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A father of young children, whose wife filed for divorce, contacted me seeking my guidance. I learned that despite his best efforts to create a loving partnership, it is well down the path of divorce, with no expectation of a reconciliation.
Like many relationships that either start off lopsided or morph into incompatibility, this one likely should have ended long before now. But with the arrival of children that both spouses had happily welcomed just a few years ago, things got understandably complicated and confusing. Just how long you try at a marriage or any relationship depends on more than one consideration, such as a vow.
He suspects she has become involved with another person but, for now, is not actively seeking proof. He has something even more concerning on his mind and heart.
He was wondering: How did you as a divorced mother with a demanding career manage to raise such a stable, successful and happy daughter?
This is one question I have often been presented with from both men and women, but I have never answered it in a public forum until now.
G: Before I get into the details of what some may want to believe is some kind of special magic trick only few of us divorced parents can pull off, a bit of context is necessary.
One of my wise and much older friends told me nearly three decades ago, “Nothing we ever accomplish in this life we do alone.” This applies to doing a commendable job of parenting, something I can say he achieved as the father of four.
I don’t agree that it takes an actual village, but I do agree it does help greatly to have the cooperation and support, when possible, from an ex who is co-parent.
That I was fortunate to have an ex who happily helped shoulder the parenting duties is undeniable. That I still have his support and involvement in our daughter’s life is proof that divorced parents can grow through hardships and live peacefully.
To achieve this took the work of understanding, forgiveness, acceptance and unconditional love.
In answer to this father’s question, I’ll start with some background. I became a mother a few months shy of turning 27. My journalism career was not yet formed at that point. My writing and other jobs I had, up until my actual labor started, had provided me with a sense of self and a growing desire to achieve financial independence.
Motherhood only fortified that pursuit, but it never once superseded it. How I would make a living with so many competing pressures and goals was never crystal clear. Any uncertainty surrounding my life, including a failing marriage only a few years after I had become a mother, was nothing that I could see would weaken my resolve to strive to be the best parent I could be to my daughter.
For me it was an automatic response to motherhood: I always kept my role as mother as my primary focus. With that unwavering, my ex was able to step up to the role of co-parenting, continuing his placeof importance in our daughter’s life. This removed any stress that would otherwise come from feeling alone and isolated in the task of fatherhood.
What our focus on healthy co-parenting resulted in was having a child who had the assurance that she was still the “main” event, and would remain our greatest life’s work.
When I am asked how it is I have such a well-rounded daughter, it is easy for me to attribute it to that consistent assurance. The identities we had chosen to take on as her mother and father were not always easy for us to prioritize. There were many tradeoffs involved, and personal sacrifices, but these were essential to having any present happiness, or any future success as parents.
Our daughter’s success as a physician, a wife, and a mother of twin toddlers is certainly about her own desires and efforts to become a whole person.
We, as her parents, only supported her in the use of her talents and abilities. Naturally we did this in the hope that she could bring herself and others joy and fulfillment over many years.
In order for commendable co-parenting, or parenting, to happen will depend on the amount of time, devotion and the unwavering passion to prioritize the role of parenting above any other duty or obligation. From my spiritual playbook, if one keeps that as the focus, all other considerations and complications, such as divorce or unexpected tragedy, can be seen as wisdom opportunities that reap infinite rewards for a family, whether intact or apart.
Throughout my own divorce proceedings and for years afterward, I have been able to keep the disappointments, frustrations and confusion in perspective by using each experience I have gone through as a stepping stone to wisdom.
My guidance to any person facing the crisis of a dissolving relationship, starts with accepting your part in the collapse, forgiving yourself for any missteps, and then moving ahead with the conviction to grow from everything rather than staying stuck in the what ifs.
From what I learned, this father may be way less responsible for the collapse of his marriage, but the blame game is not going to help him to raise emotionally healthy and successful children to adulthood.
What will help to make that possible is staying focused on what his own role in their life will mean to their happiness. It will require a consistent expression of support and emotional availability, especially at those times when he is unable to be physically present for their activities, due to work or the divorce separation agreement of weekly hand-offs and holiday breaks.
Expressions of love, that come to life as real words with real hugs and praise – along with encouragement and appropriate compassionate discipline and instruction – are force multipliers. This type of all-in parenting, even if a person does not have a supportive ex, is the way forward to the best possible future – for any parent and child.
Email Giselle with your question at GiselleMassi@gmail.com or send mail: Giselle Massi, P.O. Box 991, Evergreen, CO 80437. For more info and to read previous columns, go to www.gisellemassi.com