Based on a story (about divorce), I saw a few days ago on TV; Portugal has an average of 70 divorces per day. I decided to share a text I wrote a few years ago.

“One of the hardest decisions in a parent’s life is getting divorced.

With children life has another meaning, another flavour. It is as if living makes a lot more sense …

When I became a mother for the first time, I felt life was better, “Ahhh yes, now, I get this “higher existence” in the world …”

But with that same feeling others arise. The sense of not being allowed to fail, to provide, survive and give good examples.

Now I cannot go away if I feel like it, I can no longer quit my job and become a volunteer in Africa, I can no longer go “crazy”, live on a daydream state etc.
Now it’s time to grow up, you have kids okay? And so begins, a new life; we are all grown up, we are all responsible and serious adults.

We start talking “baby talk”, we find joy in endless descriptions of every minute of the lives of our babies and spend infinite time telling it to friends (little we know that telling it later to our own children and watch them laugh with tears in their eyes, is even better). We focus on this life that makes us oh so happy.

Time runs and weddings, sometimes, run away too … Endless discussions: why the hell is “this” more important than “that”, or why does one need to have a break … escape from what, wasn’t this what you wanted?

It takes two people to make a child it’s supposed to be two people to raise a child too (at least from my point of view).

In most cases this balance is never mathematically perfect. This causes discomfort or not. Sometimes people, cleverly, know how to manage and accept that in life nothing is mathematical. Perhaps because you are young (or old), because people think that the awareness levels in a relationship are the same, or because women like to rule the relationship (I’m joking…)

And the day comes when despair makes us hit the door in our own face. Yes, we do this to us, and to our children that inevitably have to face it too …

Life begins again. It is as if we can touch the reset button ( as if that even existed in real life).

Different, more liberating, it’s like now there are actually two parents sharing responsibilities. Any doubts, it’s all written, just check custody page number 5.

We start getting more out of the house, to travel (as long as we have money) to go to the movies, to the gym, reading books, going to the mall, watching the news, we favour the “single life again “but above all, we spent most of the time trying to replace the emptiness and loneliness you feel when the children are not around.
But yes, we can actually enjoy those things we couldn’t for centuries, what was it again…?

we work. We can focus more on our beloved work, we can do “workshops”.
I did a yoga course, it was good … I learned to relax (finally), among other new and interesting things.

But then there’s a question that becomes part of our daily lives and everybody (and I mean everybody) seems to love to ask, which is:

“Do you have your children today or not?”

As if it was possible not having them, as if it was possible to become a part-time mother and suddenly turn off this area of the brain, simple right?

It is a big “drug” being a mother, addictive, visceral. You miss your children and that hurts a lot. It does not detach, it clings to our soul and it’s like your heart beats out of your chest.
Everything seems empty and nothing makes much sense.

Well, we get used to it. Of course, we have to survive remember? We have to smile and be happy for our children, when they get back from father’s week, so that we can convince ourselves, we took the best decision of our lives.

It was probably the best solution given the circumstances … it could have been much worse, endless discussions…
But the truth is; life never goes back to being what it was, but that’s what we wanted, right? …

Do yourself a favour, do not try this at home, but if you do, be as strong as you” impossibly” can.

Think first in your children and how their interests and rights must be assured, the right to have a mother and a father around, who can be exactly that for them. LOVE them always, ALWAYS.

Do not make this any harder than it already is, with crap games of ego and silly judgments of who is better …

Apparently, It seems that children are not so affected by divorce, just as long as parents are not too affected themselves.

Be happy, that’s all after all. Any day…? Maybe I am already …