OMG! Earlier this week I observed an incident involving a father, a mother, and a young girl that has made me so sad I almost can’t stop thinking about it.
I saw a mother and her daughter , who was about six or seven years old, in Panera Bread where I’d stopped for coffee and a cinnamon roll. About the time I left Panera Bread, the woman and her daughter also left. When we all exited the building I noticed a man sitting at one of the bakery’s outdoor patio tables. When the woman and her daughter spotted the man, the woman and her daughter hugged each other tightly then the daughter ran to the man, obviously her father, jumped into his arms and hugged him like she hadn’t seen him for a long time. The man tried to hand the woman something as she began to leave (he looked pathetic), but she gave him a withering look, turned her back on him and walked to her car. The daughter watched her mother leave, obviously not wanting her to go. What I saw was most likely a custodial handoff - time for dad to have the daughter for awhile. I felt utterly awful for that little girl for the rest of the day-
Divorce is not a pleasant thing. If I had a thousand years I could not tell you about all the pain and guilt I have in my heart from divorcing my two daughter’s mother and leaving them behind. Forgiving myself for that crime has taken a lifetime - because what I did was a criminal act that hurt two innocent people. I am reminded of that every Father's Day.
I reasoned, as so many other people do, that my daughters would be better off living in a single parent home because mommy and daddy would no longer be bickering and fighting anymore. I was wrong and I see that now. Men, if you only bicker and argue and there’s no physical assault or anything like that, just because your wife doesn’t clean house the way you think she should or doesn’t want sex as often as you do doesn’t mean you need to leave her.
I was a hopeless romantic when I was a younger man. I’m ashamed to admit that I did not feel like I truly loved my wife when I married her. I liked her but I yearned to fall passionately in love with a soul mate who would complete me and fulfill all my dreams. When I left my wife and my daughters they were crying their hearts out, pleading with me not to go, but I left anyway. Naturally, my second marriage - to the soul mate I thought I’d found - only lasted three years.
I have been punished for my crime over and over again and I know I deserve it. I do not complain about that. I am reminded too many times of the look on my youngest daughter’s face the day I was out drinking and fooling around with another woman and was an hour late getting home to let my daughter in the house. There she sat on the front step looking as forlorn as any little girl could look. She wasn’t crying, didn’t get angry with me or anything, but I could see in her eyes that I’d broken trust with her.
That’s what divorce is all about - broken trust. And you know what? You will truly know what hell is when you blow your life away like that. Not preachin,’ just sayin.’
For another perspective on this issue, I suggest you read: an article about being a "weekend dad," by William Leith at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1072420/The-anguish-weekend-dad-One-time-father-gives-poignant-testimony.html
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