All Better

So, the rash faded away into the sunset, thank goodness, and my hindquarters have gone back to looking like themselves (or has gone back to looking like itself?) again.  What the hell was that, anyway?  Neither TTD nor I have a clue.

It is hot hot hot hot hot here, proper summer at last.  Today I had to drive about an hour to a homestudy interview, and I actually had the top UP in the Mini because the sun was just too fryingly hot to topless driving.  Heh.  I am a wizard with the puns.

I'm going on another drive tomorrow, to see...dum dum dum...my ex.  We haven't seen each other in eleven years, since the day we went to court for our divorce.  He's living about an hour away from where I live, and is currently around between overseas trips (he has his own outdoor adventure business and leads trips to sea kayak in Baja, work on national parks in Costa Rica, and do I-don't-know-what-all in Siberia).  I don't know what it will be like to see him, but I'm looking forward to it, since he has, of course, his own place in my heart and always will have. 

Hey, speaking of that: any of you out there who have divorced, remarried, and then had kids--how did you explain the concept of an ex-spouse to your children, and when?  I'd love to hear.

Oops, crying child.  Bye.

Comments

[Beth]

Just my opinion:

I haven't been married before (never married, technically), so I haven't had to deal with how to tell my son that sort of thing. However, regarding other family matters of a *potentially* (though not necessarily) delicate nature, I tend to share information on a need-to-know basis.

If I were in your shoes, I'd probably wait until the kids were a whole lot older and mature enough to understand the information. I'm guessing they don't need to know about it right now, and it might only confuse them, even if they didn't show it. I'm sometimes amazed at the misconceptions my son has, esp. when I've thought he understood something, and sometimes I've felt sad at the thought that he'd gone as long as he had with the burden of that misconception.

If you're planning to introduce your ex to your kids at some point, you might want to introduce him only as a family friend, and save the details for some much later date. Obviously this is just my two cents, YMMV. :-)

[liz]

My best friend's husband was married before and they agonized over what and when to tell the kids. They sat them down when they were maybe 3 and 6 and told them and never mentioned it again as it's a subject that just doesn't come up very often and they never see the ex-wife. They mentioned something about it five or six years later and the kids were absolutely shocked to hear that their dad had been married before. It was so funny because it had been such an issue to tell them the first time and they didn't even remember. The parents assumed they had done their duty and told them.

[Moira]

My dad was previously married.
It has never ever been a secret to me...I have a half brother and he lives with us these days and has for years now.
It's always just been part of my reality, I don't think there was ever a talk. My dad sometimes says things about his ex-wife if it comes up in conversation. It's just been part of my life I guess.

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