Suburban Goddess

Last night I was forced to take a Workshop For Divorcing Parents as part of my wretched divorce decree. It’s mandatory for all divorcing parents in the county, and when I got there, there was an impressive display of all socio-economic groups in the county.

I immediately braced myself for a fight; mixing of the classes usually makes for some good entertainment. But this, this was different. Because we all had one major thing in common.

We currently despise our future ex-spouses.

The first rule of the evening, established by our counselor; no ex-spouse bashing. Immediately, the entire room fell silent. What ever will we talk about then? The answer; your children. The class was a mixture of bad 80’s government videos, support group, and lecture. I was afraid the overall goal of the class would be to try to deter you from getting a divorce (tried that already, didn’t work), and that the entire evening would be devoted to making you feel horrible for the hell you’re about to put your child through. I was only half-wrong; they didn’t say anything about not divorcing.

The videos were heart-wrenching, even though they were almost 30 years old. The gist of divorce is the same now as it is then; the kids are gonna suffer. It played into every single fear that I have and touched on every single insecurity. Now instead of wondering what the results will be, now I can be sure that statistically, there’s a 75% chance that it will happen to me. Great.

After listening to the stories around me, I realized I was actually doing much better than most people caught in the throes of a divorce. I listened to stories of custody battles, manipulation, withholding visitation, and fighting. After a while, the counselor got to the point. The overall message of the evening was basically this; don’t fight in front of your kids. Don’t use your kid as a pawn. Love them and reassure them that it’s NOT THEIR FAULT.

Well, I am quite proud to say that I have managed to do my very best at this. I’m not saying I haven’t had my moments, because there is an evil redneck that is DYING to get out (Sing it, Carrie!) and there are times I have to chew THROUGH my tongue to achieve it, but damn it, I do. Because at the end of the day, when I put Alex’s precious little face down on her pillow and kiss her good night, I know that no matter how angry I am at her father, he did manage to give me the greatest gift in the entire universe.

And that’s worth enduring a little stress and bullshit every now and then.

This entry was posted on May 11, 2007 at 6:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.