doing my thing. And we swam and swam in the pool, and went to Legoland. For me, it was a lifetime achievement. I’m not sure what the ex-y was calculating or thinking about when she didn’t join us in the pool. But I’d have to say, it was the last great moment, even as she was disconnecting from me and my rocket ship of a dream, and occasional free fall when the experimental engines failed.
I believe, that’s part of life. Rocketing when you have reliable employment and fuel and momentum. Recovery and rebuilding when you don’t.
During the last refueling stop, after this trip to California, when she had “amazingly” still not found a job and the SURE THING CONTRACT company had actually fired the woman who got me the gig… Free fall.
But freefall with wonderful memories and family moments. Free fall with just a touch of rock star. Free fall with a family and woman I still loved madly.
When the ex-y made the decision that the escape pod was her best option, she got a job in a matter of weeks. She manufactured a job, created a position, and enabled her release from my capsule. Of course, I wasn’t really to figure any of this out until the SF job fell apart and she said she wanted a divorce in the same two weeks.
And really, it’s only with this writing that I’m putting the picture together with a bow around it. She was not happy with my dreams. She didn’t want to honeymoon in SF, even if “my mom said she’d take the kids and it’s only going to cost $550.” She was already on the “where is the emergency stop button” path.
I’m happy to say, I’m gearing up for my NEXT live gig in two months. The festival I played in California is now coming to my hometown. I accepted the offer to play. As they say in the Blue Brothers. “We’re getting the band back together.”
I am looking for a new co-pilot, however. (grin)
Here’s my band playing in 2009. The song was written during this rough period, about depression and acceptance. It’s “just another day.” Nothing to get too worked up about, or to down about. Just weather the storm and keep going. It was actually written after a comment the ex-y made about living with depression.
I’d prefer to live without it. (grin) But when it’s here, you just do the best you can, stay close (the part the ex-y could never handle) and know “that it always gets better.”
It DOES always get better. If you’re dealing with depression, post-divorce, pre-divorce, or not relationship related. Please seek help. You can get to the other side of the storm. It’s JUST ANOTHER DAY.
Sincerely
The Off Parent
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I Must Be Insane: It’s the End of the World, and I Feel Fine
There’s not much that is going to plan at this moment. YET, I’m happily plugging along on my path and flipping the bird to the ex-wife, bill collectors, family members who think they know exactly what I need to do. Fuck’em.
And as I checked in with my therapist this morning, he said, “Either you’ve gone completely insane, or everyone else has.” I’m gonna stick with our assumption that unhealthy systems don’t like for people to get healthy, or stand up against them.
Let me be clear, I am behind on my child support payments. THIS I KNOW. But I am not avoiding them or trying to hide behind excuses. It’s pretty simple. A client’s business took a hit recently and changed their payment terms with me. I’m not working any less or taking time off, but I’m not getting paid with the same frequency. They will get caught up too. And when they do I will give my ex and my kids all the money they deserve. This is not a choice I am making to stiff them or begin my slip towards becoming a dead beat dad.
Of course, that does not help my ex and her own cash flow problems. I tried to have a discussion with her since she keeps sending messages of some urgency. Here’s how the conversation went.
ME: I’m happy to meet or talk at anytime this week if you’d like to talk about things.
HER: First question: When can you pay me?
ME: Um. I’m not sure.
HER: Next question: How much?
ME: Okay, I see this is how the conversation would go if we were to get together. Maybe that’s not necessary. Let me ask a question. “Is there some extenuating circumstance, or something I’m missing that is causing our kids great suffering? Or is it just cash flow?”
HER: I am incurring debt because of things your are not paying for.
Ah, so… It’s really just a choice, then to pound me for the money, even when I’ve been as clear as possible about my financial situation. Am I going on vacations or spending money on anything other than food and shelter? NO. And I won’t rehash how her financial situation is just fine… Not my business or my concern.
You see, knowing that you owe taxes is not the same as having the money to pay them. Avoiding penalties is great if you have the money. When you dial back to survival mode you have to thicken your skin a bit and take care of what you CAN take care of and ignore the rest of the URGENT MESSAGES that come from everyone looking for their money.
I tried to explain this to my ex. Her urgency didn’t translate for me. In fact, it just made me a bit more frustrated as I tried to give her information (she was asking for information) but no firm dates and amounts. That’s what she wants. How much and when. That’s fine. But it’s not possible for me to answer that question. And there’s a wrinkle, that I’m looking into as well. [Based on actual income vs. estimated income, I’ve overpaid her significantly since we got divorced.]
As we move along, perhaps the urgency or villainy will be moved from me to someone something else for her. Today I’m her target, but I’m getting ready to punch back. Or not. Just like my divorce recovery class says, “Treat them like a convenience store clerk. Just take care of business and get out.”
When she came by on Saturday to pick up the kids she looked great. She’s still my type. I could see how I would still find her attractive and want to date her. I would hope, today, that my self-awareness would allow me to see some of the fatal flaws before falling in love with her. I noticed her and her attractiveness like I might a pretty waitress, and then we conducted the business of transferring the kids’ stuff.
I wish her well. The better she does the better my kids do when they are with her. And I hope her boyfriend turns out to be more reliable and a better honey-do than I was.
I will get her all of her money. All of the money that belongs to my kids. At this moment, that money is for extracurricular things. And I don’t have a single extracurricular dollar. That’s why the downstairs bathroom is in need of repairs. And why the creditors, including her, will have to wait until things move back into the plus column. They’ve been heading in the right direction all summer, but a few hitches along the way, and I’m still plugging along in survival mode.
The good news is: even under the duress of the financial and familial stress I am still centered in my own happiness. That is the only happiness I can manage.
Sincerely
The Off Parent
< back to The Hard Stuff pages
related posts:
- My Divorce: A Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory
- Waiting for the Other Person to Change
- Love, War, Divorce: Why I’m Not Fighting My Ex-Wife About Custody
- Divorce is Not About What’s Fair, Let’s Get That Straight
resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Creative Parenting and the Gifts of Enthusiastic Participation
I used to get criticized by the ex for how much I liked to play with the kids as opposed to discipline and enforce rules with them. (I think this is a very common husband-wife issue.) She would want the family to do chores and I’d be out back chasing them around the yard, or playing tickle tag on the bed, completely messing the house up.
Maybe men and women have different styles. The dad is the one who’s supposed to rough-house. The mom is the one who’s supposed to offer comfort and tenderness. The dad is the one who’s supposed to play games, incite rule-breaking, and ignore curfews. The mom is the one who has to slog away in the kitchen until the dishes are done and the counters are all spotless.
BUT… I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be this way. And I think my ex could have had a profound effect on the kids had she spent more time in high-energy play rather than angry-energy chore-master.
Let’s see how things have turned out so far.
My kids have never wondered about how much I loved them. I was usually there wrestling and hugging and soothing the bumps that come from falling off the bed the 15th time. We have a physical closeness that still draws them to jump in the “big bed” when they stay over at my house. WIN.
While my musical pursuits have never paid off financially, both my kids love music and they both play an instrument. My son, 12, even got a middle-school award for his orchestra enthusiasm. WIN.
Gaming and other flights of imagination. My son has become the ringleader of a small band of Minecraft kids from his school. Essentially they quest together, with my son playing the narrator role. (Like dungeon master in D n D.)
And while my kitchen sink is still often filled with dishes (how did I buy a house without a dishwasher again?) my kids are clean, happy, and on-time for school and other events. And there is ZERO nagging or complaining about chores or homework. It’s a very different place here at my house than the days when I was parenting with the ex.
And perhaps some of it comes down to core approach to relationships. In an early example, I recall my then-wife demanding of my 2nd-grade daughter, “If you don’t get your homework done, right now, there will be no TV.” My daughter burst into tears. As I joined the scene, I asked, “Hey honey, how’s your homework going? Is there anything I can help you with?”
One approach was authoritarian and matter of fact, but it lacked any compassion or connectivity with the child. My approach was to join with my daughter and see what she needed to get her work done.
My kids are continuing to thrive after the divorce. And I give credit to my ex for working hard to keep our friction out of our kid’s lives. But she treats me in the same way she commanded my daughter, “Where’s the money you owe me? How much can you pay? When can you pay it? Oh, and btw, I’m sorry you’re having trouble.” I guess it’s the way she was raised.
My kids have been raised to expect a warm and joining approach to school work, problems, and aspirations. I’m always on their side. And they have been given an example of a life filled with enthusiastic play and love of playing music. I think those are transferable skills that will continue to serve them throughout their lives. And I couldn’t be happier with that picture.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
@theoffparent
back to Single Parenting
related posts:
Better Off Divorced – 3 Years Later Celebrating My Independence
I have to say, I am flourishing with the creative and self-development time the divorce has afforded me. Now, looking back over the three years since it became official, I can say I’m better off divorced. For a long time, I was not sure I was ever going to be able to say that. But it’s true, today. It was not always true.
In the initial storm of divorce, your emotions will take over all negotiations and adversely affect your judgment. In my case, I was set on demanding 50-50 parenting schedule and joint custody. It seemed FAIR.
In the month or so of negotiation with the ex and a wonderful child psychologist who specializes in divorce, we came up with… guess what? … the Standard Possession Order. Even in my happy state, I’m not sure giving in to this demand, and advice, was the BEST option for me and the kids, but it is certainly what the ex wanted, and would likely get were we to enter the Texas court system. (80% of all divorces in Texas end up with the mother getting primary custody and enforcement of the SPO.)
On days when money is tight, I feel like I was ripped off. And occasionally I feel like I should FIGHT and enter the courts again, and go for 50-50 and reducing my financial obligation to my ex. BUT… I don’t. And here’s why.
Today I crave time with my kids. There is never enough time with them. SO, when we are together, I am 110% engaged. There is nothing more important than being an engaged father. Occasionally I am sad about not having them with me, but I’ve been on the UP side of creative for a year or so, and that makes my alone time quite productive rather than sad.
The ex has a very different situation. She craves time with her boyfriend. And occasionally offers the kids to me (mostly too late for me to actually accept) for an additional night or day. If I’m reading that right, from her self-centered approach to everything dealing with me, she is asking for time off from having the kids. Or more accurately, time with her boyfriend. That must be a strange pull. The desire to have time away. When I am on the exact opposite polarity, I crave time WITH THEM.
It’s neither good nor bad, but it’s very different.
And I can understand. During the school year, she does have the brunt of getting the kids to school on time and homework. BUT, that’s how she wanted it. That’s what she demanded in the therapist’s office, that “she was the more complete and responsible parent, that she had been providing the majority of their care.”
REALLY?
In the heat of that discussion, I was furious. But over time, the therapist showed me the reality of the situation, should I want to fight this PLAN. I objected, but I did not fight. And I gave in. “In the best interest of the kids.” At least, that’s the language they use when you’re negotiating.
So I ask you. Was it in their best interest? Perhaps. They got to stay in the marital home. They stayed mostly in their old bedrooms and got to school from Mom’s house in much the same way they did when we were married.
Of course, the reality was/is, I was the primary morning person that roused the entire house and got the kids ready and fed on the way to school. Often the ex would be much more focused on getting ready and pretty. And that’s okay. That’s just the way it was. I loved my mornings. I still get up at 6 am and do most of my creative stuff in that first few hours of the day, before I had to wake the wife and kids to start their day.
And so, she got exactly what she wanted. The house. The kids (on SPO and full custody). And full child support payments, including healthcare. Seems like a pretty good deal.
But I know it’s been HELL getting her routine organized to get up and get the kids ready and fed and off to school in a “happy” and unrushed way. The clocks that have appeared in every room of the house, sort of point out the fact that I was also the “happy time-keeper” saying “Okay kids, we’ve got 10 minutes before the car leaves the station, let’s go.”
The most satisfying moment, came in year two when my son said he’d advised his mom to do mornings “more like Dad.” And he described my typical morning routine with them, as the gold standard.
“Get us up early so we’re not rushed. Give us plenty of time. Make it fun and not so rushed.”
So my not-a-morning-person ex-wife now has most of the kids-to-school duties. (grin) AND she’s working an own-your-ass 9-to-6ish job, that has her working hard then she ever did when we were married.
That’s victory enough.
So she’s craving time with someone else, other than the kids. And I’m craving time with the kids, with no other priorities or relationships demanding my time and attention.
I think I got a fine deal. Hard on the pocket-book at the moment. But overall, I’m happier than I had been in the last 1.5 years with the ex when she got terminally mad.
And she’s still terminally mad. She likes to project this anger at me. But today I no longer have to take any of it. And I’m happy to be clear from that toxic situation.
Happy Independence Day!
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
NOTE: Image is not of my girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend. That is a “friend” from Facebook who lives 2,000 miles away. So there! But she’s an inspiration on many levels.
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
More Play Summer: Keeping Your Joy After Divorce
The concept that we learn most of our relationship patterns from our family of origin is fairly well documented. What we learn from Mom and Dad is either 1. what we want to do; or 2. what we don’t want to do. Often we are not clear on pulling the two different concepts apart. And more often, the connections are even more obscured by emotion or lifelong baggage.
Today, I had a moment of realization about my family of origin and the disastrous path my Dad and Mom took.
I walked down to the lake from my modest house. And the sign above reminded me, “Oh yeah, this needs to be a play more summer.” And I thought about my parents and our monstrous house on the lake. While my dad was successful in business, his relationship skills were limited and eventually destroyed by alcoholism. And what I missed, once my father moved out of the house (I was 5) was the time and space to play with and really get to know my Dad. Or, more importantly, know that he loved me. Somewhere deep in my heart, I’m still not sure of that one.
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Today, swimming in the lake, by myself I was noticing my life at this moment. Even as my kids are traveling on a summer vacation with my ex-y and her boyfriend, I am happy.
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My dad worked hard every day, and as part of his come down each night he would have a few toddies with the boys in the office next door. His success was limitless. His medical practice was thriving. He had just completed a stunning lake house and would drive his boat to the country club in the mornings and drive his car from there to work. It was a golden life. Well, you would think it should be.
But my dad was really mad about something. He was always mad. [Hmmm. This sounds a bit too familiar.] The anger of my father is legendary even among my friends. He was an ass all the time. And somehow he resented his own success because he had to keep working so hard to maintain it.
My mom said she made a proposition to my father one time early on, as the success was coming, but the stress was also growing with it. She offered to go with him, anywhere, take some time to enjoy the money he’d been making, get away from it all. He declined.
And in the real sense of the word, he declined from there, even as his financial success shot upward.
By the time my mom gave him the ultimatum, the drink or me and the kids, he was probably too far down his own destructive path to imagine that recovery was possible. And being a doctor, AA was out of the question. He insisted to me, years later, as I was a son pleading with him to get help for his drinking, “I don’t have a problem.”
Today, swimming in the lake, by myself I was noticing my life at this moment. While I’m struggling a bit financially, I’m sure that I will continue to pull up from the strained economy. And even as my kids are traveling on a summer vacation with my ex-y and her boyfriend, I am happy.
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My dad got on a trajectory of success and big money that would’ve been very hard to get off. My exit was easier, I was no longer willing to be shut out sexually from my wife.
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What I have, however, that is so different from my father, is a clear and loving relationship with both my daughter and my son. They KNOW how much I love them. They will never wonder if they are enough. I tell them all the time.
And I have made some choices to keep this clarity of purpose at the forefront of my life. I could work more. I could go back to Dell and slave it out at the corporate-level again. But in those two years, even as my life was following the life dream of many, I was unhappy.
It was “almost” enough to keep me there. I loved coming home to my wife and kids in the affluent neighborhood and knowing that I had provided for their well-being and support. But there was an imbalance.
My dad got on a trajectory of success and big money that would’ve been very hard to get off. My exit was easier, I was no longer willing to be shut out sexually from my wife, and I was also not willing to just jump into the next corporate job to make that fantasy picture come back together. It was a fantasy that was killing me, making me fat, separating me from time with my kids. I made a choice.
Today, swimming in a modest public park, I recognized the pressure my father must’ve been under and I said a little prayer that I learned from his early death, that possessions and wealth don’t bring you joy. And in the end, the pressure of those things may be what separates you from the most important things in your life, your family.
My father lost his family in his divorce. But he made choices to go down the alcoholic path. I have not made the same choices. And my hope is that my ex-wife will find some joy in life, some relief from the constant anger that seemed (sometime it still seems) to be aimed at me. I am certain I was not my father’s issue. In the same way I am certain I was not my ex-y’s anger problem either.
We each have to grow and evolve as individuals. We have no choice. I think I have evolved into a more caring and more dedicated father that my father could be. And today in the lake, I gave thanks to my health, love, and awareness.
More. Play. Summer.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
related posts:
- Evolving Single Dad: Failure to Hopefulness Again
- What I Need To Tell You: Take Heart. It Gets Better.
- Happy Mom Chat About How I Got Here: What I Figured Out
- Creative Parenting and the Gifts of Enthusiastic Participation
resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
A Son’s Sadness on Father’s Day
Poking his sister in the head and pulling her hair were natural acts for my 12-yo son. And today at my Father’s Day brunch, things were no different. Except when my mom asked each kid to tell one thing they liked about their dad. I was supposed to tell something I like about “being” their dad. And my mom was going to tell what she liked about watching me be a dad.
A simple father’s day request, over brunch. My mom set up the question, my daughter went first.
“I like how my dad is always positive and supportive of us. And that he’s not like our cousin’s dad.”
Ah yes, easy to be a great dad when contrasted with a devil dad.
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And with that, my son, who had taken extra time to come up with his appreciation, slumped into a tearful silence. He couldn’t go next.
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My mom went next. “I love seeing how you support and love your children in everything they do. And how much they know you love them.”
Okay. All good there.
So I went next, as we were going around the table like a card game.
“I really love how each of my kids are excelling in their creative pursuits, both musical and non-musical. I am amazed by how creative each of you are.”
And with that, my son, who had taken extra time to come up with his appreciation, slumped into a tearful silence. He couldn’t go next.
My mom got uncomfortable and tried to ease off him and change the subject. I asked that we just give him some time to recover. That it was okay for him to be feeling some emotion. My mom gave me a worried look. He was fine. I did wonder what he was feeling so deeply at that moment. Was it connected with something I said?
He took some time. And the rest of us moved on and talked about various things. But I came back to him when he seemed to have regained composure.
“Not to completely let you off the hook,” I said. “Surely you can think of one good thing to say about me.” We smiled at each other. He was back.
He spoke clearly, “I like it when you try to help, even on things that you can’t help on. You still try.”
I liked it. I added, “Anything specific, right now, that I’m not helping on?” I smiled big at him, letting him know I was open for anything, but also teasing a little about anything I might be missing on.
“No,” he said. “Nothing comes to mind.”
It’s hours later, and the kids are back at the ex-y’s and I’m still trying to decipher what he was saying. And of course my interpretation is only MINE. I will have to wait until Thursday, when they are back with me, to see if I can gain any insight into what he was trying to communicate.
As I was coming home several things came to mind that would’ve made me sad at his age. AGAIN, these are about ME and MY DAD, and MY PARENTS divorce, but I only have my own story to reference.
- Sad that he’s not able to be with me all the time, or that we are separated so much of the time.
- Expressing his understanding that the divorce was not my idea, and that I tried to keep it from happening.
- Sad that the rest of his life isn’t as positive when I’m not around.
I don’t know.
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My dad didn’t die until I was 20 years old, but he was unavailable to me the moment he walked out of the house when I was about six.
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My son is a bit on the quiet side, when it comes to talking about emotions. (Duh, he’s twelve.) But in tender moments I stay close and don’t exit or let him exit either. I want to dig into this moment with him and see if I can get at any of *his* sadness and help him make sense of it.
In my parent’s divorce my dad exited in a big way. He was an alcoholic and when the divorce happened he went even further into his disease and married another alcoholic. They drank themselves to death.
My dad was unable to show any emotional connections except when he would get sloppy drunk and morbidly sad about the divorce. I recall him crying to Charlie Prides, “The Most Beautiful Girl” more than once. But that’s what alcoholics do. They suffer the self-pity of their own self-destruction and then drink more to make it less painful, and thus make it worse.
When the cancer treatments forcibly sobered up my dad, and he was dying, I finally got a chance to say to him how much I loved him. And he was able to hear me.
A few months before his last trip to the hospital, he was living at a golf resort about an hour from town. I spent the weekend with him. We watched tv, played cards, and had a few meals together. Nothing much.
As I was leaving to go back to town on Sunday morning, he said, “We haven’t gotten to do too much of this. And I want to do it more.”
“Yes, Dad. I’d love to be with you as much as I can.”
His last entry into the hospital he lost consciousness pretty quickly. He hung on for a week, but it was merely time for us to sit beside the bed, cry, and hold his limp hand as the machines hissed and beeped.
I am present for my kids. The divorce did not take me away from them, but it does limit the amount of time we have together. And as I continue to heal and get distance from my divorce, I am aware of how important my close and solid connection is with them. It’s the most important thing I do.
This father’s day, I give thanks to being a dad. And sharing those last days with my dad that remind me how precious every moment with them is. My dad didn’t die until I was 20 years old, but he was unavailable to me the moment he walked out of the house when I was about six. He drank himself into nightly stupors, first alone and then married. Already my kids have got a much better deal. Not ideal, but okay, survivable.
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
And tonight…
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
+++
Got my dad by my side – A video of Peter Gabriel and his dad by Peter’s daughter Anna Gabriel.
Another Single Father’s Day
It’s been three years. In posting about divorce and dating I’m here to say, the transformation in the last three years has been amazing. I don’t think it was the only way to go, but when the other person decides they are DONE, there’s really only the “business of divorce” left to take care of.
I’m struggling a bit, still. BUT, I’d have to say I’m on the happy side of the recovery process. I did wake up this morning with a huge panic, thinking my depression had just jumped on my ass while I was sleeping. (I do recall an epic bad dream.)
I’m happy to report it was only a momentary freak out. Probably based on the beginning of summer, and the fact that I was behind on one of my work projects. Because when I start feeling REALLY GOOD, I can also start fucking up. [Not this summer — my mantra — not this summer — not this fucking summer.]
It’s the end of day on a long Friday, where I’ve been up-and-at’m since 6 am. I’m actually going to the semi-annual divorce recovery graduation party tonight, hoping to introduce myself to a woman I crushed on last year, but didnt’ get to talk to. I was at the party with GF #1. Anyway, it’s been a long road. BUT, TAKE HOPE.
There is a way out. There is life beyond divorce. And there is happiness beyond all the grieving that must be done. Here are my last three Father’s Day posts. I expect I’ll write a real post in the next few days, as well.
- A Son’s Sadness on Father’s Day – 2013
- This Father’s Day Is Better Than the Rest – 2012
- Missing My Dad and Becoming a Better Dad on Father’s Day – 2011
- Team Dad, “Even When We Can No Longer Be Together” – 2010
Sincerely,
The Off Parent
Update: As I introduced myself this evening to the crush she was getting her purse to leave. “I wanted to say, Hi. I’m J from Facebook.” She connected after a few seconds, and remembered that I had attempted to connect with her after the last graduation class. I said, “It looks like your leaving.” She smiled, “Yes, I’m going to my boyfriend’s house.” BOOM. … Next.
Resources:
- The Divorce Library (reading list)
- Songs of Divorce (free listening library – youtube sourced songs)
- Laugh It Off (building a resource library of funny videos and other diversions)
- Facebook (follow us on Facebook and keep up with all the conversations)
- The 5 Love Languages (a book on love styles by Gary Chapman)
