‘For me, as the woman and new wife behind the man, I have done everything asked of me to fight this battle. I love my husband and my son loves his stepfather and this is why I choose to stay; but I’m very tired…almost all the time.’
– Excerpt from My Family Matters…Too! written by a subsequent partner, mother and stepmother
Twenty years ago (Dec. 4, 1993) I took the marital plunge for the second time. It was the first marriage for my wife.
About a month ago I turned to my wife as we were appropriately watching an episode of ‘The Good Wife’ and blurted out: “You realize this anniversary is a small miracle”.
She was silent for a moment and replied: “ A small miracle?”
She was correct. I used to cry a lot. I could often be found rocking in my only real piece of furniture (no legs missing), facing inward toward the wall. I was a mess, a poor risk.
This past year I met many new couples struggling to build an enduring relationship following a dad’s separation.
The underlying fear (may last forever) for a separated dad is that their relationship with their children is at risk. The fear only recedes during their weekend or midweek parenting. The children’s return to mom’s house brings an eerie silence to his place. Silence has become his enemy!
It is the difficult task of a non-custodial parent to reconcile and accept the parenting inequity. They have to learn to deal with the pain…for their child’s sake… for their own sake …and for the sake of any new relationship.
The challenge to a serious, intimate relationship is managing these intertwined relationships: namely, to maintain/rebuild the dad-child relationship and to build a loving, enduring, new partnership through the chaos and unpredictability.
The shame is that many loving relationships are unable to navigate safe passage.
Many dads almost immediately stumble into being a non-custodial (part-time) parent. A legal system that takes pride in so called ‘no fault’ divorce makes judgments and choices about parenting. A father intent on securing calm for his children is often left on the outside, his face pressed against the window to his children’s lives.
In the non-custodial parent’s life, holidays and birthdays with children are rarely celebrated on the actual date. Information (school, medical) on his children often is delivered second hand, weeks late or not at all. A non-custodial parent may feel like an intruder in their children’s school, even in their lives.
New partners face the same challenging complications of unpredictability only with an additional layer of angst- their views on parenting and what they need as a couple are often treated as less important, less relevant by a dad dealing with the heightened risk of parenting loss.
‘You are important, you are a parent, you still have a family.’
– Isolina Ricci: Mom’s House, Dad’s House
The Christmas season was/is a reflection of our family’s 22+-year journey through the chaos and madness to our family’s version of calm. I offer this as a tribute to my wife and the other new life partners who have helped dads find love, companionship and calm through the madness.
During my first Christmas outside the matrimonial home I agreed to return for gift opening and Christmas dinner (including my extended family). A reasonable thing to do? The reality was that it was about pretending that nothing had changed when everything had changed. It had costs for everyone.
The second Christmas was to be about a lesson learned. I would only open gifts with the children in the matrimonial home. No Christmas dinner. That meant my first Christmas dinner since forever without my children. My parents added another complication with their arrival for gifts and dinner. By that evening my thoughts kept repeating: ‘my children, my matrimonial home, my parents, and where am I again?’ Feelings of loneliness, despair and betrayal overcame me. The rocking chair became my home!
In some ways Christmas also mirrored life during our courtship. There were occasions when dating paused with no guarantees of a restart. I thought that my responsibility was to fix (end) everyone’s pain. My wife laughs now at my use of the term courtship and asks, “Did I miss it? When was it?”
My wife’s gifts during the ‘courtship’ stage were life changing!
Her faith and constant reassurance that I was a caring man and a loving father came at a time when I questioned everything about myself. She was my partner to recovery.
By Christmas #3 we were married (just three weeks earlier). What should have been a joyful moving-on Christmas was flat and empty. My father had a stroke two months earlier and he never recovered. The chaos of the post-separation had left our family wounded and now claimed my father as a victim.
Christmas #4 and #5 were to be our coming out party. We would have a family brunch – a Lillie tradition. We fretted that no one would show up. I insisted that everything should be the way (actually identical) the children were used to. We couldn’t risk doing something different. I can only wonder now why my wife didn’t sit me on my rocking chair with the following order: “Don’t move until you see the error of your ways.”
Recognizing my error was incredibly important. New traditions enrich your children’s lives. It was also about my acknowledging my wife’s grace, style, humour, intelligence, wisdom, etc. to my children. Just as she displayed her faith in the wounded me, it was my time to demonstrate my faith in her.
Over the years there have been even more difficult occasions when she called me out for my failure to find the balance between a dad’s ‘original fear’ (the one that never leaves) and making our relationship all it should be. Each occasion was a reminder that the journey is now our shared journey and the risks are now our shared risks.
As I look back, I realize that my children came to respect her for what she gave to me and her unique, valued contribution to their lives. They understand now as adults the difficulty of her journey and the sacrifices she made along the way. Their acknowledgment of such was an important step for her and me,
Our family will now gather for our umpteenth Xmas brunch in our no-longer-large-enough condo (with all the children and grandchildren) and all the trappings and beauty brought to our home by my wife. I will likely cry – a tradition. They will be tears of joy for our family’s miracle; and tears shed for those of you still on the uncertain path to your own complicated family.
The family home that I was at a loss to build during the early separation became dad’s house 20 years ago on December 4th, 1993. I soon realized that ‘we might have something pretty good here’ when my children referred to our place as ‘dad and Elaine’s home’.
A miracle?
A few weeks ago, as we left the theatre on a cold, dreary evening. My arm dropped by my side and her hand instinctively found mine. My thought was that the ‘miracle or not’ was revealed in that act – that we were able to find each other’s hand in the best of times, but even more importantly during the inevitable chaos and adversity.
My Christmas and New Year’s hope is that everyone who is part of the Kids ‘n’ Dad extended family may find their way to build a dad’s home and even more.
Kids 'n' Dad 