To all absentee parents out there..
How do you do it?
How do you manage to swan off and live your selfish dreams without compunction?
How do you live in material and emotional comfort knowing you have abandoned a past life?
How does your conscience rest easy knowing you took care of yourself without looking into the needs of your children?
…These are just some of the questions that surface to my mind every now and then. It baffles me to know that some people can move on and out without any remorse. More often than not, it’s the men who fall into this abominable category.
I know I could never rest easy if it had been me to walk out on my marriage and children. I would forever be worried about what my children would be doing, thinking and suffering. All the gaps in their lives I would miss and no matter how many phone calls I make, it would never recover the precious lost moments with them. I would inevitably forget the nuances in their behaviour and not know how to read between the lines in conversations simply because I would have lost track of their evolving personalities.
In too many cases, I have seen a shockingly paltry effort made by the absent parent to maintain contact with their children. A phone call once a week will never be tantamount to normal parenting and to chastise the indifference of the children when those phone calls are not responded to, is quite frankly, despicable. The status quo of a previous life can never be expected to remain. It’s unrealistic. And it’s unfair.
I know I was viewed as the obstacle between free-flowing contact between my sons and their father. However, a long time ago, I decided to step back from getting involved. If anything, I do my utmost not to intervene and inshaAllah, I’d like to believe I have been successful. And fair. Yet despite this, I sometimes detect an organic apathy from my sons towards their father. Like it or not, whatever relationship they have now will never equate to having a full-time father in their daily presence. Not that any of us are lamenting this situation. We all see the benefits it has brought too, Alhamdulillah. That being said, had we not been in this situation, we would have not known any better and would have continued happily in the setup we had back then.
But ultimately, some parents choose themselves over their children. That’s not to say that two people should be doomed to eternal unhappiness in a marriage just for the sake of their children. It may be the case that separation will bring relief and happiness all round. However, in my own case, I don’t believe that my children’s father has found a version of long-lasting ‘forever’ happiness. Like so many man before him, the promise of eternal bliss may not have lived upto his expectations. Do I feel sympathy for anyone in that situation? Of course not. That’s because the long-term implications of divorce are deeply entrenched in my life and my sons’. Not that we are imprisoned by the past. However, the impact of that momentous decision will forever haunt us try as we might to deny it.
Divorce is a manifestation of hubris miasma. Unfortunately, moreso of the male hubris miasma. History will repeat itself and lessons will not always be learnt. Humans are not as intelligent as they might delude themselves into thinking.
I continue to try to measure time from a different starting point and not that dark ugly episode in my life. My newest starting point was that epiphanous day standing on Snowdon. That’s when Allah inspired me with hope and excitement about the future. Now I am looking forward to my next definining moment which will catapult me onto even bigger goals, inshaAllah.