The feeling when someone else lets you down leaves such a heavy, bitter taste in the mouth. It feels like a major weight pressing you down, scrambling your brain and your heart while you try to refocus on the present moment minus the person who let you down. Sometimes, the same person can let you down over and over and over again and there is nothing you can do about it.
I refer here, of course, to my ex-husband.
We've been apart long enough now that I'm pretty accustomed to feeling let down by him and I'm used to dealing with the emotional consequences of that. What I cannot tolerate is when he lets our children down. He's been doing THAT particular thing for too long and I will not allow him to continue it.
He doesn't need to agree with me; I can accept that he has a different point of view about things. We parent differently, we're totally different people with barely a thing in common. How we managed to stay married so long I'll never know. I'm just stubborn and tenacious; he wasn't around enough to care. But our differences have often driven a huge wedge in our relationship. The relationship we have now, as divorced co-parents of these remarkable kids, is sometimes strained past the point that either of us can cope. Oftentimes, I just flat out DISLIKE him. Often, I question his values and I wonder if he remembers to put the best interest of our children before his own need to be right. THAT, more than anything, makes me angry. There is one thing he has done consistently and that's put his own needs first. I don't know what makes me think that will stop now that we're divorced; in fact, it should probably get worse. But he seems to think he's a MUCH better father now. I think the only reason he feels that way is that he's forced to be a father all by himself without me to help him. It's been a steep learning curve. The fact that he's managed to "parent" without me for a little over a year does not necessarily a great father make. What it makes him is a probational father; the jury is still out on this one. Today hasn't really had much sway with the jurors.
I honestly don't even know what point I'm trying to make. I am just so angry and disappointed with him and with the way things have turned out. Our family is so fractured, our kids are so wounded. And he still can't stop putting his need to be right before the needs of other people. No matter what, he rules. I cannot live that way.
I told him today that I was not asking his permission to do what I wanted to do with our son - which is related to his education. As usual, I felt like I was peddling an outlandish idea to daddy who would just pat my head and turn me away saying, "silly girl." Fuck that! That is not going to work anymore. For years I've accepted him treating me as less of a person because I'm so different from him, because my abilities and dreams are so "out there" compared to him. I don't accept that anymore. Who I am is no less valuable and by extension, his son, because our son is so much like me. I won't allow my ex to put our son into a position that makes him feel like he's less of a person just becasue he's different. It happened to me for too long, but I won't allow it to happen to my children.
Somedays, I just wish something would be easy.
2 comments:
This post kind of makes me feel guilty at not being there or a better father. The distance between my ex and I is very pronounced when we are together in the same room.
We do have many of the same views on raising our daughter. Just wish i was closer.
You deserve better and so do your kids. So does my kid. I wish I had read that Bill Cosby book sometimes.
It is good to vent and you are right to protect your son from abuse. That is what being treated as second class is.
Number one rule that I have when it came to my ex-don't let him control how I feel. That way, he could not upset me when he was being stupid.
Number two-do what is best for your son, and don't ask him to be part of it, TELL him this is what is going on-facts only after you hvae done that particular thing. Don't give him the opportunity to say no or provide feedback to bring you down or 'correct' you. It is what it is and that's that.
By allowing him to give his feedback or the chance to say you are not correct weakens your position as a mother to your child. Since he feels that he is a better 'father' he will have no option but to say nothing when you make the correct decisions for your son.
A father provides the sperm for a child to be created, a dad is there to mold, shape and love him into a positive person in life. Since he sounds so selfish and only thinks of himself, you need to step up and gain more control over your parenting of your children and protect them from his selfishness.
Learning to do things and then providing him with the information-facts only will help with keeping your disapointment of him down as well as having him keep his mouth shut-because...it's done and there's nothing you can do to change it.
It seems nasty, but your kids' best interest are your main focus....not his arrogant 'right to be right'.
Good luck with it...it's a slow change in thought process, but you need to do it-both for your mental state of mind and for your children's mental well being.
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