When What Is Is Better Than What Was Supposed to Be.
Our divorce did not come from a place of beauty.
We had started out filled with hope, each with an idea of how life as a married couple should work. There would be adventures together; compromises made with happy, blissful hearts; gratitude from the other for the privilege of being in the relationship.
When things did not go as they were supposed to, we were polite. It seemed kind to keep our disappointment to ourselves and spare the other’s feelings, allowing mounting expectations to remain unmet. As we failed to arrive where we thought we should, we separately worried about what it meant. Emotional intimacy and vulnerability were not woven into the fabric of our relationship and we unraveled. Our marriage became a very lonely place.
Much of life’s pain can be attributed to unmet expectations: When we hold on so tight to what we believe should be, we are rendered unable to embrace what is. That belief in what should be carries an unbearable weight that is not easily cast off, even when it no longer fits. To embrace what is allows for lightness, though. It provides the chance to just be, to experience abundance in everyday life, to take the single step- one deliberate foot in front of the other- toward peace.
As my ex-husband and I navigated our divorce, we knew we needed to rise to more as co-parents than we had as spouses. We were determined to protect the hopes and dreams we had for our son in a way that we had not for one another. We believed we were capable: Our parenting had always been intentional. To become parents, we had completed financial affidavits and legal documents. We wrote heartfelt letters about what we had to offer. We sought recommendations from friends and family and completed background checks. Together, we created a photo album that told the story of us and the life we wanted to give. This packet resonated with a young woman ready to give birth. She chose us, trusting us to give a promised life to her son; one that would be worth the sacrifice she was making. When our baby joined our family, we began introducing traditions, anticipating happy childhood memories that our son would carry into adulthood.
These traditions, especially those built around holidays, still carry the loftiest possibility of unmet expectations. Robbing our son of these experiences was the part of divorce and re-partnering that I feared the most. The loss of family time and traditions became the first fear I openly shared with my ex-husband in years. I expected a bitter response; for him to tell me I should have thought of this sooner and tried harder to make the marriage work. Instead, it became the first example of how reality can be far better than the expectation of how things should be. He responded to my vulnerability by helping create a parenting agreement that comforted me. We set intentions to protect the sense of family we wanted for our son.
Intentions do not automatically become reality, though. They are designed with the ideal in mind, built on hope for a future that is nearly impossible to imagine in the heat and messiness of divorce. It is a difficult process to navigate with grace. Well-meaning friends encourage self-protection, staying guarded, and prioritizing individual dreams. For some, this is necessary: If one partner is unwilling or unable to let go of the vision of what should have been, it is impossible for the family to move forward. For us, one person working alone could not have built what we were striving for. To preserve the dream of family we still held for our son, we could not focus on self-preservation. We needed to engage with one another with a level of openness that we had not shared during our marriage.
Focusing on our son seemed easy. Transparency between us did not.Our shared dreams had crumbled. We were each working to build something of our own and it was difficult to discern between what was upfront and honest and what was cruelly flaunting the shiny, new versions of each of our lives. In divorce, it is expected that both parties will move on separately, occasionally coming together for a birthday party or school event. There is no sharing of hopes and dreams; no discussing whether the former spouse is feeling personally fulfilled. How can you tell a person with whom you had made so many plans that you still wanted to have it all, just not with him? How do you listen to that without letting your ego interfere?
But how do you remain a family if you don’t?
There was tension between how we thought we should behave and what we wanted most in our new reality. In the early days of our separation, I had told a friend that we would still spend time together for our son’s benefit. When she hopefully asked if that meant our whole families may still vacation together, I rejected it. There would not be family trips in our future. I still wanted a family with two adults in love, a home with a full dining table, sun-drenched vacations, and inside jokes with a not-yet-identified partner. I could not imagine where my ex would fit. There was no vision board anywhere in the world with that image. It was not how things should be.
It has been clumsy and awkward at times — in hindsight, maybe just after the second date was ridiculously soon to introduce my partner to my ex — but slowly, an unusual reality emerged. Those small, deliberate steps we took as we began to accept life as it was started to come more naturally. Our divorce had changed our expectations of one another: We no longer held tightly to an idea of what should be and the role the other should play in that life. At first, we saw the positive impact to our son. Our individual relationships with him improved outside of the scrutiny of the other’s expectations. In time, we evolved from supporting one another’s growth as parents to supporting one another as human beings. When I struggled through a difficult time in my life, my son’s father reminded me that the family unit was there to support all three members, not just our son, and he cared for me as wholeheartedly as the rest of my family did.
By then, it was evident that we looked nothing like a divorced couple was supposed to.
This year, our holidays were far removed from how they should have been for a blended family. My son, my ex-husband, my partner and I traveled on that blended family vacation I had firmly stated should never happen. At a poolside restaurant, my son convinced us to take him into the ocean. I headed down with him while the guys paid. An hour later, I was still splashing in the waves and the men, still at the restaurant, had ordered another beer. Our 7-year-old ran up the beach and teased them, “Whatcha doin? Having a beer? Watching the game? Talking about life? Well, we’re having all the fun!”
He was delighted that his three favorite adults were all close to him, relaxed and playful. He had no idea that the situation was supposed to be awkward, that the old partner and the new partner were not supposed to spend the holidays together, casually discussing life and the future.
Today, he is too young to understand what should be. He only knows what is, and that has become a much more beautiful reality than I ever expected.