What One Dad Got Right and Wrong When He Got Divorced

The author, Charles Martin, with his sons Joseph, left, and Michael. (Photo: Charles Martin)

“As long as the kids are okay.”

Those words were the North Star of my divorce. A simple mantra that reinforced the idea that, though the marriage might have been ending, we would always be a parental team. Take care of the children first and everything else will follow.

We got married too early. That was the problem, the All-American mistake. Too young, too naive, and with too much curiosity left for the world and all its wild ways. We managed to stay together fifteen years. A testament to our patience with each other and all our mistakes, great and small. A house, two kids, two dogs, and a true and powerful affection for one another. Yet, even love can’t bind forever when it is so dwarfed by history.

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We made comics together. That was when we felt the most perfect, when we were creating side-by-side. She was a brilliant writer with elegant, simple, but evocative illustrations. And clever. So very clever. Gay Zombies Attack. Elvis Is Undead. Frankenpimp. Progressive social commentary through satirical exploitation. She was good. Her noir-inspired family portrait still hangs on the wall. I think often that I should take it down, but its presence comforts me.

She took a job in the corporate world so that I could stay home with the kids and write. She pushed hard to advance within the company, slowly clawing us out of poverty while I talked her out of quitting. There were many mistakes on both sides, but not recognizing that the stress was crushing her remains my biggest regret.

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“You need to be patient and let yourself mourn,” my mother told me shortly after the initial separation. “Divorce means losing someone important to you. It is like there has been a death.”

Yet, it’s not the same, not really. There is a sad nobility to mourning death. Mourning a dead love felt pathetic and sick.

But as long as the kids are okay.

And they were. We got through the divorce without alienating the children. Instead, we only alienated each other, which is to be expected. The gameplan, some of it discussed, much of it formulated on the fly, was meant to insulate the kids from as much fallout from the divorce as possible.

“‘As long as the kids are okay’ is a simple mantra, but not an easy one,” Paulann C. Canty, a licensed marriage and family therapist at GrowthLines, told me. “The idea of a ‘parental team’ or partnership is important. How that team operates is unique to each couple, and is determined, and redetermined, across time, circumstances, and development stages.  Being partners in parenting is critical whether the marriage dissolved after two years or twenty, and continues through children becoming adults, marrying, and having children of their own.”

Our strategy started with never talking about the ex-spouse in a negative light. Never. Especially when we most deserved it. As long as the kids were safe and healthy and happy, we kept our criticisms to ourselves. Peace was difficult to achieve and even more difficult to maintain in those first two years while the emotions were still so strong. Clear boundaries helped considerably, yet those boundaries broadened over the course of the divorce until we were left with near silence. I talk to my ex-wife’s new husband more than I talk to her. I can’t say if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the kids are okay, so I let it be.

My primary misstep during this process was getting wrapped up in gossip. When the stories poured in from our mutual friends following the break, I believed the worst (rumors I won’t elaborate on here, because now I know better) because I was terrified that I wasn’t just losing a wife, but the mother of my children. I overreacted, reached out to her family and friends for help which only perpetuated the rumors. It was humiliating and did irreparable damage to what remained of my friendship with her.

And, of course, the rumors weren’t true.

“It’s so easy for any of us to get sucked into gossip as consolation, proof that we’re the good guy,” Canty wrote.

It grew easier when I came to understand that her leaving was perhaps the kindest thing she’d ever done for me. Single life suits me well. We made two strong and stable homes to create continuity for the boys. I also fell in with a small group of divorced buddies to help me appreciate how much worse it could have been.

As new flames arise, I introduce them to my sons carefully or not at all. This is critical for me since I have a bad habit of loving too quickly. Forbidding sleepovers while the boys are home serves as a check to my more amorous tendencies.

We both track grades, drive our sons to extracurricular activities, engage in their interests and try to be understanding of the turbulence that all teenagers face. It’s a difficult time but the kids are okay, which means we are okay, too.

“This is not a one-time meeting where the rules get set,” Canty says. “But an ongoing conversation about how to manage being divorced parents in this moment, knowing we may have to manage differently in the next.”

It will always feel a little weird and false to me, my ex being content and happy in her new life. Married, a step-kid, vacation photos of her climbing boulders with the boys, tagged with my son’s name so they showed up in my Facebook newsfeed. Her new husband was holding the camera. I knew him before all this and recognize what she sees in him. He’s clever too and understands her struggles better than I ever could.

And I need her to be content and happy, just as much as the boys do. Parenting is easier when you don’t have to carry the burden all alone. Giving up on her and our love will always haunt me. But the kids are okay. In fact, they are better now that we are divorced. In the final months before the separation, my oldest son would sneak to our bedroom door to listen to us argue. He was terrified that we were on the verge of bankruptcy and were going to be homeless, so was relieved that we were merely getting divorced. His reaction was instructive of how I should align my priorities through the next few years. Yes, divorce was devastating and it cost me my closest friend, but it also saved our family.

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