I have two beautiful, wonderful, amazing children. My darling daughter, Jessica, is newly 16. And my precocious son, Liam, is 10. I have been divorced from their father for 8 years now. The marriage was not a good one. And while I will be the first to say that most marriages probably end with no one person at fault, I don't think that was the case in mine. I don't say this because I think I am perfect. But, I tried. I tried so very hard to make it better. I simply made a bad choice at the tender age of 19 and had to pay for it. I stayed for two main reasons - I have a very strong aversion to admitting to failure and I knew divorce would mean giving my kids to a man who had done nothing to deserve them every other weekend. As it was, he was never around. He spent every free moment at some friends' houses drinking or smoking pot. He was an alcoholic and a pot head. Now, I am not a saint. I have drank before. I rarely did while I was married to him, but there were times I indulged. I have no problem with drinking - in moderation. But the idiot to which I was married had been charged with multiple DUI's and had an extreme lack of self regulation when it came to drinking. As far as the pot goes, I've never done it. Never saw the need. Never was offered. Never wanted to. Add to that, it's illegal and it's the reason he was kicked from the Marine Corps whilst I was 7 months pregnant, and I had very little reason to believe it was a substance he needed to use. He knew my thoughts on all this before we married and lied to me. He covered things up and hid them from me. My babies and I were never his first thought. Every evening after work was spent watching tv and telling the kids to "go bother your mother" or staying "late at work" smoking a joint. Weekends, the kiddos and I spent with my parents or my sister. So, see. He had very little interaction with the kids while we were married. But, when it all finally came to a head and he found a woman that would allow him to drink and smoke at home, divorce was inevitable. And now, I had to deal with a fool that wanted his kids only because of how he would look to others if he didn't take them. And to take some control from me.
With a dad like that, the kiddos could have become little hellions. Hateful little snots who he turned against me with his vitriol of abuse spewed to them but never to me since he is a coward. But, no. My babies are grounded. They love me as deeply as I love them. They know I will not lie to them as their father has. I didn't tell them he was lying. They learned it through his actions. They trust me. And so, when I met and married the love of my life, they accepted him and have learned to love him as well. Now they have a stepdaddy that thinks of them before himself. A stepdaddy that wants them to be happy and healthy and most of all good. A stepdaddy that has shown my baby girl what a good father is like and my munchkin boy what a good man does. I want to thank the universe in its inevitable wisdom for bringing me this man who accepts me and my screwiness and loves our babies as if they had always been his. My Michael. My Husband.
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