Guilt, guilt, guilt. Sometimes I think I should change my name to include that one word. When I divorced my husband, my daughter’s father, I had a tremendous amount of guilt. What had I done? How would it affect Hailey? Would this cause her to rebel more as a teenager? If she rebels it will be ALL MY Fault. If she turns to drugs or alcohol, it will be ALL MY FAULT, I tore her family apart.
I know I didn’t do it by myself. The destruction of my marriage was a joint venture, my ex husband and I both responsible in our own way. This did not make it easier for me. I took second and even third helpings of guilt every day.
Anytime Hailey seemed to be having a hard time, I beat myself up. I should have stayed, I should have tried harder, I should have put up with it until my daughter was 18, and then left. I felt selfish for not wanting to give up those years of my life to stay in a bad marriage so my daughter could have an intact family.
My daughter and I are close, and she is very perceptive. It didn’t take very long before she caught on to the fact that I was sure everything was my fault and I was bending over backwards to make it right.
I found that our conversations quickly started deteriorating to crocodile tears from Hailey followed closely by “ Why did you have to get a divorce? You ruined my whole life!” Which of course was followed by running dramatically from the room, slamming her bedroom door and throwing herself across the bed to weep.
Initially, I followed her, devastated that my choice was hurting her so badly. I apologized, I rationalized, I made excuses, I looked on the bright side, nothing worked. Hailey had found a very sensitive button to push and she was pushing it at every opportunity.
I hate to admit it, but that worked for about three years, and it got worse and worse. Finally one day I could not take one more minute of apologizing for my choice. Hailey started down the usual path, this time throwing in how my choice was keeping her from being successful and how hard her life was and I was at the end of my rope.
I’m not proud of this but I ignored my daughter’s tears and told her to quite crying and suck it up! I told her that if MY divorce is the worst thing that happens in HER life then she is better off than 99% of the population of the world so shut up and get over it! I think I was even more stunned than she was, I had never spoken to my daughter that way, I never told anyone to shut up!
I walked down the hall to my room, quietly shutting the door behind me and then I opened my walk in closet and walked all the way to the back and sat in the dark and cried,trying to forgive myself, hoping, once again, that I hadn’t made it worse.