Going public
Today we met with the boy’s team at the school to talk about his progress. He’s at a school in another town, a program that’s better able to meet his needs. He wants to go back to his regular school, but our affluent little town can’t seem to find the space or resources to do what it needs to do. So we’re using the space and resources of a nearby affluent bigger town.
We’ve met with this team three or four times, and last time he said that since the meeting was about him, he wanted to be in the meeting. So we met without him for half an hour, and he would join us at half past. We had decided, along with the boy’s therapist, that it would be helpful for the school to know what was going on at home, what the time table was, and what was likely to happen. We were running out of time — it was almost 2:30, and at a nearly appropriate place in the meeting, I said “This may be a good time to let you know of some changes.”
Beth and I usually sit side by side at these meetings. This time she sat at one end of the table with the boy’s therapist and the affluent little town’s special ed coordinator between us. She gave me a scowl, and said, “I don’t think so.”
“Well, it’s almost 2:30, and he’ll be here soon, so I don’t know that there will be a better time,” I said. “Beth and I are separating.”
I don’t think it was a big surprise, actually. The school’s social worker said that the boy had mentioned something in group about “Mom and Dad fighting.”
We talked briefly about the logistics. Where I would live. When we would tell him. The boy’s therapist mentioned that when she had talked to us about this, every time she was about to give advice about what to say, we were already ahead of her. I repeated that we were very good parents, just not good spouses. Beth scowled again.
All of the people who are close to me, most of the people I work with closely, and a few others know what’s going on. I don’t know if my openness is a good thing or a kind of self-indulgence, but it’s how I’ve tended to do things in the past. One of the things that was difficult when I married Beth was adapting to her sense of privacy. Even now, for instance, I haven’t told anyone at the shul.
As far as I know, she hasn’t told anyone except one of her sisters. I can’t imagine that. How does she get support, advice? She needs someone to tell her, “You know, I never really liked him that much.”
Maybe it’s shame.
I know that it took me a long time to come to this decision partly out of shame. Divorce is a colossal failure. I thought I had learned what not to do from previous relationships and from my parents’ own failures. Even now I say “This is not what I wanted.” But I don’t think I can honestly say that I want the process to stop and reverse itself now.
I wonder how the boy will handle telling people. He has a lot of my traits, so for him it may be just another thing to report. Certainly between his therapist and the group sessions in school, he’s learned to talk about his feelings and what’s going on in his life. I don’t want him to feel that his life is falling apart — that’s how I felt when my parents fought, but they fought dirty. I want to reassure him that things will be all right — different — but all right.