sigh

i don't know if it should be comforting, but i find it unsettling that i'm confronted with things i experienced as a child again as an adult - oftentimes through my boys. and i don't mean things like snotty middle-schoolers calling me names and friends x'ing me off their favored lists, though i'm sure that's coming soon. i mean the divorce-related situations that were so painful and hard to understand.

i vowed when i divorced that i wouldn't take my boys far from their father. i wanted them to have full access to him and be able to form their relationship with him based fully on emotional availability, rather than physical. i vowed never to talk badly about him and treat him with respect, even when he didn't behave deservedly. i also vowed not to lie to my boys about my marriage or divorce or to protect their father with lies. and i've trusted that in the long run this strategy would bear fruits of honest relationships, at the very least.

and i hoped that it would evoke a reciprocal respect from the other side of the custodial partnership.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

i generally assume this falls into the category of things i cannot change.. but tonight either i was lacking in wisdom or running rampant in courage because i just could not hold my tongue - demanding respect and the benefit of the doubt and some spirit of collaboration from the boys' other parent. i mean, really.

sometimes i guess honesty and full support just don't go hand in hand. but even knowing that what i said was fully justified and knowing the boys were in fact validated by my advocacy, it still lowers my spirit to go there.

*sigh*

what i am reassured by is my own experience as a child of divorce... and the relationships i have now with my parents. though not easy or painless, or perhaps because of the difficulty and pain, i relate to the boys. and it bonds us, in a way...

d: more wisdom to discern battles worth fighting.
b: plenty of courage, be it effective or not, for one that was.
g: serenity in accepting the results.