I have received not a few messages from men about how unreasonable their wives become after the marriage crumbles. In fact, one of such messages reads “When I began to see another woman (after I quit my troubled marriage), every attempt she made to be a mother to my children, their mother rebuffed with so much bitterness.
“My new woman bought a dress for my daughter on her graduation from high school, do you know that a few days later, the same dress was burnt, packaged and sent back to us with this warning, “witch, stay away from my children.” The offence of my new woman was making efforts to make mine hers.”
There is something that a lot of men seem not to understand about matters of this nature. When a woman has not come to terms with you NO LONGER being in her life (as a result of a separation or divorce), what you shouldn’t do is make another woman begin to play “mother” to her children right away.
No matter how well intentioned, it is insensitive!
A woman’s children are HER SPACE. Therefore, keep your love life out of her space. Anything more is like rubbing it in her face and that can “unwire’’ the last shred of reasonableness in a woman!
Don’t be in a hurry to give her children another mother, when their mother is still alive. What will give the children a sense of BALANCE is still that “mummy, daddy and us (the children) circle.” Not “mummy, second mummy, probably second mummy’s children, daddy, and us.” I understand the good intention of wanting to carry your children along in your “new life” but it actually unnerves them. Do your thing with your new woman in YOUR personal space but with the children, downplay your involvement with whoever. Give them time to adjust to the reality of no longer having you under the same roof with them.
Give them time to see their mother become herself again. Give them time to walk through the reality staring them in the face. It is a process!
You have moved on but they (and possibly their mother) have not. However, not having your children suck up to your new woman should not invalidate what you have with her.
A lot of men use how quick their children “attach” to her to judge the suitability of a new woman. It’s not always wise to judge how good a new woman is for you from how fast your children attach to her.
Sometimes, it has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the stage of the (acceptance of a reality) process that the children are operating from.
I have seen children who were the ones making moves to remarry a parent. That’s because they have got to that okay (acceptance) page about their parent’s decision.
Just don’t harangue the other parties into embracing your reality, when they are not ready for that. Allow them to go through relevant processes (acceptance, healing, forgiveness and more healing) to come up to the page you are on. A senior friend begrudged his older children for not wanting to have anything to do with their half-sister (his love child) whom he enrolled in the same school as them. The children kept their distance and he was hurt.
I wondered why he didn’t grasp what they were actually saying to him that they care about their mother’s feelings. It’s not a bias towards a father. It’s just that given a choice, they want their lives with just mummy and daddy in the picture and it’s that picture that their head and heart will work with, for some time. A considerate parent shouldn’t rush them through that process.
END
Be the first to comment