Ex Marks the Spot

My ex and I had our monthly shouting match last night. It would seem she feels that I must tell my son ----- he's 7 ---- that I am partially to blame for our break up. According to her, when I cry or grieve about what happened to our family, I am acting "like a martyr" and making her the enemy. She offered up her usual mantra ---- "I left you, not him" ----- with her usual failure to understand the principle that when you are a little boy actions speak louder than words.

Then she told me that my friends are "sycophants" who only see things from my point of view. And all I can think is that she left with little warning. And when I asked her why we couldn't see a counselor and work things out her answer was that "it wouldn't work." I remember that she moved in with a new girlfriend the night that she walked out. I see her standing in front of my home, just minutes after she forced me to help her tell my son that our family was dissolved, waiting for her girlfriend to pick her up while I went back inside, now a single mama. That night I began to reconstruct the heart of a 6 year old and make the hurt manageable. Because I could never make it go away.

I'm not perfect and there is no doubt that I have made mistakes. My son sees that I am human. He certainly understands that things are hard for me since Lisa left. He knows that I am sometimes sad and sometimes angry. But I am trying and he knows that I will never leave. I can't figure out just how she expects me to incorporate her into the new life that she forced JT and I to construct. I think that when this happens to a family, there is no easy way to unwind the ties that once held us together, let alone re-build some kind of relationship.

And in the end, I just don't know what to do. I love my son and I wouldn't trade being his parent for an easy new life. Maybe I don't know how to share. Some days are easy; some are a struggle. But most days just are. And right now, that has to be enough.