Sadness

There is no other word to express what I am feeling, I am sad, sad to my bones, sad to every atom of my being. After a conversation between Andrew and my ex in which my ex slagged me off for more than a couple of hours with the core of the conversation being that I am "allowing" the authorities to persecute him and take him away from our children because I am not supporting him because basically I am jealous of him because he knows how to "play" with the children and I do not not.

This man could not tell me the names of his childrens' best friends, my son's favourite transformer character, my youngest daughter's favourite song, what my older two daughter's got in their latest tests at school or how many goals they scored in their latest sports match, yet none of this matters because I am jealous as he is "fun" and I am not. He says this is why his children need him, because I do not know how to play with them and am thus depriving them of this fun life which they need.

How can I be jealous of a bankrupt, alcoholic, deluded, ex-con, I can't, well not any more. I used to be jealous of his easy life, he was sitting in his prison cell with his every moment controlled, his meals provided, his washing done, the recreation center with it's pool tables and playstations, the in-cell TV blaring all day. I was at home juggling 4 very upset children and a full time job,not to mention a nervous breakdown. Then when he came out, he had no responsibilities, never had to be Mr Nasty, never had to "challenge" the children in any way so they adored their perfect father and gave me hell. Oh, I did learn from him because of this, I decided that there was no way I was going to do just the responsible stuff with the kids I was also going to do the fun stuff, the swimming, the cycle picnics, being Optimus Prime trying to prevent Megatron from taking over the world, baking and decorating cupcakes, trying to stop the kids from thrashing me too badly on the Wii and not just nagging them to tidy their rooms or do their homework.

Now, I am not jealous, I pity the man, he will never understand what it is to be a real parent, the joy of it all, the highs and the lows. My oldest daughter told me earlier in the summer that she does want to see her Dad, but that he is only a "best friend" sort of person to do nice things with he is not really a parent. I was going to cry at that point having tried so hard to be this fun person too, but then she went on to explain that I am all that and more, because I also do the difficult parenting part too. Many of her friends are apparently jealous of her relationship with me, they cannot and do not talk to their Mums and tell them the sort of important things she tells me. Then she cried and begged me never to leave her. This was because she knows how close I came to suicide a few years ago at the start of all this story. But the truth is that now I could never do that again, how could I ever contemplate missing the rest of her life, how could I not want to stay here to parent such a fantastic girl. How could I not want to stay when my son tells me that even though he loves school " a lot" he doesn't want to go because he loves me too much to be away from me and his heart hurts when he is not with me. No, now I could never do that.

I am so, so sad that this man, their father, will never have this deep level of joy and satisfaction of being a parent. He will only ever understand the transient, short lived, temporary joy of the "fun" in the here-and-now. I am sad that I "picked" such a man as the father of my children, but hell, I also picked me as their mother. Jealous, I have nothing to be jealous of.