‘Til Death Do Us Part
I was texting with my ex-husband last night. He had asked me why I seemed sad lately. I told him that starting a career from scratch (after being married to him and supporting his career for 15 years) was stressful. He said he was sorry. Then I reminded him that it was January 5th, which he knows is a personal holiday I take for myself in an attempt to find empowerment on the anniversary of getting raped by one of his best friends while I was a Senior in High School. I also mentioned that the anniversary of my father’s suicide was approaching. So, yeah, I had my reasons.
But the last text I sent went unanswered, and the next 24 hours I spent in a free fall of obsessive thinking. “What should I text him? It hurt my feelings that you didn’t respond to my last text. Oooo, that will make him feel guilty, that’s good. No. Let it go. I’m not his responsibility anymore. Most people can’t handle my grieving. I don’t even know that I can handle my grieving. Let it go.
Low and behold, after holding my tongue and my trigger happy text fingers for about 24 hours, he sent a kind text saying that he was so sorry he had missed that one, and he proceeded to send a series of photographs of our daughter in the hopes of cheering me up. He also sent a really pretty one of the city-scape on his way home from work that night.
It was the most kindest I’d felt from him since a blow-up argument we had about our daughter some months before.
Then I received a series of emojis without a caption. I sent a reply asking if our daughter had sent it to me from his phone. He responded that it had come from his two year old daughter, the one he had with his new, younger wife. The child neither my body, nor fate couldn’t bear to bring to life myself.
He quoted her, “I want to send silly faces to Danka,” the nickname I am endearingly given by all toddlers who seem in agreement that there are one too many syllables in my name.
Then he sent an audio message of her sending me a kiss. It was adorable, as you can imagine. That girl is ridiculously cute.
I wanted to send an audio message in response. But, at the same time, I wanted to respect her mother, in this moment. And hold healthy boundaries for everyone involved. I know my daughter prides herself on my loyalty to her, as she remains my only child. And, I feel nervous about bonding with my ex-husband. There’s a fine line between getting along, and still feeling attached.
Thinking back on the complexities of the situation, I thought to myself, “I didn’t sign up for this.”
Then I remembered my wedding vows. The whole, “‘til death do us part, bit.” And all the rest. I remembered my undying love for him at the ripe old age of 22. I remembered meaning those words as I said them in front of a crowd full of our closest friends and family, some of whom have now passed. My intentions were steadfast and made in earnest. I remembered taking a moment of silence for my long-since-departed father, and feeling his presence there that warm, dry Saturday afternoon in the New Mexico high desert.
As it turns out, I did sign up for this. I signed up for falling in love with my daughter’s half sister. I signed up for taking her and her step brother on vacation together, despite a chronic pain disease that made the trip more than a little challenging for me. I signed up for making peace with his wife and trying not to harp on the fact that she was a fitness instructor when they met. Sorry, I think I might have just done it again. Old habits die hard.
And he signed up for it too. He signed up for hearing me express my grief, and my inability to hide my feelings enough to keep him out of them. He signed up for helping with my car and giving me advice on which cellphone to buy long past the time when that was in his purview. He signed up for showing me compassion, when it is solidly a choice, not an obligation.
The truth is, when you choose someone, with all of your heart and soul, and you spend a good portion of your life with them, and you bear children with them, and they see you through thick and thin, and all of your struggles are challenges you survive because you go through them together, whatever happens is everything you signed up for. Even if that “everything” includes divorce. Even if that “everything” includes all of the things that come after divorce, like unforeseen health problems, or arguing over how to raise a child together when you aren’t together anymore, or connecting with children who you hold no genetic or legal tie to, and yet, willingly allow yourself to become bonded with, for life.
As I face building my own career, coming into my personal power, owning the freedom and weight that comes with single parenting (half of the time), and doing the best I can to embrace the world of dating (good god, we’re all such broken fools), I’ve come to understand a few truths:
1. My child is the single most important person in my life and no matter what happens, she’s my number one and always will be.
2. My ex-husband actually trumps (boy, that term is really ruined, isn’t it?) all other men in my life, in terms of loyalty, for the rest of time. Not because I won’t potentially love another man with even more complexity, depth, and longevity than I loved my first husband, but because whoever that man is, he will never be the father of my child and therefore will never be permanently bound to me like that one particular man is and will be for the rest of time.
3. You never know what the future holds, so hold onto your hat, because you’re in for a bumpy ride. This includes all of the curves your own life will take, as well as, all the turns your ex-partner’s life journey includes as well.
You are, after all, bound, in the eyes of god, as you understand god, until your last dying breath. I’ve been to enough family holidays to see my friend’s parents show up to the same event, thrown by their adult children, arriving to spend the most important days of the year with, you guessed it, their ex’s. All for the sake of the children. And they do it with bells on. Or maybe the bells are for the grandchildren.
All in all, I have so much to be thankful for. I’m deeply grateful for that conversation last night, even though it also made me feel like I was being stabbed in the heart and f’d in the brain. I’m thankful for my ex-husband, and I’m glad I picked a man to marry and bear a child with who I can stand being intimately connected to for the rest of my entire life. It doesn’t always work out that way. And I’d like to think it’s what’s best for our daughter. I know she loves it when we act like grownups.
But I will leave you, dear readers, with a word of caution: be careful who you marry, or even who you have sex with, for that matter. You never know who will be in your life, permanently. And sometimes those seemingly small choices become the biggest decisions of your life. None of which come with takesy-backsies.
Peace and love to all of the families in all of their forms. And strength to the hearts of those who choose to follow their vows, long after they are legally broken.
