Although the decision to allow Daughter to eventually go live with her father was a difficult one, it is only the beginning in a long series of hurdles that the decision puts in my path. The social worker mentioned one thing which won't be easy at all, and in my head another hurdle popped up immediately.
The issue is with telling the boys that their sister has decided that she doesn't want to live with us and that I have decided to allow her to leave. They love their big sister, a fact which is often illustrated by their natural gravitation towards one another when the camera makes its appearance. They want pictures of themselves together. Another thing that is very obvious in these pictures is that Daughter is very big, and that the boys are very tiny beside her. She is their Big Sister and they love her. She loves them too.
I don't know how the boys will feel about Daughter moving away. I am sure they will not be happy about it. I am not anticipating any requests to have her room or her computer. I am anticipating tears. These kids have been through a lot and they have been through it together. They were moved across the Atlantic no less than four times between 2005 and 2010. All of the moves except the first one involved moving away from one parent or the other. That's a lot to deal with. And they dealt with it together. Separating them now seems so terrible. I mean, separating siblings is sad to begin with, but even more so for me because of what the children have been through.
For now, I have not thought about how to break the news to the boys. I feel I need some professional advice in order to be able to do it properly. I am sure the social worker and I will talk about this.
Another huge hurdle, even scarier for me than the one just described, is telling my family, especially my sister. It would be an understatement to say that my sister and the children's father have a history, and a nasty history at that. They have a mutual dislike of one anther. Neither of them are ever willing to forget anything, so their dislike is based on the cumulative shortcomings they see in each other. Bottom line, my sister sees him as a bad person and a bad father. She doesn't want to see him within ten miles of the kids, and when she finds out I am letting Daughter go live with him, she is going to blow a gasket. I wonder if she will disown me as a sister.
Granted, my sister is right. I don't know who in their right mind would allow that man to raise a child. Obviously, I am not in my right mind. For reasons I have exposed in previous posts, I am very nervous about what will come of Daughter. I am trying to be positive and trust in her inner goodness to prevail, but I do wonder which of her values will be compromised as a result of living with him. I know this makes me seem high and mighty. I don't mean to come off as trying to say that I am a perfect parent, but I do believe I have a clearer idea of how a child's spirit needs to be nurtured. As I have said before, I felt trapped into this decision. I could almost say it is not my own. I just don't see any other way out of this situation.
Telling the rest of my family will not be a picnic either. Generally, I avoid discussing the children's father with them because that results in immediate anger and outrage. They are so quick to jump to the worst conclusions and are quick to judge. I'm not saying they are far from the mark when they behave this way, but it is still hard to hear and puts me into a very difficult position because I don't want the children to hear anyone talk about their father in this way. Sometimes I think I am the only one in this family who recognizes that a child needs to have a positive image of both parents in order to have a positive self-image. I learned this the hard way when my husband kept putting my family down to me after we got married. I tried to explain to him that every time he said something bad about them, he was putting a part of me down and that hurt. He just didn't get it. He is a very opinionated person and is not in the habit of keeping quiet about his opinions. It is the same way with my family. I hate to see the nastiness and hatred surface when the subject of my ex comes up. It's not nice to see.
I will have to tell them, though, and sooner than later, because Daughter feels no compunction to keep quiet about her victory over me, about the fact that she will soon get to move away. If my family finds out from her, it will be worse. Also, if they argue with her that there is no way I would let her go, they may turn nasty about her father and say things she doesn't need to hear. Not to mention they will be that much harder on me for not having told them in the first place. So I will have to tell them soon. I just have no idea how to go about it.
It is quite exhausting even to think about all this. I have been on sick leave for so long, I am in no shape for jumping such hurdles right now, but I am going to have to do it, and soon.
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