On Creating New Traditions

If you're divorcing or losing a love relationship of longstanding, in addition to the loss of the relationship you will also have to endure the loss of numerous traditions that were based around the relationship. Holidays, in particular, will be hard at first.

In my case, because my immediate family all live far away, I've been used to spending every major holiday and birthday with my soon-to-be-ex's family. While they still care about me and still consider me "family", realistically, I know I won't continue to spend my holidays with them. During this first year following the breakup of my marriage, to do so would only provide painful reminders of what I've lost. He would be there, and I would be there, and our kids would be there, but we wouldn't all be there together as a family, and that's an important (and for me, painful) distinction. In future years, he'll be there with some new woman who won't want me around while she's establishing her presence with the extended family, and whether I feel I have a right to be there or not, making things uncomfortable for everyone else isn't how I want to spend my holidays.

On the other hand, there's no way I can duplicate the big, extended family experience for me and the kids if the visitation schedule has them spending this or that holiday with me. I've decided that the only solution for this is to let the old ways and old habits go, and create new traditions that have nothing to do with the way things used to be.

Rather than spend Thanksgiving with the three of us huddled around a small turkey in a small apartment, I've decided to make it a travel weekend. There's an affordable family resort about two hours away which we've visited before and all loved, and that's where we'll spend our Thankgsiving weekends from now on. It'll be a completely new and different type of holiday experience for all of us, and shouldn't leave me wondering what's going on at the place where we used to spend Thanksgiving at any point.

Similarly, instead of having the kids wake up with me Christmas morning only to be hurriedly packed up and out the door by 9am so their father can have the "Christmas Morning Experience" with them too, I've decided to make Christmas Eve our Christmas. The kids and I will have a Christmas dinner together (probably ordered in from Boston Market or something like that, since I would rather not waste all that precious time on cooking and cleanup), open our gifts to each other and from my side of the family, and spend the evening watching some hokey Christmas specials, playing with our new toys and eating way too much pumpkin pie. Then their father will pick them up and they'll spend the night of the 24th and all day on the 25th with him and his family. I'll spend the 25th pretending it's just another ordinary day, and doing whatever it is Jewish people usually do that day: go to the movies, get Chinese food, and generally enjoy the quiet.

And so it will go, all through the year. If you're in a similar situation, whether due to a relationship breakup, a death, a job loss, or anything else that has thrown a major wrench in your usual holiday plans, forget about trying to duplicate the old ways. You're not likely to succeed, and however close you may come, all you'll be thinking about are the ways you think you're falling short. Create some new traditions of your own instead.