My ex-wife and I only really got along in the very beginning of our relationship. We breezed through the phase of chocolates and big bouquets, convinced our love was the sort that would inspire sonnets. But everything unraveled when we discovered we were expecting a baby and both sets of parents bullied us into tying the knot. Things werent shattered enough for divorce after a year and a son, but certainly tense enough that wed launch into a good row at least a couple of times a week over, essentially, nothing.
Thankfully, I was out working long hours and my wife was home with the baby, so we managed to get a healthy dose of time apart. As long as we only crossed paths occasionally, and I spoiled our son rotten in my time off, things were bearable. Thats probably why, when our son turned four, we reached the brilliant decision to have a second child.
A second child brought us closeror at least gave us the illusion that keeping busy with childcare issues signified a roaring success in the family department. We barely had time to argue between tantrums, playgroups, and lost teddy bears.
Naturally, child number three followed. I took on extra work (with my wifes blessing, mindshe was thrilled not to have to hear me pontificate about my day). Wed never been great at saving and, determined the children wouldnt feel hard done by, I worked as much as humanly possible. Of course, I didnt ignore my wifeshe got her share of spoiling too, though apparently not quite enough, because by the time our eldest was eleven and the youngest four, shed sorted the divorce papers and announced shed met someone else.
Honestly, I wasnt heartbroken. I cant say I was shocked shed found a new love; between the school runs and nursery drop-offs, she must have met someone eventually. I was the one constantly thinking about paycheques and never home for tea. What did surprise me, though, was how eager she was to leave the children behind.
Shed always been a devoted mum, never missed a parents evening. And then, like a plot twist in a soap opera, she just got fed up and began making threats. She said if she had to ‘drag the children into her next marriage,’ shed ship them off to a childrens home or whatever. Turns out, she and her new sweetheart had grand plans for a baby of their own, and she had no time at all for, as she put it, those lot.
I could have been bitter. Maybe I was, for a few weeks. But as the dust settled, Sunday mornings became breakfasts in bed with my troopthree faces grinning up at me over sticky jam fingers and spilled juice. I burned pancakes, forgot birthdays, and learned to French-braid hair, badly. I made up new bedtime stories, sometimes just to hear their laughter.
People love to ask if I regret how things turned out. Regret? Only the illusion that happiness comes looking a certain way. The kids and I built our own clumsy, noisy, lopsided happiness from scratch, tapped together with glue-sticky crafts and giggly pizza nights. Looking back, sometimes what feels like breaking apart is really just the start of fitting the pieces back together, better than before.
Every night before I turned off the last light, Id stand at my childrens doors and listen to them breathingthe steady rhythm, proof that no matter how wrong the story began, it can still end somewhere right. A father, three children, and the whole wild rest of the world waiting to be discovered.
