Quick, Are the Kids Sleeping?
We've entered a new phase of QWTKAS. The divorce years.
Elephant in the room - I’ve gone missing.
I know, dear reader, I’ve spent some time away from here, this place of brutal truths about family life, raising kids and the ugly underbelly of what it means to be a working mom trying to keep it all together. There are a million excuses for why that happened, but rather than spend time excuse making, I’m going to tell you the truth.
The truth is, I’ve been busy untangling myself from a complicated marriage, and I couldn’t bear to tell you the truth of it all while I was going through it.
Instead, I went underground.
Actually, first I went to Italy (BELISSIMO! - you’ll get the recap soon), and then I went underground.
Underground! Me! The person who has sworn herself to living honestly, with transparency and open book-ed-ness went radio silent, and became a snail curled into herself. It’s felt unnatural, dishonest, boundaried.
Boundaries.
Today’s newsletter is brought to you by the word BOUNDARIES and friends, therapy is a motherfucker because in therapy I’ve learned that I don’t have any BOUNDARIES.
I am an open book and that can result in me saying anything, being open to anything, not setting limits, giving myself little room to just be, and not saying “this isn’t right” when things aren’t right.
I am growing around this, and this summer, when I was curled up in my shell, I grew.
So, I’m going to tell you about it ALL but I am going to flex my newly formed baby boundary muscles as I do. There are things that I will share that are for you, things that are for a few, and things that are just for me.
Thank you, please hold your applause. That little nugget of newly hatched wisdom came at the mere cost of 1.5 million dollars worth of therapeutic help over the last 20 years.
You’re welcome.
For you
Peter and I split in June when the kids went to camp, though the road to making the decision to separate was years paved with trying, with therapy, with date nights, with conversations, with trying with trying with trying. Never in my life have I tried so hard to make something work that was broken.
Having a separation for the past six months has made me realize with even more precision that no matter what maneuver I could have made to make things better; more compassion, more understanding, more time, I would have still been left wanting more from our partnership.
IT FUCKING SUCKS when you wake up and realize you’re done. It’s absolutely the worst feeling in the world to know that something you’ve poured yourself into is over, and yet, 50% of us married schmucks do it.
Marriages end. Look at the stats!
The numbers do not look good in favor of a life of happily ever after for everyone who says “I do”. Especially for those of us who said “I do” when we were twenty seven years old and completely under schooled in the ways of parenting and finances and home ownership and spent every weekend at boozy brunch and taking pole dancing classes at CRUNCH (Am I projecting?).
When you’re twenty seven you have no idea what you want for yourself let alone what you want FROM someone else, and so you dive headfirst into what you think is LOVE - which, it was - but whatever that love was wasn’t the type of love designed to weather the storm of life.
Most marriages are doomed on day one, and yet we all show up like idiots with our Williams Sonoma boxes and are too afraid to scream out at the people getting married,”YOU KNOW YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS!YOU CAN JUST LIVE TOGETHER AND GET NAKED AND HAVE FUN FOR A WHILE LONGER. YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS! YOU WILL OWN A SET OF MIXING BOWLS AT SOME POINT IN YOUR LIFE - I PROMISE - YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS TO GET MIXING BOWLS” - but then of course there are the kids that we made, and they justify the whole mess of it.
They more than justify the whole mess of it. We didn’t know it at the time, but they are the reason it happened in the first place.
So even though we all show up at weddings and make bets about how long the marriage will last, and even though many if not most divorced couples produce a set of amazing children, somehow, the overwhelming position in society is that divorce is a horrible thing.
Somehow divorce is something to be avoided at all costs. Somehow it’s been written that getting a divorce will irrevocably fuck up your life, and I am here to tell you - NOT TRUE. Staying married to someone who you want to divorce will irrevocably fuck up your life.
Facts.
I am a child of divorced parents and their divorce was way more War of The Roses than mine will be, and even so, their divorce was a GREAT idea. You know why? They were horrible for one another! Their life together was miserable, and they have BOTH gone on to forge much better and more fulfilled lives for themselves.
Did it mess me up as a child of divorce?
Truthfully, yes, it did.
A little.
I have no boundaries and have spent $1.5 million dollars in therapy, but their divorce didn’t fuck me up anymore than them sticking around, hating on one another for another 20 years would have. That would have been bad too.
Divorce is making a choice of which version of bad you want. It’s not pretty, but it’s also not the worst thing. I am doing fine, and somedays, better than fine.
What I worry about everyday is whether my kids are fine.
Quick, are the kids sleeping? - This and other versions of this question come my way every day.
Kids doing OK? Hard on the kids? Are the kids angry, upset, adjusting?
The answer is “yes” to all of the above.
The kids are OK AND it’s an incredibly hard time.
They are adjusting AND they hate it.
They totally get it AND they are completely confused.
They love me, they hate me.
Business as usual.
The kids are sleeping.
The kids are going to be fine mostly because their parents are fine.
The kids are sleeping.
So, dear reader, I am happy to be back amongst you. I’ve missed telling you tales and dropping my perspective into your inbox. I am excited to now bring you stories of what it’s like to be an almost divorced working mom trying to keep it together.
I am thrilled to no longer be a boundary-less snail in her shell and to be here with you again.
Here I am again, boundary-less, out of my shell, penniless because of all of my therapeutic services, and perfectly fine.
The reason I write is so that none of us (me included) feel alone. Earth can be a lonely place where we trick ourselves into believing that our story is ours alone; that no one understands or cares.
The more I write, the more I learn how much it matters. The more I write and share the more I hear, “me too”. If any of this resonates, drop me a line. It makes me feel less alone and I hope that you feel me loving you right back through these newsletters.
If you’re interested, here are some other places where I am alive and well:
Instagram: @kimkassnovecoaching @death.by.paper.cuts
Kim Kassnove Coaching Website - You can subscribe to my other newsletter here - different topics - more self help - and fewer F-Bombs
Let’s stay in touch.
xo
Kim