The Saturday before last, my 15yo son had a school mate of his come over to my place so they could hang out together for the day. In case you don’t know, I am a divorced father of 2 teenagers and have 50/50 custody of them with their Mum.
Now my son had had his mate over to his Mum’s property on a couple of previous occasions and all had apparently gone well. After I had dropped my son’s mate back to his home at the end of the day, I spoke to my ex wife about how it went and she said something to me that made me feel 3 different emotions.
My ex told me that, prior to our son wanting his mate to spend the day at my house, his mate’s Mum and my ex had spoken about it and apparently my mate’s Mum did not want her son to come over to my place because she did not know me. What my ex told me next led to my confused feelings.
My ex told me that she said to the other Mum that I was “…a good man, just not the man for me.” When she told me this and after I dwelt on it later, I admit that I was a little shocked but I also did not know whether to feel a little miffed or pleasantly surprised.
Firstly, I will admit that my first impression of the comment was that it was a nice complement being called a good man. There have been times since our separation 5.5 years ago where there were words said to me by my ex that continue to fill my head with negative impressions of her. Without going into too much detail, she has said things that were nasty and self serving even though she didn’t know the facts or chose to ignore the circumstances of things. Needless to say, after having had hurtful comments thrown at me in the past, it made for a pleasant change to have her give me a compliment in her conversation with the other Mum.
So how do I feel? How should I feel?
I know that I am not perfect – who is – but I also know that since my separation and divorce and after a lot of soul searching I agree wholeheartedly that I AM a good man. I was brought up with values and standards that I live by and want to instil these in my children.
As to the other part of my ex’ comment, that I was not the man for her, how do or should I feel about that? Around 3 years ago, out of the blue and about 2.5 years after we separated, she sent me an email in which she went back over times and events in our relationship and came to the conclusion that I had “…changed the narrative of our life and our separation…” and had not really known her at all. I am the first to admit that I made mistakes and could have been a stronger person whilst we were married. I could and should have stood up for myself but she was definitely the stronger personality in the marriage. We were always two vastly different personality types and in some ways probably should never have made much of a go of things, and despite our differences the fact that we were together for 15 years says something positive about the relationship. It doesn’t help to dwell on or to regurgitate any ill feelings from the past.
Ultimately, I am comfortable with the fact that for a number of reasons it is better off that we are no longer together. After our separation, my sole focus has been the health and well being of our 2 kids. Any parent will tell you that they always worry about their kids’ resilience when things go bad and I hope that as a ‘good man’ I am being the best father and role model for them that I can possibly be.
Time will tell.
Health-your-self.com 