Friday, April 23, 2010

Finding Our Own Way

Well, we are talking now.  Be careful what you wish for. 


Last night K and I were talking about my upcoming trip to Internet City to see Internet Guy.  I have said before that she is not thrilled about me being gone for 4 days.  Well last night she had anther reason to be ticked off about it.


Thursday night she plays softball on the church league.  She usually does not take the kids with her, but this time she had made arrangements for one to the church youth to watch the younger ones while she played.  It was a little annoying to her she had to do that, but it was not so bad.  Last bight we realized that our youngest son has a baseball game on the same night.


She now has to skip the church game and bring my son to his game, which does not make her happy.  But it's worse than that.  Because the church league requires a certain number of women on the team, if she does not play, the team has to forfeit.  This has really ticked her off.


"If I knew I had to do everything myself, I would be OK.  But now that I depend on you, I have to let down my team of the boy's team." she said.  (Or something like that.)


We talked about it a long time and mostly got no where.


I know that when this is all over I will make K into a divorced mom.  I know that has to happen for both of us to move on.  What I have been determined not to do is turn her into a SINGLE mom.  I think there is a difference.  I cannot be the husband she needs.  But I can be the father that everyone needs.  And part of that means being there for her.  Giving her time to recharge.  To do things that make her happy.  To take the kids off her plate for a while and let her go be.


I think that I am supporting her in her journey to find her own way.


Maybe I am fooling myself.


So I have been thinking.  K will find her own way.  She is smart, strong, independent.  I know she will be OK because she will make herself OK.  I want to support her, but maybe I am not supporting her in the right way.  Sometimes it makes me feel like I am making it worse for her instead of better.


We will talk more about that tomorrow.


For tonight she is on her date with AJ and I didn't want to bring it up today.

1 comment:

TwoLives said...

With four kids you both have a lot of parenting to do. And parenting, as rewarding as it is in the long-run, can be very frustrating in the short-run. Keeping up with their crazy schedules is a way of life and both of you are going to have to make some sacrifices from time to time.

What may work in this particular situation is to ask another parent to help out. You'll both miss the game but at least he'll get to play.