We Have No Secrets

Okay, today I’m taking on an even tougher topic than co-habitation (if there is one more difficult than that).  It’s the issue of our past mistakes and how much we share them with a new partner.  Love the second time around is different because now we have a pretty colorful history.  Some of it is wonderful, and some of it is, frankly, regrettable.  Part of moving on, clearly, is learning from our mistakes so as not to repeat them.  Yet, in order to do that, must we share, or confess even, our past errors to our new partners?

I tend to think that in the beginning of a relationship, you want to put your best foot forward and show what a great partner you can be.  Of course, I am a huge optimist that always looks for the good in people, and I can be blind to people’s faults (which is usually a good trait).  However, every now and then a voice of doubt creeps into my head and makes me wonder if history is doomed to repeat itself.

A year ago, I wrote a blog piece on this topic, but I never published it.  Back then I was listening to my friends talk about their lovers.  One friend was devastated to receive a phone call from her boyfriend’s ex-wife, regaling her with horror stories from their past.  Another friend was concerned because her lover admitted that he had cheated on his wife, and she was fearful that once a cheater, one is always a cheater.  Yet another man told me that he ended a relationship with a woman because of the problems that she had with her daughter.  He was concerned that indicated that she would not make a good step-mom.

All of these friends are quite politically liberal.  One works for a social justice organization; another is on the board of directors of a local anti-poverty group; the third is a therapist.  As I heard them talk about their lovers’ pasts, I kept thinking, shouldn’t our political and philosophical beliefs dictate that we give them a second chance?  If we are working for social change, shouldn’t we also believe that personal improvement is possible?  Should marital infidelity or other relationship mistakes be a black mark on someone’s record rendering them as unlovable as an ex-convict is unemployable?

Yet now that it is me who is going through such a situation, I can see much more clearly why my friends were feeling insecure.  I really do believe that people can change.  I’ve seen it happen in myself and in others.  I do think that we can learn from our mistakes and be not only productive members of society, but also skilled practitioners of relationships.  In short, I want to judge someone’s potential by how he treats me now, not how he treated someone else five years ago.  I want to be a compassionate lover who accepts and loves my partner despite his flaws (man, we all have them).  Nevertheless, Carole King’s song “We Have No Secrets” keeps popping into my mind. “Sometimes I wish.  Often I wish that I never knew some of the secrets of yours.”  Followed by Sheryl Crow’s “Lie to me. I promise I’ll believe.”

So, my friends who are experiencing love for the second time around, how do you deal with this issue?  How do you listen compassionately to your partner when they share difficult past experiences without worrying that they might come back to haunt your current relationship?  How do you have an honest and open relationship without judging your partner?  Is there such thing as unconditional love?  I hope so.

My First Thanksgiving Without the Kids

The kids just left with my ex and his girlfriend.  They are driving to the DC area to see his sister and his mother, who is flying up from Puerto Rico.  This is the first time that Jonah and Layla will see their grandmother and their cousins in about six years.  They were very excited, and I was happy to see that.

However, it must be said that this is going to be my first Thanksgiving without the kids, and I am also feeling sad.  In past years, my ex has come to my house, and we have celebrated as a family.  I love to cook, and the kids’ godparents usually join us.  This year is a departure from that tradition.  Considering how much our lives have changed since my move to Boston, I guess it is a change that makes sense.

As I stood outside the kids’ school waiting to pick them up today, I felt an aching in my heart and a lump in my throat.  Yet, the longer I stood there, the more I realized that I was lucky to be able to pick them up from school like I do because my ex doesn’t do that anymore.  I know that he feels sad to be missing out on that mundane yet also meaningful ritual.  Certainly, there are many parents, married or divorced, that miss key events in their kids’ lives because of their jobs or other responsibilities.  It is hard to make it to everything, and it is literally impossible to be with them for every important moment because some of them have to be experienced without parental involvement.  This thought made me feel better.

I may not get to experience this Thanksgiving dinner with them, but I get to have my own fun.  I am going on a road trip with my new boyfriend Jon.  We are heading to Philadelphia tomorrow night to eat a deep-fried turkey with one of his brothers.  His sister-in-law is going to take me to a yoga class with her (clearly my kind of woman).  On Friday we are heading to New York City to pick up Jon’s son, and then we go North to Vermont to eat yet another meal with a different brother.  On Sunday we are swinging back to Northampton to pick up the kids at my ex’s place.  Jonah wants to show Jon and his son his favorite Noho spots, namely Sam’s Pizzeria and GoBerry.  Finally, we return to Newton, hopefully with enough time for Jon to make a fort with the boys, as per Jonah’s request.

I am really excited about these plans.  It’s fun not having to plan and cook a big meal.  It’s fun getting to be someone’s guest and meet new people.  It’s fun to explore new places, even at a whirlwind pace.  And it will be great to be with Jon for one of his favorite pastimes: driving.

As I got a little choked up as the kids left, Layla promised to call me everyday, and Jonah looked me in the eye and said “I know that you will miss us, but you have Jon.”  I think that made him feel better, knowing that I won’t be alone and will be having my fun too.

In divorce, sometimes you just have to admit that you can be both sad and happy.  Sad that you may not be with your kids all the time, sad that you lost a meaningful love relationship, sad at how things have changed.  Yet at the same time, there is much to rejoice in.  In my case, I am happy to be living in a fun new city, happy that I have a great new job that is challenging me in exciting ways, and thrilled that I have started a relationship with a kind, funny, generous, and loving man.  At this holiday of gratitude, I can’t help but acknowledge the momentary sting of my children leaving.  Yet more than anything, I choose to focus on, and give thanks for, the abundant, sweet goodness of my life.

What I Do When I’m Lonely

I have been so busy with my move, learning my new job, enrolling the kids in school, making new friends, trying out yoga studios, dating and being a tourist in my new city of Boston that I haven’t had a single moment to myself to think or write.  Yesterday was my first day of alone time in which I really didn’t have any major projects to accomplish.  Damn, was it scary.  I felt completely lost, and, frankly, very lonely and homesick for Northampton.  However, as all difficult moments are for me, it ended up being a good opportunity to reflect upon how I handle the occasional pang of loneliness and sadness.
Many divorcees write to me about how hard the transition into part-time custody is for them.  Not only do we miss our kids, but we also don’t always know how to have time off for ourselves.  It’s a foreign concept for most working parents who go at break neck speed all day (and night) long.  It can be very disorienting to have unstructured time to yourself.

When I was living in Northampton, most of my free time was taken by yoga classes followed by nights out with friends.  Even if I didn’t have a social engagement, I always knew the cafes and bars that I could go to when I wanted to see people, and usually I would end up running into a friend and having a good time.  I don’t have places like that yet in Boston so here are the following activities that I did to fill my time and feel better.  Maybe some of them will resonate with you.

1)   Pamper yourself. I decided to give myself a much-needed pedicure, and I also bought a new hair dryer.  Sometimes we are too busy to really even focus on our looks, and it feels good to primp and preen a little bit.

2)   Catch up on house projects. I mowed the lawn yesterday when I was feeling restless.  It was something that I needed to get done, and the activity and the fresh air lifted my spirits.

3)    Go grocery shopping. I have noticed in the past that there are often attractive men in the Whole Foods market.  Last night I went shopping around 7 pm, and the store was teeming with eligible bachelors (because who else shops on a Saturday evening?).  Several guys gave me smiles and prolonged eye contact.  It totally boosted my mood.  If I had been really brave, I might have struck up a conversation with one of them in the produce aisle or something.

4)   Call a friend who will make you laugh. I have so many people that I love to talk to on the phone and often don’t have enough time to really catch up with them.  Last night I called my sister, and she told me a story that had me in hysterics (as my sister often does).  The endorphin rush from the laughter really helped.  And that happened right before the guys smiled at me in Whole Foods.  Maybe I was glowing from that.

5)    Read a good book. I tried to watch a movie on television but it just depressed me even more.  I probably picked a bad one (it was called “A Single Man”).  So I picked up my book instead, The Bastard on the Couch.  It is a fascinating and often funny collection of essays by men reflecting on the difficulties of relationships and fatherhood.  It made me chuckle, and it also gave me some great food for thought.

So yes, I do get blue sometimes.  Maybe these tips will come in handy if you find yourself alone and at a loss for what to do.  And if you have any of your own, I’d love to hear them.

I’d Do It All Again

On this day in 1998, I got married to the man I loved.  It was a very special ceremony with just 36 guests on the top of a cliff overlooking the confluence of the Russian River and the Pacific Ocean.  I never felt more in love or in sync with another human being as I did that day.

Thirteen years later, we are no longer together, both maritally and geographically.  I woke up this morning from a terrible dream in which we had had a huge fight.  It was so realistic that I had a tension headache and tightness in my chest.  I felt very powerless and angry.

Many of my readers tell me that they would like to have a peaceful and loving relationship with their exes, but that they can’t seem to connect with them or even like the person that they chose to spend their lives with.  I can understand that feeling.  Since the move to Boston and the conflicts that it has stirred up, I too have experienced those emotions.  As I see my ex from afar, I wonder sometimes how we could have ever loved each other as much as we did.  We have such different temperaments and personalities.  Even my son recently told me that he couldn’t imagine us ever being married.

Last night I watched a melodramatic movie called “Bandslam,” in which the teenage protagonist is raised by a single mom, after his father goes to jail.  Despite having a supposed SOB for a husband, the mom says to her son that she would do it all again in a heart beat because it led to the birth of her beloved son.  Of course I feel the same way.  I have these two amazing children who are smart, sensitive, funny, and very loving.

However, my kids are not the only reason that I would marry him again.  Despite the pain, conflicts and inevitable loss, we also had some wonderful years together, and he has greatly contributed to the person that I am today.  He taught me that I could love someone so deeply that he seemed like an extension of myself.  With him, I learned to share my life, my goals and my dreams.  I’m not sure that I would have made it through the intense and isolating experience of graduate school without his companionship and support.  In short, he is woven into the fabric of my life even before we had kids.

And I certainly learned about myself through the tough times as well.  I think we both see where we made mistakes and are trying to do things differently now.  Trial and error are powerful teachers.  Sometimes in our striving for achievement, we forget that.

So today, when we would have been celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary, we will be briefly crossing paths at an Applebee’s off of the Mass Turnpike instead as I pick up the kids from him.  Nevertheless, I celebrate this day and the wonderful gifts that it has given me.  I love him still, and thank him for his mark on my life.

An Open Heart

I am sure that you, dear readers, will forgive me if I write another piece about furniture.  After all, I did just move.  As I was preparing the house to pack everything up, my ex asked me if he could have a dresser that was once his.  I, being a clothes horse, had filled it, and I enjoyed it because it had a lovely mirror attached to it.  However, his request was perfectly reasonable, so I gave it to him.

Yesterday was my last official day in Northampton.  I had to pick up a few last things from my house, and I had to get Jonah’s bike from my ex’s apartment.  He was out running errands and told me to just go inside and get my son’s helmet to take with me as well.  That’s when I saw the dresser in his new place.  It should have been no big deal except for one critical detail.  It now had an 8 x 10 portrait of my ex and his girlfriend on it.  The dresser, which had once sat in my bedroom, intimately reflecting back my image as I changed clothes everyday was now the scene of a different kind of intimacy.  I’ll admit that it temporarily shook me.

This really isn’t a story about furniture.  It never is.  This is a story about my heart.  I intellectually understand that my ex has a new girlfriend that he lives with and who spends much time with my children.  She is great with the kids and they love her.  I appreciate her dedication to them.  I also appreciate that my ex has become more grounded and happier since he has been with her.  However, my heart doesn’t understand these things.  My heart feels pangs of pain when I think of them together in a romantic or intimate way.

The rub for me yesterday was that after a period of intense anger and conflict over my move, my ex and I had finally come to a renewed sense of peace.  Earlier that morning we had had a tender discussion and exchanged some loving words.  In short, I felt that my heart was open to him again.  I felt a sense of compassion for his feelings of sadness over our move, and I reminded him once again that we would always be a family no matter the distance (it’s only 100 miles).  I was happy to think of him in this light.

Yet, the presence of that photo immediately closed my heart and made me think of him as an antagonist again, as someone who had betrayed me.  His girlfriend recently pointed out that they started dating long after we had separated.  While I am certainly glad that she was not the cause of our breakup, that fact is almost a moot point.  After receiving so many comments on the post about going camping with them, I realized that most divorced woman experience that same sense of pain, regret, and anger upon seeing their ex with a new woman, even if we like that woman.  When we take wedding vows, we promise to spend our lives with someone, and we don’t imagine ourselves in the future hanging out with our spouse and his new girlfriend, or seeing their portrait on a dresser top.  It’s poignant and it’s sad, and there is no denying that.

As I felt my heart close up in that moment yesterday, it occurred to me how many times our hearts open and close when we are dealing with people that we love.  Sometimes they will say something that fills our hearts with love and we are on top of the world.  Other times they will criticize us or disagree with us, and we can only see them as an impediment to our happiness.  Many of us are afraid to even open our hearts for fear that they will be crushed.  Yesterday, when I was aware of how my heart had warmed so much in the morning only to turn to ice in the afternoon, I wanted to somehow stop that process.  I wanted to maintain a constant sense of open heartedness with him.  I wanted to remember the good inside him, no matter how much we disagreed.
In the end, my hurt over his relationship with his girlfriend is my issue.  I can’t stop them from being together nor do I begrudge him his happiness with her.  While I can draw boundaries and limit my contact with them as a couple, I shouldn’t let my wounded heart dictate my interactions with him.  In other words, I don’t want to let that close my heart to him, not only because I want to continue to be friends with him but also because I don’t want to walk around life with a closed heart.  I want to love and forgive and enjoy all of the experiences that life has to offer.

So I am putting a challenge to myself and to any of you who wish to accept it.  I want to maintain a loving attitude with my ex no matter what the circumstance.  I know this won’t always happen and that I will still get angry from time to time.  However, I want to see the best in him.  That was the impetus for my peaceful divorce, and after a time of turmoil, I need to get back to that place.  In fact, I want to see the best in everyone that I deal with.  I want to recognize the moments in which my heart has hardened with someone and make an effort to pry the door ajar.  I want to have an open heart.