The Complexity of Divorce
My heart broke a little bit today. I’ve known for a while that my brother and his wife are getting a divorce, but it wasn’t until today that I knew their four-year-old twins, Hannah and Carter, knew. My brother and his wife are both out of town on business, so I’m staying with the kids for a few days.
Hannah: “Aunt Sarah I have to tell you something… Mommy isn’t going to live with Daddy anymore because she’s going to get her own house. We might live there with her.”
Me: “But who’s going to live with your Daddy? He’ll get incredibly lonely living all by himself.”
Hannah: “He’s going to get a new Carter. Or maybe you can live with him Aunt Sarah.”
Me: “Hannah that’s silly. There is no such thing as a new Carter. We only have one Carter and Daddy isn’t getting a new Carter. He’s getting a new car. Different, but very close.”
Carter: “Maybe when I grow up I can buy a house where Mommy, Daddy and Hannah can all live and nobody will fight.”
Hannah: “Maybe when I grow up I can be Jasmine because she is a total princess.”
Me: “This is much too serious of a conversation for you guys to be having over dinosaur chicken nuggets.”
Hannah: “Yeah, we should go to Starbucks.”
Wow. That’s really tough stuff.
My heart broke a little too…
I hope you took them to Starbucks and anywhere else they wanted to go. Life’s not fair and it’s too bad they have to find out at such a young age.
As a parent my heart goes out to them.
Mmmmm… Dino-nuggets.
Sad.
Divorce is tough at any age. At least they have a wonderful aunt to help them out with the tough questions…like which house do they get a birthday party at (answer: BOTH!).
bummer.. my ‘lil sis is going through an ugly divorce atm, it’s rough on the kids as well.
Good thing Hannah and Carter have Sarah for an Aunt!
This makes me so sad. They are lucky to have you, even if you are completely crazy
Those two cutties are way too smart for their own good. Next time you take them to sb call and I’ll meet you there.
That’s both sweet and sad.
But it’s better to have divorced parents who can try to find happiness with someone new than to have parents who don’t love each other try to stay together “for the kids”.
Divorce definitely sucks, there’s no good in it at all. But I have to admit that in our world, “Daddy” (aka: My Ex) is FAR, FAR, FAR from anything resembling lonely. Think more along the lines of Turnstyle-Gate (or whatever they’re called).
Poor kids. I’ve been on all sides now; kid, wife, and parent. It all just plain sucks. Why can’t we all just get along??
Yeah, divorce sucks…but sometimes it’s for the best. If you want pass my blog about being a dating single parent on to your brother okay?
Here’s the link:
http://www.mssinglemama.com
Tks! New to your blog, found you through Dooce but I’ll be back.
My son has divorced parents, too. He was only 1 when we divorced, so he doesn’t remember us together. But he sure wishes the two people he loves most would get back together and that we all lived in the same house again.
I wish I could give that to him. But I can’t. I wish I’d tried addressing the “issues” we had just a little harder.
This blog entry makes me think of all of that. I really hope both parties have tried everything possible.