Kids #atozchallenge

"‘Çan we home now mum?’ says Bailey suddenly.

A quick affirmative nod does the trick, and furnishes me with the opportunity to escape mum’s silent scrutiny. ‘Yes,’ I say with something resembling enthusiasm. ‘Let’s get going. School tomorrow.’ I stand. Sam apparently misses the message. He’s licking sauce from his fingers while reaching for another chip with his free hand. ‘Come on. Let’s go. Get your stuff.’

‘We don’t have any stuff mum.’

‘Right,’ I say, wondering why they don’t have their bags with them. ‘That’s easy then.’

I shepherd my neglected children towards the front door, but they soon gain their own momentum, and forge ahead".

Lovesick chapter 38

As much pain and devastation as separation and divorce causes for the two involved, it is their children who are the real victims.

My parents first separated when I was 12, then they split again when I was 17 and that was the end of the marriage. The house was sold, and I went to live with my dad, while my sister went to live with mum. I got on with the business of life, but it took many years for me to get over it. Even today, the repercussions of the divorce are still felt keenly in our family. Mum and dad have never quite figured out how to get along, even though they have now been divorced for longer than they were married.

The impact is now felt by their grandchildren. I accept the reality of the situation, even though for a long time, I imagined, I dreamed and hoped that my parents would reconcile. My children and my sister’s children know no different. They were born, like so many other children, into a fractured family.

Sadly, I did the same thing to my children when I left my wife. The cycle goes on as we are try to find peace and happiness in the midst of pain and brokenness.

Are you divorced? How’s it going? Have you managed to move on?

Divorce #atozchallenge

‘I want a divorce.’

I should have considered this possibility but I was too busy being irrationally hopeful. With no reason to think positively, I decided Angus must have had good news for me. God knows how I need good news, some sunshine: just a glimpse through the ever present brooding clouds. I haven’t done anything wrong and yet I am being punished unpityingly, endlessly. I stare at the nearly empty bottle of Grey Goose on the table in front of me. Beyond it, my children play in the yard: recklessly innocent.

‘Cassy? Are you there?’

- Lovesick chapter 42

I have heard of clean, easy divorces. I know a lady who split with her husband after he decided to upgrade. They were in business together, so with him wanting to move on, and her not wanting to try to hold on to a man who obviously didn’t want her, she took a pragmatic approach: treating the break up as just another business transaction. She asked for some customers to set up her own business, which he gave her. He also continued to send her money each month, either to assuage his guilt, or because…I can’t think of why else he would. To this day, she remains on good terms with her ex.

My feeling is that this kind of amicable divorce is the exception rather than the rule. I am divorced, and I can tell you there was nothing remotely agreeable about it. Still isn’t, now two years later.

Marriages fail for many reasons, and it really is a damn shame that so many people get hurt, but we are all broken people, and we are good at hurting each other.

How long have you been married? Is it the first, second or third even? How's it going?

Spread the Love

Most families have had their share of domestic disturbance. From trivial bickering over what to watch on television to the unspeakable horrors of sexual, physical or emotional abuse. Families have been torn apart by tragedies like grief and infidelity, and by overwhelming financial burdens. The Beatles told us that love was all we needed, but look around. It isn't enough. Fifty percent of marriages fail.How many more continue in perpetual misery?

Some have suggested that monogamy is unnatural and, that forcing people together forever, or at least until death they do part, is rather like the artificial construction of political nations from disparate ethnic and religious groups who happen to share some geography. In other words, doomed for disater. There is a pattern around the world, particularly in African and Eastern Europe, of nation states devolving into smaller ethnically based nations. It can be argued that this is more natural.

Similarly, it can be argued that it is more natural for people to spread their love around a bit. Love here, is plainly a euphemism for sexual relationships which again, according to some, flow very naturally out of friendships. This is not the forum for debating the pros and cons of monogamy but it does raise an interesting question.

Can people who cheat on their partners still love them? Is it reasonable for a man to have a sexual relationship or even a very intimate emotional relationship with another woman and say that he still loves his wife or girlfriend? Can a man love two or even more women? Equally?

There is man in India named Ziona. He has 32 wives and 94 children. They all live together in one pretty big house in Eastern India. Think about that. This situation raises enough intrigue to fill a book, but of relevance to the current discussion is the question of whether the man loves his wives. Is it possible? Obviously he has sex with them but sex and love aren't the same thing. There is hell of a lot of loveless sex going on in this world. Does he love them? Does he have enough love for each of the women he has married? Obviously, he does not have sufficient time for each of them unless their definition of sufficient, and his, is ridiculously low. Immeasurably lower than most of ours. Fascinating.

I have one wife and no girlfriends or mistresses, so for me to answer the question posed earlier is a long stretch into the realm of the hypothetical. Could I love two women? I don't see why not. I don't, but I really can't see why that would not be possible. The closest analogy I can draw is loving our children. It is an imperfect analogy, I know but it's the best one available. I didn't have to use some of the love I already had for my son to love my daughter when she was born. I found some more. If we had have had a third child, I would have had more love available for that child as well with no diminution of my love for my other children. I don't know if that would be elastic enough to stretch to 94 children, (as Ziona in India has), but I can't see why not.

I believe that love originates with God. God is love. God is infinite and therefore love is infinite. God finances our love from his inexhaustible supply of it, but would he provide the love I would need to love a woman who wasn't my wife? I don't want to know the answer to that question.