326 Marbles
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.
Mick Jagger
When Ex-man graduated from high school and got his first good paycheck, he bought a pair of earrings for the daughter he dreamed of having an a Rolex watch for his future son. I often thought of this story while we were together and noted the absence of a gesture for his future wife/partner, presumably the mother of the kids, namely myself. My observation wasn’t consumer-driven, but more sensitive to the lack of place made for me.
When we split, the angry thought crossed my mind, “He’s gotten everything he wanted – the daughter and son of his early manhood dreams.” Why would I be angered? Because I felt sidelined – like a womb-on-a-stick. For a man who prizes himself in being “self-made”, clearly having children was something he couldn’t do by himself. Perhaps he was never really there for me because I wasn’t really part of his master plan.
Now, there could be some truth in this line of thinking, but it only makes me pissed off, and that’s not a great way to feel. What I am noticing after forty marbles is that maybe I also got what I needed, even if this is not what I consciously wanted. As I’ve settled into my new life, I’ve gotten over the acute longing for the kids while they are at their Dads’ houses. What I have is two fathers for my kids that are active participants in their lives. I have more free time – a break from mothering, and time to write, and although I don’t have the relationship that I had wanted, perhaps I have the perfect life for me. I have the life that I need. Cue Mick Jagger.
Can you objectively draw back from the breakup and start to glean what the relationship taught you and has brought you? Are there benefits from the breakup and having your freedom? Even if you find yourself in a reality with full-time kids and very little temporal freedom, the reality that you create for your family can be based on what you believe to be true.
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