When 50% of Something Great is Not Enough: My Thoughts on a Broken Family and Empty House

I sat down to write a blog post, perhaps I would make an attempt at being witty - emphasis on "attempt."  I had in mind making fun of Walmart customers, these people cannot drive shopping carts!  And the reason I am writing now is because I have free time with my children at their mother's house for her week.  I got my house clean and it stays clean, nice!  I have my music playing throughout the house, ice cream in the fridge, and a deep fat fryer at my disposal.  There are two computers, Xfinity, Apple TV, Roku, and my Audible account to keep me company.  Yet as blissfully restful as this might sound, particularly to the parents in the midst of a bedtime scrum battling four kids under the age of eight, I have to say IT SUCKS! It’s like having a table set for a banquet, but having no guests to sit at your table (guess I know how the Lord feels - parable of the Bride Groom nod there). It is quiet, but it is not home.  Empty houses and empty moments are not what life and family are supposed to be about.  It should be full, abundant, overflowing, often chaotic, but utterly beautiful.

I will admit that part of me was excited to enter this new singles phase of life. It was somewhat of a blank slate, a new beginning, and unwritten adventure. I think I often view sudden life changes as a “forced adventure;” something that I would not have done on my own, but excited to see what newness life will throw my way.  So when the specter of divorce reared its ugly head, I put on my Pollyanna glasses and tried to focus on the lemonade that would be made from these lemons (though I think a better analogy for divorce would be making crude oil out of crushed and pressurized dead dinosaurs).  And honestly, there are plenty of adventurous moments… but as exciting as they are they come at a cost. What is the cost of the singles parties, the cruises, the dances, the new friends? The cost is my REAL LIFE that I found when I became a parent 17 years ago. Life filled with my children, filled with my children every day, not just every other week or even less for some parents.  What is lost is the opportunity to be there with them daily, that chance to put my daily unique touch on each and every one of my children as only a parent will do. To show the world that this is the brand of children that I make and they are d&#% awesome! (my children read my blog and my brand of kid has a no cuss’n rule)  

So as I jaunt about singledom seeking to find a new person to list as my emergency contact in the future (though not rushing here), I also know that this means that I will only get to list two out of my five children as dependents on even-numbered year tax returns (though on odd-numbered years I get to list three of the five - sarcasm intended).  And the sad truth is that for a father I am incredibly lucky. So many men I know lose their children outright, but for every other weekend, and one night a week for a few hours. And this is not always because they are bad fathers, though such is the case many times, but it is a necessity to have dad work to support the kids so that mom can take care of the kids… and usually work too.  What a great system - I never said it makes sense.

After my dearly departed ex-wife RUNNOFT I held out hope for reconciliation longer than many reasonable people thought reasonable. Perhaps so, but I realize that the end result of this ordeal would be that I would be cut out of 50% of my children’s lives from this point forward. Forget the dating, the fun trips, the chance a new love, THAT was a specter that haunted me and haunts me still. In the end, however, there was little choice but to walk into that dark valley of divorce. Now lest you get me wrong, I’m a blazing optimist (most days). You throw me in a room full of manure and I’ll start digging around to try to find the pony that must have made all that poo. Yet optimism is not a shield against reality; reality always gets its day.

So why bother writing this? I can’t go back and fix the past, nor are Adrienne and I going to be getting back together. Perhaps I want to leave this little life lesson from my current perspective floating about the Internet for generations (just like my awful high school dance pictures). It seems of late I’ve come across more and more people who tell me they are getting divorced or thinking about it. Maybe that is just because recently divorced people seem to attract other divorced/divorcing people (the same way communists are drawn to Bernie Sanders).  And it is to these people, those contemplating divorce, those  stuck on the plains of marital stagnation, those seemingly happily married, and those who are doing completely idiotic and moronic things to screw up a perfectly good marriage that I write this post. There is ever so much to lose, even in the best of circumstances.  We all too often loose what matters most... our children, for at least some of the time and usually much more.  And some parents loose something just as important… their children's respect.

Now I know from personal experience, that sometimes there’s nothing that you can do.  You are painted into a corner and divorce is the only option (and it is your spouse that needs to read this post, not you). That is a conclusion that I reached, and it was the right one.    Yet this conclusion needs to be reached for all of us in its full context, its full impact, its full consequences, and its full pain.  This grass isn’t greener, it’s just more grass that needs to be watered and mowed and weeded.   I think perhaps if more people could see the resulting empty life that results from empty choices, one might reconsider their current life choices; big ones, small one, and empty ones - just like my house.  

BONUS MATERIAL:  I notably overlooked a key aspect of the discussion on the pain of divorce; it is the pain from the children's perspective.  My father's mother left their family when he was eight.  He was 48 when she passed away suddenly.  As he was driving to the hospital to be there for her final moments, he asked my mother how HIS mother could have done this to him and his siblings, the question brought him to tears.  This was 40 years later for a man tough as nails.  It is a hurt for children that does not fade quickly.

I love music, all kinds. I thought I would throw in a few songs that share a child's point of view. Take a listen (or a feel) for the emotion in these songs:

Stay Together for the Kids - Blink 182
A song Tom Delonge, the singer of the loud part of the song, wrote when his father moved out on his 18 birthday after being married for 20. 

Pity the Child - The Broadway Musical Chess
A fictional song sung by one of the best chess players in the world who can't bring himself to call his mother to tell her all he had accomplished because she might answer the phone by asking "who is this?"

Father of Mine - Everclear
Lead singer Art Alexakis wrote this song about his father leaving the family and then vowing never to let his children know all the pain he knows.