When you're happily married with kids, you and your spouse usually share a vision for how you want to raise them. You know in your heart that you both want what's in their best interest. You take turns picking them up from day care or school, and reading them a story and putting them to bed.
But start looking at the prospect of divorce and all bets are off. You each go into your own corner and it becomes me versus him (or her). You no longer recognize your spouse as the person you loved for so long, as this same person, who once professed their love for you, you now discover feels nothing but contempt.
These new feelings unleash in you a distrust, causing you to become possessive of your children, convinced that if your ex gets a hold of them, they'll be mistreated or worse, brainwashed against you. Even though this is the very same spouse that just a short time ago you thought was an amazing parent. Now you are completely skeptical of their parenting skills. Said spouse has become the enemy or, as I call it, the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde syndrome.
I married Dr. Jekyll, but I divorced Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was loving, and enjoyed laughing with me and sharing intimate moments. Dr. Jekyll was thrilled when our first child was born and shared willingly in late night diaper duty. But shortly after my second, Dr. Jekyll became the nefarious and cynical, Mr. Hyde. Cold and distant and all the love I still felt for him, did nothing to turn him back. So how could I trust him with my children? Yes, in my opinion, they were now my children, not ours.
Only, here's the funny thing that was hard to wrap my head around when I was in the middle of my divorce. While Mr. Hyde was now my enemy, to my children, he was still their dad. Someone they loved -- and still love -- very much. Which, if you ask me, is incredibly hard to reconcile. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to say to my two year old, who would jump up and down when her father arrived to pick her up, "That's Mr. Hyde, you know. Can't you see he's a creep?"
Nope, to my kids, he was the same man they loved before. They didn't see Mr. Hyde's flaws, the cold heart he'd show me. They had no idea about the other woman in his life, the one that helped chase away Dr. Jekyll and brought in Mr. Hyde.
My children had no idea how painful it was to watch them go to Mr. Hyde's place every other weekend. Nor did they know how I dreaded when they returned and I learned of some new experience they had, of which I did not approve. Such as when my daughter was five and they dyed her hair purple. Or when she was six, and they took her to see her first R-rated film.
And though some wild things happened to my children on Mr. Hyde's watch, things that drove me crazy and sent me on countless crying jags, they were never bad enough to call CPS. Nor were they harmful enough to change the custody agreement.
But the despicable Mr. Hyde did give me many a sleepless night, and I was determined to protect my children from him. Yet how could I? The answer is simple. I couldn't. In the end, he was still their father. A father who had joint custody.
But here's what I could do: I could give my kids the best of me when they were on my watch. Which wasn't easy, for they did see me cry now and then, and my son, who was older, undoubtedly heard me on the phone bemoaning the horrors of my situation to my family and friends. Yet, despite the pain I was going through, I made it a point to be there for them. To love them, and to give them my undivided attention, nurturing them in the best way I could. I must admit, I struggled -- sometimes unsuccessfully--to control my impulse to belittle their father in their eyes. As much as I wanted to tell them about the real Mr. Hyde, it wasn't my place to do so.
As they got older, they would have to see -- or not see -- for themselves, what his true colors were. It would be up to them to figure out their relationship with their father once they knew, and, actually, they do know now. But luckily for Mr. Hyde, they don't see him that way at all. He is, and will always be, just their dad.
Follow Monica Medina on Twitter: www.twitter.com/monicastangled
:- )
I can't shake the funny feeling that a big wedding signals a big fear that this is the best day of the rest of her life.
Hand them a mirror. And walk yourself and your loved ones away to an emotionally safe place.
you are an honest, classy lady and a great mother. So many women can relate to your experience and, please, don't let it make you bitter. You are a class act and a beautiful individual; and it is mr. hyde's loss.
I found your post strikingly honest, and a courageous act of literary vulnerability. To all the commenters below, who haste to assume you are simply berading your husband, are poor readers. Especially Sophia, and those that proclaim "one-sided". Of course this is one sided, of course this is emotionally telling-- it's a blog. If you want to hear both sides of a divorce, become a divorce lawyer or judge. The fact is, the feelings Monica describes here are true to fact, and common. I applaud you for not only sharing your story with the world, but engaging with your readers.
Continue posting your personal nitty-gritty, nay sayers tend to assume the negative... again, well written. The metaphor of Jekyll and Hyde was superb.
Whenever a divorcing mother is heard to claim that she is "protecting" the children from the divorcing father, it is time to ask for an explanation ... and watch it unravel into what it really is.
What a divorcing mother is actually attempting to do is to misappropriate the children -- most likely for her own reasons such as for financial gain/increased support payments a/k/a/ greed and a need for control. What she wants to do is control/damage the relationship the children have with their father for her own reasons that have nothing to do with the well-being of the children.
What she is actually doing by denigrating/vilifying the children's father is harming the children -- confusing/stressing them, depriving them of emotional security (and sometimes physical security) and hurting their feelings -- pulling them unwilling into her own emotional issues.
What she is ends up doing is not only harming the children but also transferring a significant amount of money from the divorcing household to the divorce lawyers. The children have their college or orthodontia fund transferred to the divorce lawyers (and the college or orthodontia funds for the divorce lawyer's children).
Divorce reform is needed.
"But here's what I could do: I could ... cry now and then ... bemoaning the horrors of my situation to my family and friends. ... [D]espite the pain I was going through ... [struggle] -- sometimes unsuccessfully--to control my impulse to belittle their father in their eyes. As much as I wanted to tell them about the real Mr. Hyde ...."
"As they got older, they would have to see -- or not see -- for themselves, what his true colors were."
==> Thank you for the honesty about the projection and emotional manipulation of the children that children and their fathers suffer in a divorce.
In this type of "scorched earth" approach, the divorcing mother decides that the divorcing father is unworthy.
Then she says to the children: "I don't like the #@$*&% and you should not like/love him either regardless of the fact that he is your father and regardless of the fact that he loves you and you want to love him". She want the children to see their father through her eyes rather than their own. And goodness help the children if they see the father as he actually is to them. The will face her wrath.
Children of divorce need to be protected from such "scorched earth" behavior by a divorcing/divorced mother -- not protected from the divorcing/divorced husband.
She says that she DID NOT do the clearly inappropriate and harmful things that she apparently was tempted to do -- things that so many OTHER divorcing/divorced mothers say and do in an effort to alienate the children against divorcing/divorced fathers.
Good for her. She showed better judgment and self-control than the other 80 percent of divorcing/divorced mothers who go beyond good judgment and into the realm of clearly inappropriate behavior that is harmful to the children.
I applaud her for having the courage to identify what is a serious problem for children and their divorcing/divorced fathers in many divorces.
Thank you for not giving in to the temptation, Ms. Medina. I wish my mother had been even half as wise.
She raves about his parenting at first, then suddenly: "So how could I trust him with my children? Yes, in my opinion, they were now my children, not ours."
Another divorced woman who thinks they "own" the kids and that if the father doesn't parent exactly as she wants, then he is no good as a parent. This strikes me at the first step towards PARENTAL ALIENATION and all the damage to children that ensues.
Modern men spend nearly as many hours raising children as the women do (see NEWSWEEK cover story last month) so it is not just a case of men being uninvolved.
They deserve to spend just as much time with their children as the mothers. Children are not "owned" by either parent.
No matter how mad you are at an ex, you basically are going to have to rise above your feelings make things right for your kids who are stuck in the middle.
In other words, get over yourself.
Don't get me wrong, I have valid reasons too, to hate my ex and call him a Jeckyl and Hyde.
Most people who divorce feel this way. Almost everyone thinks they are good/right, and their ex is bad/wrong. But unless there is abuse, you simply have to force your personal feelings and issues into the background. Suck it up.
What is best for kids is being allowed to love and respect both parents, no matter what the parents feel about each other.
For the past 10 years I've forced myself to think beyond what I feel about my ex, and take the high road. It's not easy. But my kids are happy, emotionally and mentally well adjusted secure people, (now 17, 13 and 11). They are making up their own minds about their dad now that they can see for themselves what kind of man he is. There are way too many kids who are scarred by their parents not being able to shield their kids properly from divorce.
Because I stood down and refrained from showing my bitterness, my hope is my kids will continue to survive well, and hopefully not become one of the sad statistics that many children of divorce become.
However, what I'm trying to say in this post is that you have to rise above that and realize you can't. In fact by doing so, you'll only risk hurting your own relationship with the kids. I urge you, and all readers who took this to mean that I am still angry (I'm not. This was years ago), or that I bad mouthed my ex to my kids (Nope), to read this again with an open mind. Thanks!
You stopped yourself short of alienating/denigrating your divorced husband/children's father. Good for you.
But many divorcing/divorced mothers do not stop where you did. They go beyond you into the clearly inappropriate and harmful zone.
They want to make their dislike/hatred of the divorcing/divorced father known to the children and to have the children share their negative view of the divorcing/divorced father.
My children and I have suffered through that behavior from my divorcing wife for the past few years. Just tonight while at the supermarket one of my daughters said to me "why aren't you normal ... like mom?" (I try to eat healthy foods and that is what I buy at the supermarket -- so my divorcing wife tells the children that I am "weird" and not "normal".) That one is mild compared with many of the denigrations we have experienced over the years.
A divorcing/divorced mother wants the children to "see how [their father] really is"? If a divorcing/divorced dad is that bad, why would divorcing/divorced mom have to tell the children -- won't the children see it for themselves?
The reality is that divorcing/divorced mom does not want the children to see divorcing/divorced dad how he really is -- she wants the children to hold a negative view of him regardless of how he really is.
We did read it, but forgive us if some readers are not convinced she is completely candid in her rejoinder.
Can you forgive us for wondering if "where there is smoke, there is often fire"?