Turd sandwiches

I bet that title caught you out!

This is an expression that I use whenever I have had to deal with unpleasant situations such as when I see my ex wife when I’m dropping off or picking up my kids. It also applies to being directed to doing something at work that you are diametrically opposed to but have to do anyway. For me though, it’s primarily the former situation and I had another feast a short time ago.

My kids are going away for the next 5 days with their Mum. When I dropped my kids back to my ex wife’s place a short time ago, her boyfriend’s car was in the carport next to hers. Yummo, that one tasted especially nice!

Given what has transpired and how she has been towards me since we separated, and even though it was nearly 4 years ago that is NOT a long time, I still find it incredibly difficult to be in her presence but I know that I have to be civil in front of then kids and chomp down on how I really feel.

How do I get over this? Well I have accepted that I probably never will, and the hardest part is reconciling how much I loathe, despise and even at times hate someone who I was once in love with.

For the sake of my own sanity I have chosen happiness and it was only possible once I knew that my 2 kids were coping okay. I always knew that they loved me despite not being with their Mum, but I was always stressing that they would not come through our separation too well. I needn’t have worried.

I say that I chose happiness but I think that, once the immense hurt that was caused had abated and I had settled in to my newly single Dad life, I genuinely became happier because I was no longer in that caustic atmosphere. I guess it took a separation and a divorce for me to realise that it was a bad atmosphere to be in, but I’ve come out the other side a much happier person within myself and my own resilience has increased a hundred or even a thousand fold. Yes not seeing my kids every day is one of those culinary delights that I spoke about, but that is balanced out by the fact that whenever I do see them they are seeing a person who is genuinely content with his lot in life, and who subsequently is a better father – if I do say so myself!

My only wish from now on is to be able to eat from a different menu in the future.