The Hardest Thing About Being the Mom

I can safely say that I have made a choice that will forever alter the lives of my children. One that will cause both big and small ripples for the rest of their lives. It was the hardest decision I ever made for me. But one that irreparably changes the course of their lives... and they had no input. They are not very used to that being the case.

We are not a democratic family by most standards. But we do have an egalitarian societal view. Our family utilizes the thought process of everyone having a voice and being heard. Ultimately the children don't necessarily have a vote. But they have the opportunity to speak, raise questions and assess their stand in decisions which effect the family as a whole.

Many times this is a free for all of sorts. As each member has their own talking points and of course, point of view. Amazingly, there are also those humanitarian and generous views to protect and preserve the other members. This has worked throughout the course of the development of our brood. Until now.

I have circumvented the tradition and destroyed the opportunity. I became and am very selfish at this point. Ultimately my decision was for the best of the family and its preservation. But no child would have made my decision nor would they have swayed it at this point in time.

You see, I single-handedly am destroying our family as they know it. I have asked and filed for a divorce. It was not without agonizing choice deliberation. It was not done in haste. But the decision that loomed and hung over my head for the last several years like King Kong about to scale the Empire State building has finally climbed off my back. It has been made.

For many of my children this has ended their youth. It has forced them to acknowledge the truth about our lives that I worked so very diligently to hide, or spin or make better by working long hours, fighting to keep things looking normal, or pretended that being "just us chickens" was enough to be the representation of the family of which they so wanted to be a part. I had done it for so many years, in such an effortless fashion that they no longer saw the anguish it caused to make believe our family was whole. They could see the struggle. They could see the fatigue. Many nights they heard my sobs as I fell exhausted into bed. But that was seen as how we do things, rather than something wrong with the way things went in our house.

The kids are not to blame for calling this normal. I made it so. I made it seem that exhaustion, sleepless weeks and months, hollowed eyes, migraine headaches that went on for weeks, and endless back pain that caused me to snatch breaths between cries were normal modes of operation. They forget those times most days. They look beyond them into the seasons of relief. The times the struggle appears more like the lives of their friends. They see their lives in terms of seasons just like this. Because the workload shifts and the temporary relief slides in for the moment and erases the pain.

There have been accusations of living manufactured lies. There have been stories of plotting to hurt everyone for the benefit of one. All these things may be resultant of the decision. But none were the motivation. The reasons are private but not very invisible to onlookers. Surprisingly I have been told that there were no surprises about the ultimate demise of my marriage. For some, they even said it far out lasted most expectations for its life expectancy. It not only hurts to know I could not hide its dysfunction, but angers that everyone was willing to sit back and speculate and watch the suffering without comment or question. Understandably their silence can be explained away as knowing I would not have heard them because it wasn't time. But I know I doubted my life and marriage for much longer than anyone was made aware. I thought that was the mark of a dedicated wife and mother to keep silent. To place everyone above herself. To make constant the promises made during the wedding ceremony. To preserve every aspect of the life I had worked to create that seemed normal. I held on to the promise of things getting better and being normal like a bull dog with his favorite bone because it looked and felt like that was what everyone told me to do to be a good christian wife.

I cannot help but wince when I hear those comments. I thought I hid things better. I thought I manipulated the truth enough to hide from it myself and to keep it from the public eyes. I prayed that the children did not have an awareness of the unhappiness. But like my marriage, I failed to keep private what was killing me inside. I allowed what was killing the marriage to show through all the shiny paper I used to wrap our marriage into the perfect package, so no one would know that neither of us was happy.

I listened intently to counselor and pastor alike, who told me to wear out my knees. Pray harder. Put my children and marriage first and God would bless my efforts and give me the desires of ny heart. That there would be a day I would look back on the tough times and see the shift in our lives due to my devotion. I wish I could say that I saw that time. God did indeed answer many of my prayers and blessed us with beautiful and bright children. But the marriage never felt the blessings of God in the same way. I was and am alone.

I prayed to God to make it better for me, for him, for the children, for the sake of our parents and for God. I changed my dress, my job, my likes, my dislikes, my music interests, and my everyday to do list. I prayed harder, I didn't pray for myself or my marriage, but only for others. I worked more, I worked less. I became the contortionist of renowned abilities trying to fit into the hole that our marriage had become.

Exhausted, angry and betrayed, I have finally given up. I am to blame for the unhappiness and anger of my children. I am to blame for their confusion. I have taken away their idea of what our family is and have now replaced it with what it will and has become.

I am sorry I cannot possibly go another day working to make the fit into the way of life I wanted for my children. I wanted them to come from a happy, long marriage and family life. I wanted them to look with pride at their parents' marriage and say how much they wanted their lives and marriages to be like ours. If I had stayed, I would be making them into liars. Despite the anguish and hurt, they know it as well as I do.

I want for them genuine, happy and fulfilled marriages. The kind of marriage that trust and love are inseparable and inherent. I only hope that the pain I have caused them will force them to look harder at what they want in marriage and from their partners. Because they deserve as children to know happy, loving parents who love each other unconditionally. They didn't have them.

I can only ask that when the dust settles that they see the human parents they had and allow for the forgiveness of their mistakes. I also ask that they forgive us for not being adults to end a hurtful, angry marriage before it hurt them. We were children in adult clothes for the longest time. We lashed out. We called names and hurled insults. We made our children into the observing adults at times they needed us to be grown. We couldn't begin to muster what they needed. We were pitiful. I also desire that they allow time to heal the hurts and anger we caused them to feel over all of this.

I cannot change the course of the current steps I am taking. They are painful. They are arduous. They are miserable. Each day seems to rip the scab off another once healed wound to cause additional pain. The quiet anger, and unsaid hurts each of us carries seems to beat away at the calm I so desired by staying in my home. The place that once seemed the most peaceful and comforting. Each day as I waken on the bed tossed onto the floor, I cautiously climb off of it and realize the chaos hasn't ended. It seems to have grown again. The calm has disappeared and the turmoil grows with the silent anger of picking up undone projects and endless bills. That untangling the last few financial knots is like unwrapping the last presents at Christmas and discovering only underwear you don't like.You cannot send it back and you cannot hide it once it is opened. It all takes up space you don't have and energy you didn't want to share. But it is what it is.

Each morning I get up knowing I have another set of anguishing steps to take. I face the reality of wanting a change for the better and realizing that better may not be here. Copable may not be here. But the steps of the next part of my life face me and they must be taken to get to the other side.