All of my vacations were with him. All of my friends are his former friends. All of my holidays involved him. All of my traditions. All of my successes and failures in some way involved the one person I would rather never see again. I've spent far too much time in the past year crying, and stressing, and talking about him, and about what he did to me. I don't want to give him that kind of influence in my life any longer.
I need to figure out how to share parts of myself without focusing on my X. I don't want to talk about him, I don't even want to think about him. This is just one more of those weird things about divorce that nobody talks about. I mean, how do you do it? How do you figure out what to share, what to keep to yourself, and what do you do with the uncomfortable silence when you realize you've got nothing to add to a conversation that doesn't start with, "when X and I went to ____" or "during the holidays X and I used to do such and such."?
And good lord, what do you do when your children want to talk about their father? Talk about uncomfortable. The other night at dinner the kids were asking who OJ Simpson was. We explained that he was a sports star who turned pseudo actor, who many people think killed his ex wife. At that point TNT said "oh like how my daddy tried to kill my mommy" It was absolutely silent. I had no idea what to say. I mean how does one recover and make polite chit chat after THAT?
Dang girl... that's a toughie.
ReplyDeleteI think it's imperative that your children feel free to discuss their father with you and in their home.
Now your memories can also be share too. Just change the "we" to "I". I'm sure BLT realizes you weren't alone in that memory but it can be an unspoken realization, ya know?
((hugs))
Glad to see an update from you.
You can't just forget about and pretend that over 15 years of your life happened....it wasn't all bad. And yeah, the kids have to feel secure in being able to bring up and ask questions about their Dad. Obviously you don't want to bubble on about the great things either. The new man in your life doesn't want to always hear about the X good or bad I'm sure. I think you just edit a bit...like you said he knows you didn't have those experiences alone and he is smart enough to know that was a HUGE chunk of your life. Hell, otherwise he'd be meeting the 16 year old you and wouldn't that be odd? lol. His old relationships shapped who he is as well. Maybe instead of adding anecdotes about what you've done bring up things you'd like to do in relation to the conversation sometimes. As you make new memories together it will help as well :).
ReplyDeleteI know it is hard and awkward....I've felt that when hanging out with you guys. It is this large shared history. But I think by totally fighting that it just makes it all the more awkward kwim?
You can't exactly get rid of us all....
All you can do is give it time...and work on building new and happy memories and experiences for yourself that don't involve your ex.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough - I know.
*hugs*