Missing Persons - When your spouse leaves
Missing Persons - when your spouse leaves
Your spouse left. This hard exit is a time for you to grieve and honor your heart.
What do you do when your spouse leaves you with two kids under two?
The first thing you do is cry and begin the grieving process. You grieve over the vision you had for your life, for your kids lives, and for the family you thought you were creating. Making space to grieve is actually a form of honor. You are honoring the hardship you’re enduring by not rushing through the process to be ‘happy’ and ‘get over it’. I strongly urge anyone going through a hard time not to rush the process. You are honoring the part of you that is betrayed by your spouse leaving. You need the process of grief stages to be a healthy person on the other side of trauma.
After you grieve though, what’s next? If your grief is the loss of an absent partner you will be tempted to succumb to your heart’s desire of giving your kids another partner to fill in the gap of the person who left. Let me give a strong warning: DO NOT DO THAT.
I believe in whole families. I believe families belong together. I also believe in divine timing. I cannot and will not manufacture a DAD or Father figure for my kids.
Here’s why: the definition of single,
Adjective 1. Not accompanied by another or others; solitary. 2. a. Consisting of one part, aspect, or section b. Having the same application for all; uniform c. Consisting of one in number 3. Not divided; unbroken: (American Heritage Dictionary)
Reread the 3 entry, Not divided; unbroken
Single moms read this : you are single and UNBROKEN.
Meaning at this stage in your season of motherhood you are enough. You are all your kids need right at this moment in time. Do we want our kids to have healed hearts from this broken father wound? Yes, but it is not our job to manufacture a father figure. Our kids need US, their Moms, to love them well. They need US to show up and be present. They need US to be secure in our role of care for them.
Will Smith has a fantastic quote on marriage. He says, “ And, we decided that we were gonna find our individual internal private separate joy and then we’re gonna present ourselves to the relationship and to each other already happy. Not coming to each other begging with our empty cups out, demanding that she fill my cup. And demanding that she meet my needs. It’s unfair and it’s kind of unrealistic and can be destructive to place the responsibility for your happiness on anybody other than yourself.”
Moms, if we are going to present a spouse to our kids it needs to be from a place of fullness - not from a place of desperation. I am new to the single mom scene and if I’m being honest I kind of want to camp out here for a while. I have strong village of support for my kids. This isn’t to say my kids don’t won’t need help or have to go to grief counseling to recover from the loss of their absent father but it is to say it’s ok to be without a male figure.
My goal as a Mom was to create a childhood my kids don’t have to recover from and that decision was made out of my control. My kids will have to go to grief counseling to learn how to process the absence of their father but there is mercy in this. I would much rather my kids grieve the loss of a distant human being than unlearn years of toxic behavior that misshapes their identity. Their counseling will hopefully teach them skills to be and feel whole - not rewire negative self-talk.
When looking to add to your family there is a difference between a MALE ROLE MODEL and GOOD MEN. My kids have constant exposure to good men from our family and friends. At this moment in time I’m believing that our Creator has found us to be a WHOLE and COMPLETE family without the addition of a man. My kids don’t need a male laying around the house that might offer some momentary solace for the absence of their bio-male. They need constant exposure to good men. In our lives that doesn’t look like me dating or getting remarried in a hurry. That looks like ensuring they have regular visits with their grand-dads, uncles, and close friends who’ve loved my kids since birth.
Moms it isn’t your job to BE their Dad. You can’t assume both roles, in fact, you weren’t created to. You were created to THRIVE in your role as a Mom. You do not have to be their Dad. You have to become whole in your role.