Friday night is when he takes the kids for the weekend. It's when the house gets very quiet very suddenly, and I know I've got two lonely days ahead.
Last weekend he took our kids on outings with the woman he left me for and her child on both days the kids were with him. I know that when he left me, his most fervent desire and even expectation was that he'd be able to simply cut me out of the family picture and paste her in, like some kind of real-life Photoshopping. I didn't think he'd start on that project so soon, though; the divorce isn't even final yet. I guess this means that from now on I can expect he'll be out there with our kids, play-acting Family with that woman, right in the same town where we both live.
I know I'm not the first woman scorned and abandoned in favor of a younger model, and I certainly won't be the last. But how do they do it? How have all those moms over the centuries survived the heart-stomping, gut-wrenching, soul-sucking spectacle of That Woman, the woman for whose sake they were rejected and for whose sake their families were torn apart, taking their places in a prematurely reconstituted family portrait? I really need to know, because the pain is unbelievable. Giving birth to those kids scarcely registers on the bearability scale, next to this.
The initial rejection hurt, and knowing that the many years I spent building a life with someone ultimately amounted to nothing in his eyes hurts more. Knowing I've been rejected in favor of someone else, someone younger, hurts still more. Having to witness my children's suffering and knowing there's nothing I can do to just make it stop takes my pain to yet another, higher level. None of these things came as a surprise. But this...this is pain of an entirely different caliber, and I didn't see it coming.
Now, I feel I must insert an aside...
To anyone reading this who's about to post a comment saying I shouldn't blame The Other Woman because everyone knows that in cases like this there were underlying problems in the marriage, I have two things to say. First, unless you've actually experienced what I'm going through right now, you're talking out of your hat. And second, while it's true that guns don't kill people, people do, the gun helps.
How many troubled marriages might've weathered the storm with some counseling, were it not for the distraction of worshipful attention and flirtation from a younger woman? How many male mid-life crises wouldn't end in divorce if all women everywhere adopted an ironclad policy of Married = Off Limits?
Sometimes marriage is hard work, and just like any kind of hard work, it requires motivation. There's nothing to erode a man's motivation to stay true to his wife and family like the lure of a younger woman who places no expectations on him, and who never misses an opportunity to make her no-work, all-play availability to him apparent. Of course, she'll feel very differently about him once she really gets to know him, he's no longer trying to impress her, they become familiar with one another's faults, someone has to start taking out the trash and doing dishes, and the whole "the world doesn't approve of our forbidden love" melodrama fades, but by that time the damage to his marriage and children is done---and irreparable.
Damage like being Real-Life Photoshopped out of my own family unit and relegated to the recycle bin, as if I'm little more than a photographic imperfection. As if, in his eyes, I was just a 20-year mistake that needed to be corrected. Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, and it's as if I never existed and our children sprang, fully-formed from his DNA alone, right out of the ground in a cabbage patch.
And again I ask: how does anyone survive this?! I thought the worst was over. I was wrong.
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I haven't been through this, so can't tell you how, but I've watched both my daughters survive it. I know they did it for their children. And as a result, they are now happier, more fulfilled women than they ever were when married. The children get along well with the other women, but they have no less love for my daughters. You will survive it--for your children and for yourself.
ReplyDeleteI've been through a divorce too. The circumstances were different but I can tell you that most likely the kids are very confused and may seem happy with the other woman, but may be trying to put a brave face on things. You can never be deleted from their lives, they need you. And perhaps, as much as the ex may try, deep down he can't delete those memories of your family. Those may come back to haunt him some day when the newness has worn off his new relationship. You may not believe this, but it does get better.
ReplyDeleteThanks for chiming in, Anonymous and Ellen. I truly do want to believe that what goes around comes around, and I'm an optimist by nature. I haven't felt very optimistic for a long time, but I know I'll get back there someday.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, all I've been able to do to lessen my pain is ask the kids not to talk about it. I've told them they can be friends with whomever they want, and in any event they must always be polite and respectful, but I just don't want to hear about it if they've been out with the other woman.