[/quote]SG, you've helped me out so many times and been a mentor/great friend to many of us here, but I don't know if I agree with that. Do kids really need 2 parents fully in their lives to be healthy? I have tried everything to keep my M intact and would love to have 2 parents for the kids, but the truth is even when he was living with us he was an absent parent. My S14 said he didn't notice any difference when H moved out b/c he wasn't around much and my D8 is happy we are separated b/c she sees him more now she says than she used to when he lived with us (spends 10 hours a week with them now).
Hey Karen43,
Our stories seem to mirror each other in more ways than just having crazy husbands.
My Mom died when I was 3 and like you I was lucky enough to have been blessed with the world's best Dad, but no matter how wonderful he was I always wished for that missing piece of me. That is why sometimes I feel as if this crisis with the ex was so hard to go through. We may cling harder because whether we want to face it or not we already have abandonment issues. The thing we never had to feel through our loss that our children do is the rejection.
So in refernce to our children, I think that SG is right, kids definitely do need 2 parents. Heck they need and deserve to be loved by both of their parents. I hear the samething that you described from my kids, in fact my son said the other night, that he didn't miss his Dad because he hadn't really felt as if he's had a dad in 10 years. I don't believe that. I think that they do have feelings of rejection and definite anger issues. Maybe they say this as a way of self-protecting, convincing themselves, or trying to spare our feelings. I just can't believe for a second that they don't feel as if they have a crack in their heart!
I don't have the answer, but what I do know is that because of this we have to go into high gear making sure that our kids know without a doubt that our love is unconditional, and that we will always be their rock!
