I Have a Confession

“In the end, your fam­ily tree is a dia­gram of a thou­sand choices, all made in your favor.“
Robert Brault

I am so enjoy­ing watch­ing the col­ors of the leaves on my trees change.

Parent­ing is hardly an exact sci­ence. In fact, it is really the biggest con­ceiv­able game of roulette because vir­tu­ally every deci­sion a par­ent makes is fraught with uncer­tainty. The out­come is often unpre­dictable and we fre­quently don’t learn the con­se­quences of our choices for many years.

I haven’t writ­ten much about the changes that have taken place in my life over the course of the past sev­eral months, although all of my friends and many of my col­leagues are aware that I bought another home. And that I am liv­ing in it with my two sons, but not with my hus­band. He con­tin­ues residing, along with our two dogs, Buddy and Sophie, in the home my par­ents built and in which I was raised.

The change came quickly — I began shop­ping for a home in June and pur­chased my cur­rent res­i­dence in July after it had been on the mar­ket just two days. I knew imme­di­ately that it was the home I wanted to buy. We moved on Labor Day week­end and have spent the past two months get­ting set­tled in.

The change came after many years of dream­ing and plan­ning, however.

And that is my con­fes­sion: I thought I was doing the right thing for my chil­dren by con­tin­u­ing to reside with their father. I now real­ize that I was wrong. I should have taken them with me and estab­lished a new home for the three of us many years ago. If I had done so, they would not have had to endure some of the chal­lenges and dis­ap­point­ments that they have expe­ri­enced. But I felt that I was putting their needs ahead of my own by remain­ing in the marriage.

I now know that my chil­dren were vic­tims of my good inten­tions. All of the choices I have made since the moment I learned I was car­ry­ing each of them have been choices made in their favor, on their behalf, with their very best inter­ests at the fore­front of my delib­er­a­tive process. But they would have been bet­ter off had I cho­sen to be happy myself. I have now seen that much of their hap­pi­ness flows from my own.

There are as many rea­sons why mar­riages do not last as there are mar­riages, and I have no plan to chron­i­cle pri­vate details about the 24 years I spent with their father. What I will say is this: I believe that not every­one is meant to be or should be mar­ried, but many of us grew up believ­ing that mar­riage and chil­dren were our inevitable des­tiny. I do not believe that mar­riage is con­ducive to my per­son­al­ity and habits. As I told one friend, “I don’t play well with oth­ers when it comes to my house and the way I want it main­tained.” I am a very fas­tid­i­ous, orderly, orga­nized per­son. I can’t stand clut­ter or chaos. I could never again cohabit with some­one who is not as adamant about clean­li­ness as I am.

I would never pre­sume to speak for or on behalf of Big­Bob. But I am hap­pier than I have been in … oh, about 24 years. My boys tell me that they are much hap­pier now and they cer­tainly appear to be. They are flour­ish­ing in their new home with me, while main­tain­ing, on their own terms, their rela­tion­ships with their father. They bring Sophie over to our new home for what I refer to as “cus­to­dial vis­its,” and see Buddy when they go back to my other house where they still have their rooms.

I don’t believe in regret, so this will likely be the only “con­fes­sional” I will write. As time passes, the twinges of guilt are less fre­quent. The “V-8 moments” when I recall an inci­dent or sit­u­a­tion and know now what I didn’t know then, i.e., that it would have been an ideal time to move, are grad­u­ally becom­ing less intru­sive and painful. My boys are con­fi­dent in the fact that both of their par­ents love them uncon­di­tion­ally, but are flawed beings lack­ing pre­science. And I am con­fi­dent that all three of us are doing just fine — and will con­tinue to thrive.

The Spin Cycle is a weekly writ­ing exer­cise hosted by Sprite’s Keeper and Sun­day Citar is a weekly writ­ing exer­cise hosted by Fresh Mommy.

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