Hibiscus and tree bark on the carpet.
My ex-husband is coming to stay with us for a few days, to hang out with my son on his birthday. My husband and I allow him the (free) use of our home and car when he comes down, because it's better for the kids to avoid the arguments that ensue when we deny him these things. If my husband weren't handsome, smart and funny (and he is all those things), I would still love him for putting the kids ahead of his pride and justified anger with my ex.
That doesn't mean there aren't hurt feelings. It's hard for a man to raise another man's children when the other man is as irresponsible and clueless as my ex. Despite the tremendous costs of raising kids with special needs, the ex will only pay in child support what the state garnishes from his weekly check. My husband doesn't blink an eye when it comes to supporting or raising our kids - but he rightly and furiously blinks when he also has to host the irresponsible father who abandoned them.
My husband became their father when my youngest was still a baby and has raised them as his own. My son still doesn't understand that my husband is not his biological father and I have given up trying to explain. It's just as well, because my husband is the only real father he has ever known. My ex has always been in and out of his life, but he has never been his father. Everything my children have came from my marriage to my husband. From their characters to their GameBoys, all of it flows from the relationship between my husband and I and the people we are as individuals. They have only survived my ex.
Well, the foundation of who they are, anyway. They continually remind me that, whoever I imagined them to be when I first held them, they are their own people, separate from me in ways that surprise me every day. They possess talents and traits neither myself and my husband nor my ex can lay claim to.
In a hibiscus mood. As always, click to download.
