Tantrum of a Lifetime

On Saturday my youngest son, Dub, threw the largest tantrum of his life. And not just one of those at home tantrums that you can just lock a child in their room for a while to wait it out. Nope, a full on out in public, surrounded by people I will see every week tantrum.
This tantrum involved crying, screaming, hitting, kicking, high-pitched screeching, and many other embarrassing behaviours. The cause of all of this? I would not give him a quarter to buy yet more candy from the machine at the arena. In hindsight I'm not sure that I picked my battle appropriately, but I sure was committed to it.
I know that this was mostly just fall-out from the separation. That Dub really doesn't think that I'm the "worst Mommy ever!!!!", or wish that I would die. I'm not sure that it makes hearing these things any easier for any mother though.
So, how did I handle him? Very physically :)
He was literally thrown under my arm and carried out of the arena. Until he wiggled so much that I lost my grip on him. The I switched to cradling him in both arms, with him screaming, kicking, and hitting. I'm sure the other Lacrosse Moms think very highly of me.

Over the past couple months I have received many lessons in judgment. By that I mean, not judging others when you have no idea what their situation is. To an outsider, on Saturday my child looked like a spoiled brat, and I looked like a mother that picks her battles poorly and has no control over her children. Here is the reality. My son is 5 years old and this was the first public tantrum he has ever thrown. Our family is in the throws of the very large transition from a 2 parent household to 2 single-parent households. This was the first of "Mom's weekends", which means that this is the first time that the boys have gone more than a week without seeing Daddy. As a newly-single Mother I have the new reality of "living on a budget", this is a new concept for myself and for the boys. On Saturday all of these "realities" converged, leading to the tantrum of the century. Since it was only the second week of lacrosse, none of the parents know our "reality". I can only hope that they didn't judge too harshly.

After all of this, how did our day end? Pretty well actually. By the time we arrived home Dub had apologized. He then busied himself drawing a picture of the two of us in a heart, walking together across a bridge, over a heart river. We then went and rented a movie, ordered pizza, and cuddled up together on the couch for the rest of the day.

I love my boys, I just don't like them very much sometimes.

This Is It

This is it. 3 days ago my husband signed the lease on his new apartment. The apartment that he will be living in, alone. After 8 years of marriage, and 5 years of dating before that we're done. We made this decision almost a month ago. Almost a month ago I moved to the spare room. Within the next week, after 12 years of living together, we will be living apart.

Why did we split? I have one close friend that is telling me to cite "irreconcilable differences". Why have people digging through your life? Why bring on the avalanche of questions that inevitably will come with the truth? Another close friend feels that I should disclose everything to many of the people closest to me. Why have people wondering why you separated? Why have people thinking that no effort was made? Why have people think that you don't have a legitimate reason? I trust both these friends wholeheartedly. I value both their opinions. And given they have both gone through divorce themselves I know that their opinions come from some experience. Right now I think I'll chose the route of least resistance, of least effort, and keep those details to myself.

So what details will I disclose?

• We want different things in a relationship
• Neither of us are able to bend on some of the deal-breakers
• We both have spent too much time unhappy, and have too much life left to continue being unhappy
• Neither of us turn to the other for support, strength, or inspiration
• Our children are suffering because we are unhappy

We have spent the past year trying to put things back together. We spent the year before that denying there was anything wrong. And we spent the year before that really struggling and drifting apart. When all is said and done this has been a three year slide towards a separation.

This is where I find myself now. I'm 32 years old, with a house, two kids, two cats, a puppy, and very soon...single.