Happy #@$!?#& Father's Day

Father's Day 2021...

Welcome to one of the two worst weekends of the year, in my book... 

Happy #@$!?#& Father’s Day.

Since estrangement, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are the worst days of the year. On both days I think of my deceased parents and my children. I need to get this out of my system, and I’ll try to make it tidy, but apologies in advance for the long-ish post, which most of mine usually are.

Although I occasionally see and talk frequently with my oldest son, I have not seen my estranged daughters in 21 months. They are 25 and 21. They gradually ratcheted up their refusal to communicate with me in the two years leading to full estrangement, which occurred after one graduated college and the other high school in 2018.

Let me say up front that I know I made mistakes in my relationship with them. I ended a difficult and damaged marriage to their father after some years of heartache. My daughters were eight and eleven when our lives blew apart. I struggled through and after the divorce. Those years were not easy.

With my older daughter, during her high school years we were quite close and I thought she was neutral and accepting of the situation, sharing time with both of us, even though she went through a period of anger and detachment from her father, which they resolved. It seemed that she was aware and mature about the fact that the end of the marriage was a shared responsibility even though it was her father’s addiction relapse that ended the marriage. My younger daughter I tried to shield more because of her young age but I couldn’t fully. I tried to keep us a family, although different, for family events.  I had a complicated relationship post-divorce with their father, sometimes blurring boundaries. Strike one.

To that I must add that after I started to date that I wasn’t as wise and cautious as I should have been when introducing them to the man and dated, lived with briefly, and had an on and off relationship with for nine years following my divorce. I brought him into their lives. I am sure that the relationship affected them as well. Strike two.

When my older daughter started college, I just assumed that our close, trusting relationship would continue. She had other ideas and began in her second year to treat any inquiries from me about her studies, her activites, and her relationships to be invasive and unwelcome. From my point of view, I wasn’t controlling or judgmental or in her space much at all; we rarely saw each other. I would text or call once or twice a week, make sure she knew that if she needed anything or would like to have lunch sometime. I was here. We limped along like that and had some occasional contact but I could tell that a bell had been struck and could not be un-rung. She began to be more angry and insulting about my desire to stay in contact, and eventually more or less insisted that I leave her alone after graduation.

During that time, my younger daughter was in high school. I thought that the time that we had one on one was bringing us closer together. I didn’t realize how much building resentment and critical thoughts that she had about my struggles with career, personal life, and responsiveness to her disability.

Strike three, I guess, for both of them.

There were times throughout the years post-divorce that they would gravitate toward one parent or the other for weeks or months at a time. I don’t think that was mercenary or ill-intentioned but kids instinctively lean one way or the other at time. I accepted it, and rejoiced when I was the one they confided in and wanted to spend time with. I was always pretty careful, although not perfect, to not bad-mouth their father, even though we had a tense and adversarial ‘divorced’ relationship at times. In hindsight I see that they read that I was bitter at times. And, in all fairness, sometimes I was.

During the past few years, my daughters increasingly bonded with their father as they incrementally shut me out. I do not know what is going on in either of their lives except what I occasionally hear from others, nor have they spent in time with me and my current husband who I have been with for the past three years. The met him once. I would not be surprised if my ex has steeped them in his version of events. I have no control over that and must proceed with the expectation that any future reconciliation will be challenged by hurt that I caused them, but also my ex-husband. It’s a heavy weight to move.

To add context and perspective. I have a son from a previous marriage who’s in his mid-30s, and we have a wonderful friendship and relationship, even after some historical periods featuring brief rifts and estrangements. I’m thankful for him every day, but as I told a friend of mine recently, having one of three adult children caring about me is akin to saying I only had TWO of my limbs ripped off, or only TWO THIRDS of my heart removed.

It keeps me awake at night, wondering about my actions and how they wrecked my relationship with my daughters. Part of me, my core values and emotional ‘common sense,’ tells me that even though I’m a flawed human being and made mistakes with them, I have been constant and loving toward them as well and my mistakes were not so heinous to have me banished from their lives. Yet here we are. On the other hand, I know they are free moral agents and I’m incapable of saying how anything affected them or continues to affect them.

My birthday is in ten days. I have thought as a gift to myself doing a rare thing, sending a note to each of them basically expressing my grief that we’re not in a relationship, telling them that for my part in that reality I’m deeply sorry and that I desire their forgiveness when and if they are willing and able to crack open the door. I would tell them no matter what, they have my love as long as I’m breathing and on into the afterlife, as far as I’m concerned and leave it at that. I hesitate to do that, though, after the angry phone call I received in February from the 25-year-old. I have to remember to not wear my heart on my sleeve, as my mother often told me. There are now weeks that I don’t think of them but around days like today, I dream vividly about them for a couple of nights.

I lose occasional sleep over this, but I am trying to continue living and watching the horizon for some glimpse of either of their sails pointed in my direction. I am past the urge to indulge myself in anger or resentment toward them, but I do question their moral choices to discard me, their loving mother, over matters that happened during a season of heartbreak and upheaval for us all.