A woman wearing a gray hoodie walks alone along a snowy path in the woods.

A mother’s journey of “letting go” on her own terms

I’ve often wondered, do single parents have a more difficult time “letting go” of their offspring?

For so many years, I felt like the only responsible, reliable adult in the room, even after my former husband became a more involved parent again after the birth of his third son with his new wife. I now wonder if I went a little overboard, but at the time I felt that because our two sons had the misfortune of having divorced parents, I needed to be extra vigilant, involved, and present for them. There was still quite a bit of stigma and societal judgement around divorce in the 90’s – “broken families” and all that.

I also felt guilty for my perceived part in the divorce. The dominant discourse in society at the time was that if a man left his wife for another woman, the wife must have somehow let him down, not looked after him well enough, or had perhaps not looked after herself well enough and was no longer attractive to him.  Although on some level I thought this way of thinking was ridiculously unfair to women and a pile of you know what, I had never heard anything different thus far in my 33 years of life. I had never taken a gender studies course at school or learned anything about patriarchy. So, at the time my husband left, a niggling feeling persisted inside me that I may have driven him into the arms of another woman by not being “enough” in some way or another.

My great-aunt reinforced this notion when she called me out of the blue one day. At first, I felt touched that she had called to offer some support, but then she went on to say that the previous summer while we were visiting her in Ontario, she had noticed that my husband seemed to be under a lot of pressure and “near the brink” – of what I’m not sure. She then recalled a time in my childhood when I had lost my hair barrette while staying with her and I seemed driven to find it. “I guess I really liked that hair barrette” was my first thought, but I also had a sinking feeling inside.

I believe this might be an example of the harms of help. I felt stabbed in the heart and betrayed by my great-aunt; someone whom I assumed would be 100% in my court seemed to be implying that there was something inherently wrong in my nature that was contributing to my husband’s stress and dissatisfaction and may have “driven” him off.

Let’s recap here: My husband was under stress, for a myriad of different reasons that my great-aunt likely knew nothing about and he chose to deal with that stress by confiding in a woman who was a coworker, not his wife; he then chose to leave his wife and start a new life with basically a stranger instead of someone that he had committed to spend the rest of his life with and had two children with … and, somehow, I was being held responsible for not only my supposed deficits but also his choices and behaviour?!

The patriarchal double standard was invisible to me then, and now it just breaks my heart.

I felt devastated after my aunt’s phone call, and for years afterwards I felt waves of shame wash over me as I grappled with our unexpected divorce. Friends and family were all shocked by it; they thought we were, I dare say, the “perfect” couple with a solid marriage, and I guess I believed that as well. I knew that, like most couples, we had things we needed to work on but I thought we were in it for the long haul and I had no frame of reference for men being unfaithful … at least, I thought I didn’t at that time.

Over the years, I became uncomfortably aware that there were significant male role models in my life who had been unfaithful in their marriages and that a patriarchal blind spot of male infidelity seemed to be concealed, just below the surface.

So even though it was not my choice to get a divorce, I figured that I could choose to be intentional about how I brought up my two innocent sons and that is what drove me to do my very best for them …

In one way, I had to let go of my sons, aged 9 and 5 at the time, significantly earlier than any of my friends with children did. I had to say goodbye to them every Tuesday night, Friday night and all-day Saturday, and then again when they went on vacation with their dad and stayed with him on some holiday weekends. I don’t think my friends and family could entirely comprehend how painful this was for me, but they did offer support in various ways. I recall that my friend, Brenda, would come over every Friday night so that we could watch a movie or do something to pass the time. She kept me company until I adjusted to my new reality and I am forever grateful for her kind heart.

I would also hang out with my dear friends Marlene and Dave. Much to Marl’s chagrin, Dave would cook up homemade pizza and a big batch of fries for us to indulge in and although Marl is very fit and always trying to get Dave to exercise more and eat healthier, she also knew that there were times when comfort food was a necessity!

My grief lessened over time, and somehow it became normalized for me to hand over my precious children to someone who had betrayed and hurt me, and our family unit. It didn’t feel right but I had to do so by law. After all, he was still a good dad, wasn’t he? He wanted to spend time with them – although I didn’t understand why he should have that privilege; and he was reliable about paying child support – even though the amount never changed the entire time that I raised them until they were 18.

Another dominant societal discourse that I have been reflecting back on is that children need both parents to thrive and that boys in particular need the influence of their dad. I certainly bought into this idea, and did my best to be sure that my sons had lots of time with their father; in fact, I made it easy for them.

My sons and their dad kept misplacing the keys to my house so I had a code lock installed instead. I communicated with my former husband about the boys even when he seemed incredibly busy with his job, graduate school, extra-curricular activities and his new family; I even instigated family meeting check-ins on occasion where we gave each other affirmations, planned who was doing what and solved issues.

I protected my sons the best way I knew how, but I now wonder if I may have overprotected them from what was really going on. Would they still have grown into strong, resilient men if they had been raised solely by their mother? And if they knew about their father’s choices? I’ll never know.

Another unsettling trend that I have noticed, in particular with girls and women, is the idolizing of fathers and a discounting or even villainizing of mothers without knowing the full story of that woman’s life. I wonder if we placed the lack of support, the harms of help, and the hidden lens of patriarchy on top of every woman’s lived experience whether a softer viewpoint might emerge for some of our female relatives.

Sadly, I did not know parts of my mother’s story until the last year of her life, when at age 84 she was tired of keeping secrets. So many women, including me and my mom, have bought into the patriarchal discourse of giving men not only second chances, but third and fourth and more; “boys will be boys” or “men will be men” is so often the rationalization to turn a blind eye and not hold men accountable.

I remember when signing the divorce papers that I had to check off a box under the heading Reason for Divorce, and the only one that seemed to fit was “irreconcilable differences”. There was no box for “my husband has been unfaithful and is starting a new life with another woman”. I was crying as I signed the papers in my divorce lawyer’s office and she distractedly asked if I was okay – did I have a cold or something?

Eventually I got so that I enjoyed my alone time, even though there was always lots to do to keep up with running a household. I liked to do the grocery shopping, laundry and yard work when the boys were with their dad so that when the three of us were together again it wasn’t an endless number of chores to get done. Of course, I still kept a few chores for them to do to teach them responsibility and teamwork!

I found it hard, looking back, because my sons’ dad seemed to be the “fun parent” and I was the structured parent with all the rules. I’m sure it was like a holiday going to their dad’s house with the dog, cats, and new baby brother. I was the one who kept track of homework assignments, field trips, extracurricular activities and play dates with friends; I purchased new clothes and shoes for them as they grew, gave them allowance to teach them about money, and helped them prepare resumes for their first jobs; I took them for their driver’s exams and when one son got a speeding ticket, drove him to juvenile court so he could ask for no demerit points and a lesser amount of money to pay – and I made sure that he paid it!

I tried to teach my sons how to be good young men as they hit puberty, and that was weird being a woman, but I tried my best. (Was admonishing our local family hair salon for displaying what I deemed inappropriate magazines for my teen boys over the top??)

Getting back to my original pondering; is it harder for a single parent to let go?

For me, I would say that is true. My beloved young children were pried away from me before I was ready, and there are times when I still feel a little panicky and need some reassurance that they are okay in the world. I hope they can forgive me for that.

I recently came across this poem by an unknown author that I perhaps should have pasted to my forehead some 20 years ago:

To let go does not mean to stop caring; it means I can’t do it for someone else.

To let go is not to be in the middle, arranging all the outcomes, but to allow other persons to affect their own destinies.

To let go is not to fix but to be supportive.

To let go is not to be protective; it’s to permit another to face reality.

To let go is to fear less and to love more.

I guess if I had to do it all over again, I might just have more fun with my dear sons and I would let go of trying so hard to make up for their father’s choices.

It makes me smile to remember a ziplining adventure with my oldest adult son … and I feel joyful in anticipation of parasailing with my youngest adult son next week.

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