Firstly, apologies for not writing on here
sooner, have been very busy with work, kids, holiday J with
Mr X, more work, kids and oh yeah… ex-husbands!
Okay, so here’s a little conundrum…
Recently, after being officially separated
for the last 22 months (and divorced for the last 15 of those), things have
become very strained between me and my ex-husband. There’s only really been a
semi-amicable ‘business partnership’ for those months between us anyway, merely
to facilitate issues regarding our children... But that’s not what concerns me.
What concerns me is this… What do your tell your children about your
bitter, battle of words between you and your ex, their dad?
Yes, at the ripe old age of 7 years, my oldest
has decided that he wants to know more. He’s noticing the fact that for the
first time there are strained words between us during drop-offs/ pick-ups and I
can tell that it hurts my little one. Let me state, for the record (very Judge
Judy, I know!) that I only want what’s best for my boys, they are my world and
I would give them my last breath, never mind my last penny! I didn’t want to
end it with their dad (looking back though, I do laugh! Oh how I laugh! I don’t
know how we’d ever have made it work – I can’t pretend to be as posh as he
seems to think he is! Lol! Think Hyacinth Bouquet but with even more ‘pretend’
posh going on, and in chinos!!) I’ve never raised my voice/ argued with him in
front of the children before now, but suddenly as Mr Ex-husband doesn’t want to
seem to talk about anything in private or at all for that matter, it’s become a
side-effect! (‘Put it in an email’ seems to be his mantra!)
But how do I know what to do for the best?
My world revolves around my little boys… I
get to work at a convenient time that fits in with dropping them off at school,
I leave work with enough time to pick them up, I have amazing childcare that I
know suits them down to the ground and I plan all my free time around them, I
take time off work when they’re sick, I sleep in their beds when they have
nightmares, I mop up sick, stop nose-bleeds and explain how babies are made to
them (only when absolutely necessary and the Claire Raynor books are out of
stock in the library!)… all this on my own for 93% of the time!! – I love them
to bits… but I’m scared.
I grew up from divorced parentage. Don’t
get me wrong, I know it’s not totally destroyed me (my mum, for the record, is
amazing), but I’d say it’s affected the way I am and behave today! My innate
fear of rejection, I know, comes from the fact that my dad didn’t want anything
to do with me for 26 years… I don’t want my boys to feel like this when they’re
older.
I know, I know that there’ll be some of you
out there who will say ‘but maybe your own dad wanted to get in touch, but he
couldn’t’… well to those people I say… Yes he could. If you really want
something enough then NOTHING will stop you from getting it, especially
concerning your own flesh and blood (oooh, getting all serious aren’t I!) But I suppose that’s why, despite his
shortcomings, I’m continually asking my ex to get involved, to call them between visits,
to come to the Christmas play.
So my little boy asked me if I liked his
daddy yesterday. It is so hard to answer that question when they ask. If Jeremy
Kyle had asked me the same question then you could almost imagine the answer!
In the same way that Mrs Merton asked Debbie McGee…’Debbie, what first
attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels?’ you can imagine the retort to
‘Danni, what first made you want to divorce lying, cheating, bed-hopping,
faux-posh Mr Ex-Husband?!’ So there lies the answer. But I’m really trying not
to get embroiled in that detail, I want to know what to tell my son.
So when he asked me this very serious
question, I replied that we had things to talk about concerning him and his
brother and that daddy didn’t really want to talk about them. I know that there
will be some of you with the opinion that I shouldn’t even open that can of
worms (of giving details) at all! But I think there comes I time when they know
they’re just being fobbed off… so with the minimum of detail, but the maximum
amount of love, instead of telling him that everything was ‘fine’…I told him
the following;
I
told him that we had different opinions of some things and that’s why we got
mad with each other, but that we both loved our boys very much. I told that them I wished Daddy would talk to me about them more and I also told
them that I would always be there for them NO MATTER WHAT. Thomas looked at me
and then kissed me three times on the cheek, then went back to singing
‘Starships’ by Nicki Minaj!
They’re so bloody clever at such an early
age, he’s already got me sussed!
I’m not turning my children away from their
dad, despite what I know in my own head, because I didn’t know my own dad, and
I don’t want that for my boys. But I think that’s a two-way street. Their dad
has to want to see them. He has to fight tooth and nail for them above all
other things…and the way things are going (and the involvement of a third-party
Rottweiler who seems to be calling the shots) it’s not looking so hopeful.
All I know is, I will fight to the ends of
the earth to look after them and protect them from harm. I will queue like a
maniac in the Christmas Sales, just to get the Moshi Monster/ Lego figure/ J D
Bug scooter * that they want off Santa, and I will continue to sit through shit
films at the cinema just because I know they’re having a good time… and I will
ultimately be 2 parents if that’s what I have to be in the end.
But as regards their Dad, how he treats
them and what they think about it… well I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
(* for further info on all these
boy-related toys, just message me! Lol!)
