The last couple posts have sparked some questions about E. and his role in Botany's life. I suppose I've been deliberately avoiding talking about E. for a number of reasons. When we initially split up, I felt like a shaken bottle of pop and I refrained from saying too much because if I started, I feared everything would come bursting out in a potentially messy outpouring. It was, I felt, better to maintain a dignified silence about the details of our demise and not do too much airing of the dirty laundry. Further, I wasn't entirely sure how things were going to pan out in terms of our agreements on all matters botanical and I wanted to avoid fanning any flames of contention by spilling my guts about very private matters in front of the internets.
Never mind that I used to discuss all manner of things like my uterus with the world at large on a regular basis.
So here we are some months later. While it would be nice if everything settled down with E. in a pleasant, amicable arrangement as far as things like visitation and finances, the truth is, it's still a bit fraught at times. In a nutshell, the law here is that where Botany is concerned, we both have parental rights and responsibilities and it's up to us to agree how we want things to work in terms of visitation, finances, etc. If we can't reach an agreement on a particular matter, or if our current agreement breaks down, then the court can decide for us. Neither one of us has wanted to get into a big legal battle, so we've done the best we can to settle things between ourselves thus far. It's worked to a point, but it's probably accurate to say there is a continued undertow of tension, and some days it's worse than others.
On my end, a lot of it stems from some very serious trust issues with E. It's really hard to co-parent, on any basis, with somebody you don't trust. Part of it is that the way he left still leaves me positively breathless with anger at times. It's difficult to write about my issues of trust and anger fully, since holding to the "no dirty laundry principle", I haven't gone into the detail of why we split up. But I am sure if you think hard enough about what would bring a man to leave his partner of eight years and their nine month old baby daughter (and the dog! let us not forget the dog!), you'd come up with some reasonably accurate guesses.
And I think regardless of how much I move on (and believe me when I say, it's already been a lot), the reality of my life is that things are much harder than I bargained for. I never planned on being a single parent. I apply generous amounts of hindsight and wish I had done some things differently- demanded more for myself, not settled for less than I should have in terms of a tangible commitment, stood up for myself more. I do blame myself to a certain extent for allowing myself to get into this pickle in the first place. But then, love makes us do funny things and I think it's also fair to say I let myself be led down the garden path. Aside from not being married, on paper it looked pretty good- long term relationship, some common interests and goals, shared ownership of property, dog, child. It seems to me that even with a crystal ball, I could not have foreseen that he would have behaved the way he did.
Having your life capsize so dramatically and unexpectedly is a very hard thing to get over. Even with a sincere desire for things to stay amicable for Botany's sake, there are times when I still feel the urge to kick him really hard in a place it would hurt him very much and I suspect it's going to take me a long time until I feel otherwise.
So, yeah, anyway. As per the terms of our agreement, E. currently sees Botany two weekday evenings and one weekend morning every week. He comes round to my flat after work for an hour and bit to help give her dinner, do her bath and read her bedtime stories. On Saturdays, we take her out somewhere for a couple of hours together. In case you are raising your eyebrows at the word "together" there- the deal is that he only has visits under my supervision; again, this is due to my considerable (and in my opinion, currently well-founded) trust issues. My hope would be that in time he would be able to spend time with her on his own but we're quite not there yet. It's less than ideal, since in a lot of ways, this arrangement is a big ole drag- most of the time, I'd frankly rather not be in his company and it would be nice to have a wee break and some time to myself while he and Botany go do something fun. On his side, I am sure he would rather not have me in tow, while pursuing the aforementioned fun.
However, I believe that no matter what the composition of your family, you have to take a long-haul approach to things. And the reality is that we have to try to find a way to make this work, as parents, as best we can under changing circumstances. I'm sure there are going to be points where it gets easier between us, then gets harder, then gets easier and so on. There are days when I want to put my head in my hands when I consider that when it comes to Botany, I am saddled for the foreseeable future with an individual who I presently find to be pretty difficult to deal with. The compensation, of course, is Botany herself and all her sweet, silly, adorable ways. And things are looking very positive in a couple of other aspects of my life as well (on which more will be revealed in due course).
On the whole, I'm really happy these days- just not in the ways I planned for so long with E. As for Botany, if we can lay down our differences and find a common ground based on our mutual love for her, then my hope is that love is all she will ever know.
