When I first read Heather's comment, I was a little pissed. After reading her comments again, I don't really understand WHY I was pissed other than my gut reaction that it was a "armchair, psuedo-feminist psychological analysis of my family based on what you read in a post that took me 20 minutes to write" (from my comment earlier today) and a "How dare you side with my mother!" type thing. There's really nothing in her comment for me to be pissed about...she has (some) valid points, but my feelings are my feelings.
Although Heather's scenario would make a killer Lifetime movie, the situation we were in at that time would have not played out in that way. We were super poor--like eating government cheese poor, because my Dad was hurt in an on-the-job accident and they spent his settlement on bills. No assets, mutual or otherwise.
That’s not really material (no pun intended). Regardless of what assets were available or not available; regardless of whether or not it was a happy and fulfilling marriage; regardless of how unfair society is in its expectations for women and mothers; it’s not fair to penalize your children. My mother didn’t “graciously” walk away; she didn’t take one for the team. She left her kids without saying goodbye, left us will all indications that she was going to die, and then disappeared for over three months without any attempt to contact us.
I agree that it was for the best that she and my Dad divorce, but why fuck up your kids even more than a “normal” divorce would?
I didn’t write that post for sympathy (or for a “cause”). I wrote it because I had never really discussed it with anyone (other than my wife) and I thought it would be interesting.
- 11/28/2005 9:30:00 PM
We thank you for sharing, Chris. It takes a lot of balls to talk about something that painful.