By Peter Ehrlich

Lust. Love. Betrayal. War. Redemption. Peace. Sounds like an ad for your typical television fictional mini-series. It’s not. It’s my life-changing non-fictional journey as a single dad.

My ex and I separated and the subsequent result was her and I engaging in a fierce custody battle. A few couples can separate amicably. We could not.

When a mother and father fight over their child, the stakes always feel exponentially extreme.

Watch any nature program starring a mother bear and her cubs (children). Then picture yourself walking into the frame with the intention of approaching her babies. You’re not walking out unscathed. That’s motherhood.

Unlike male bears, evolved men are programmed to care for and defend their children as well. That’s fatherhood.

In a custody battle, it’s not about Venus and Mars. It’s about Venus and Venus – colliding.

And so, like lots of you, my ex and I fought – a lot. The hostility was always there. Whether on the phone or during the “handoff” we were like the two guards facing each other at the DMZ between North and South Korea.

Even apart, the silence of our war was deafening.

To steal a line from Apocalypse Now, my ex and I looked upon each other “with extreme prejudice”.

Then life threw me a magical curve. Here goes.

As per our Access Schedule, I went to my son’s school to pick him up. (My ex was the registrar.)

When I walked in, the entire staff crowded around me; “Suzanne didn’t come in today for work. And she never called in sick”. There was a look of deep concern in their faces.

With their words my body caved in. I knew my ex was in serious trouble. Suzanne was too disciplined to not call in. It was impossible. Something was very wrong.

I was stricken. There was nothing cerebral about my reaction. It was all from the gut. As Woody Allen says, “nothing worth knowing can be understood by the mind”.

I grabbed my son, jumped into the car, racing to her house.

I knocked. No answer. The door was unlocked, the house empty. I got on the phone and called her best friend, now nearly hysterical, “Ingrid, Suzanne is missing”.

She suggested I call the police and ask if an ambulance was sent to the address.

I did, and yes, Suzanne was picked up by an ambulance and taken to Mt. Sinai.

Speeding there, I parked the car in the first illegal spot I saw and we ran to her room.

There she was, her eyes lighting up at the sight of our son. She had a gall bladder attack. I slumped in a chair, put my face in my hands and cried.

A nurse came in and said to Suzanne, “see how your husband loves you”.

We heard the words but could not possibly acknowledge the great irony to each other. Suzanne saw my tears and silently absorbed them. The emotional benefit for me would be manifested another day.

The magic? I discovered a love for my ex. I loved Suzanne because she loved our son. Nothing else mattered. I discovered the ultimate bottom line, and by doing so, was freed from the shackles of “extreme prejudice”.

Since that day we have been civil towards each other, something our son loves.

It’s the end of the year. Maybe it’s a good time to look deep within ourselves to discover the part of our soul that understands, once you willingly have a baby with someone, there is always love – somewhere.

Feel free to contact Peter at peter@geronimocode.com

Related posts:

1. For the Sake of the Children – Cooperative CO-Parenting During and After Divorce
2. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
3. Good Men Step In To Become Dads

By  Peter Ehrlich
Special to Single Dad Life

My single mother collected bottles on Miami Beach for money. I know because she told me.

I was on Google Earth recently to learn more about that “beach-bottle” time. I had a frayed document with the Miami address. After I punched it in, I was beamed down to float right above our Miami apartment.

I hovered over the laneway that my mother had to have walked down to find her bottles. I stared at a great swath of sand at the end of the laneway, sharing the pain, shame and poverty that my mother must have felt.

We eventually fled back to Montreal, where we first lived in one room with my grandparents on the Esplanade and then finally to our own flat in Outremont, where I played in the mud and gravel behind the building.

When I was 5 years old, I told my mother, “I want a daddy” and a year later I was sitting on Gunther Ehrlich’s lap.

She asked, “How would you like Gunther to be your father?” Without hesitation, I said, “Yes.” When I found out we shared the same birthday, Dec. 6, the deal was spiritually sealed.

Until meeting him I had never fished, seen stars in the sky, walked in the woods or visited a zoo.

Gunther Ehrlich took me everywhere and introduced me to a new and beautiful world that I explored with unbridled joy.
He provided us with a real home, a life defined by cottages, lakes, hiking and fishing.

When we were not at the cottage, he took us on road trips to Vermont, Maine or the Adirondacks.
He taught me that travel is a great form of education and that the road less travelled is the best one, the place where one finds the greatest treasures.

For the first time I saw that men, too, can love and nurture and I was at last in the company of a man who “wanted” to be my father.

When my father said, “Here are the car keys,” he gave me wings, allowing me to experience the joy of independence.

My mother died at 49 when I was 17 years old. I still needed him and he was always there for me. Without him I would have fallen through the cracks of society.

I now know the degree of love and commitment it took for this “magic-man” to walk into my life and take on the mantle of father.

Who is a man who “wants” to father someone else’s children? He’s someone who:

• Sees past the notion that the only children worth loving are those created by his sperm and that anything else is less sacred.

• Finds joy in giving to children because the torch he wants to pass on isn’t defined by his last name, but rather the quality of love he feels a natural desire to impart.

• Understands that love is an activity, that there’s a reason children dance even when standing still. Children need to be active, have their heads stuck in everything good and beautiful. He makes this happen.

• Sees life as a process and wouldn’t deem a failed marriage a mistake. He gives a single Mom every opportunity to start anew and revels in the glow she radiates as she sheds the parched skin of a painful past.

He’s a man who saves lives. He’s also my father.

Thank you, Dad. I’ll pass it on to your grandson.

Feel free to contact him via his website – www.geronimocode.com or directly via peter@geronimocode.com

Related posts:

1. Why Teens Need Dads
2. Holidays a time to take high road
3. The Joy of Single Parent Sex – Really

By Peter Ehrlich

Have you brought home two or three love interests to seriously meet and hang out with your child?

If “yes,” read on, because your child’s developmental well-being will likely start to be compromised after they meet your next.

A study out of Johns Hopkins University has shown “that a child who had experienced more than three transitions had more behavioural problems than those who had no transitions.”

The research, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was published in the April 2007 issue of American Sociological Review and was peer-reviewed. In it, 2,097 children ages 5 to 14 had been studied since birth until 2000.

Behavioural problems mean delinquent behaviour, including skipping school, vandalism and crime.

The authors also observed that “children who experienced multiple transitions in family structure have lower average scores on tests of mathematics and reading skills.”

That’s a heavy price for children to pay for their parent’s libido.

Think of the transitions our children have gone through just to get to today. First, your children (hopefully) got to experience the “happy family period.” Then they perceived that their parents were falling out of love. That hurt.

Then they couldn’t understand why their parents were less patient with them. Finally, “why is Daddy (or Mommy) moving away?”

Many times I have encouraged you (and myself) to go out and meet someone. But life’s passion-swords are double-edged; its orgasms, sexual or not, carry a price.

The price of multiple transitions is heavy – a dysfunctional child who will become a dysfunctional adult, marooned on an island surrounded by stable people.

Most single parents know it’s unhealthy for children to have unnecessary transitions, but not all.

There are still stories of parents bringing their kids on first dates. Unforgiveable. That’s extreme, but over the course of a dozen years, it’s easy to meet three people who will affect your children.

Life is fragile.

It doesn’t take much to upset the balance – a wrong word, moment of infidelity or violence. We can easily create a situation that will result in a “forever haunting.”

When we choose to bring a new person into the lives of our children, we risk the tipping of that delicate balance our children desperately need – defined by consistency and peace.

Why do children hide behind your legs when strangers approach? It’s because they’re children and strangers are strange by definition.

To go from hiding behind your leg, to meeting your new friend, to feeling comfortable, reveling in the company of, to never seeing again is an arduous journey and children rely on us to take them there with discretion.

When “we” break up with someone, “they” break up with someone. That combined with the back and forth, the lugging of their “stuff” is a helluva lot to ask.

The single parent genie grants us three (transitional) wishes. After that, we bite the bullet and revel in our celibacy until our children can create their own transitions.

Then we’re free to make all the mistakes we still need to make on our karmic wheel.

Feel free to contact Peter at peter@geronimocode.com

Related posts:

1. Summer and Single Parent Hedonism
2. The Joy of Single Parent Sex – Really
3. Single Parent Empty Nest Hard On The Heart

By Peter Ehrlich

I remember the first time I heard Neil Young sing Only Love Can Break Your Heart, I was in my early twenties. And I remember what I thought about the song. “Nice little jingle, but I should get back to Keith Richards banging out his signature dirty riffs to All Down the Line.

At that time I really never experienced the broken heart thing. Sure I had my breakups with my “girlfriends”, but being so young, I easily subscribed to the Buddhist notion that attachment is the cause of all unhappiness.

I suppose that when you’re so young that you can’t even begin to get a whiff of your own mortality, how much can a break-up mean? After all, you’re going to live forever.

That’s changed, because to quote Frank, “and now the end is near”. Well, the end isn’t exactly near, but it is.

I had my heart broken recently. You all know that. I told you about my animated discussions with my carpet mites, face flat against the floor. I did however leave out other details pertaining to that episode.

• When I did the laundry, after I put the clothes in, I would stare through the plastic top and watch the water rain down, the tub fill up. I found it comforting oddly enough.

• When I took the lint out of the dryer, I held it tightly for a moment before I trashed it. I found it comforting oddly enough.

• The other day I sat in a chair for half an hour and watched a spider crawl up the wall, wishing I could have such a simple life, the same feeling I get when I watch a cat, Zen masters unto themselves, do nothing, which is 99% of the time.

• When I went out, I purposely put on my heavy leather duster coat, just to feel its heavy weight on my shoulders, much the way Robert DeNiro lugged his net of metal objects up the mountain in the movie The Mission, as a way of atoning for the sin of killing his brother.

Breakups are all about penance and redemption, unless you’re the kind of asshole who believes it’s always the other person’s fault.

But I digress. Now I listen to Only Love Can Break Your Heart and understand exactly what that means.

Can the death of a loved one break your heart? No, I don’t think so. It can certainly kill part of you off, in that you’re changed forever by the loss, but it doesn’t break your heart.

(I remember when my mother died, I was seventeen, and I spent hours at a time listening to John Lennon sing “nothing’s gonna change my world”. (Across the Universe) And I knew exactly why I listened to that song, that many times, at that time; Twas because I knew that part of me died alongside my mother and that nothing was going to change that for the rest of my life. Part of my heart died on the day she died, but it didn’t break it.)

Now, let’s go on to the next part of the song, the line that comes after “only love can break your heart”. Here’s the crux of the song, the main theme, the big lesson for all of us, but the hardest lesson of them all; “try to be sure right from the start”.

This is where most of us screw up, because you know what I say. If you mix your genitalia together four times, you’re in a relationship my friend.

And you know what being in a relationship means my friend, it means this: “I am giving you permission to hurt me”. Or put another way, I am giving you permission to break my heart.

How hard is it to apply the lesson – try to be sure right from the start? It’s bloody difficult. It goes against all our primordial selves are programmed to do, have sex and go to heaven.

I’ve never seen heaven. I’ve only felt it.

You’re in your late thirties, or forties or fifties and you haven’t had a hand caress you in months or years. And someone walks through your door who looks just fabulous to you. They look great, smell great and the date(s) was/were great.

And yet, through all that greatness you know it likely can’t work and your gut is telling you why and you know your gut is right, as always. But instead of listening to the little man or women inside of us, what do we do? We turn them off, shut them down and proceed down the shadow of the valley of heartbreak death, all for the sake of serving our short-term needs.

Ok, now would you like to ask me how to walk away from temptations of the flesh in order to spare ourselves of a painful, “watch the spider” heartbreak?

I have no idea! Well, I do, as this column proves, but I’m way too pathetic. I think it’s my Venus in Scorpio thing that undermines all that I do.

I bumped into a stunningly beautiful, brilliant Greek Goddess recently who knew exactly what to do, how to put credence into the “try to be sure right from the start” thing. She left.

After a wonderful night of talking, eating, slow dancing to Frank Sinatra, she got up and left with these words: “I want to sleep with you but I don’t think it can work. You’ll never move to Burlington and I’ll never move to Toronto”.

Is a man even capable of saying “I want to sleep with you but it can’t work”?

I know we can say no, but I’m not sure we’re evolved enough to say why.

As she walked out the door, Frank was singing “Five minutes more”, which ends with him saying these words – “oh come on” with a sigh, which was exactly what I was saying – oh c’mon Angela, with a heavier sigh.

That’s as intelligent as I got. “Oh, come on Angela”. I think my IQ at that moment was 46.

But Angela was a woman who had learned her lessons. What was the point of starting anything if you know it’s only going to break your heart? I had to give her full credit.

And so, when you’re heading out for date four, knowing there’s a 100% chance you’re going to have sex for the fourth time, with someone you know it can’t work with, go to YouTube, find Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart, then politely cancel and take a cold shower.

Yeah, right!

If you’d like to contact Peter,feel free to write him at peter@geronimocode.com

Related posts:

1. Single Parent Empty Nest Hard On The Heart
2. Children Bridge Divorce War Zone
3. Single Parent Genie Gives You Three Lovers

By Peter Ehrlich

I’m haunted by my Ex Katherine. Not by that went wrong with our relationship, but what went right with our relationship – our love life.

After being laid naked, fetal-positioned, paralyzed, and wanting by our breakup, I want to attempt a sequel with my Ex. I am willing to work harder on our vertical life together for the sake of getting back to our spectacular horizontal life together. How much harder? I am willing to change.

But am I being naïve? Or is a fulfilling love life worth fighting extra hard for? Should I be happy with what I had, count my blessings and move on?

Katherine and I were two completely different people with two completely different sets of values. Katherine was whimsical, perky and light-hearted defined by a Martha Stuart palette of powder blues, pinks and floral arrangements.

Until Katherine came along, I didn’t know what the word whimsical meant. The word came up when she tried to tell me what kind of stuff she liked in her home. I actually had to ask her to explain the word whimsical to me.

Once I understood its meaning, I knew that I was the Anti-Christ of whimsical. I gravitate towards mute colours and images that were popular in the Middle Ages –gentle brown tones of mud mixed in with a dollop of existential or “*Eeyorian” angst. (*Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh)

I am more “whimsi-bleak” or “whimsi- the world is a *charnel house” kind of guy. (*Reference = Samual Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.)

I suppose if I asked Katherine what a charnel house was, she would reply, “Oh goody, I’m in the mood for a barbeque.”

Her Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock-type film choices represented somewhat of a counterpoint to my Stalingrad, The Wehrmacht in Russia, Sin City or Gladiator preferences.

And finally, she loved her two cats the way I love my son, but my attitude towards pets (or people) is; if you can’t flush the toilet, get the hell out!

And so, you would think that breaking up with this woman would be a simple matter. Once broken up, I wouldn’t have to worry about my testicles being slashed by her jealous cats and I could watch whatever movie I wanted in my brown living room.

But it hasn’t been a simple matter. In fact, it’s been living hell. Sometimes I lay on the floor, unable to focus on much. Well, I can do this; Face flattened on the floor, I try to differentiate between the carpet fibres and carpet mites.

Why so f***ed up? My Ex and I may not have been soul mates (whatever the hell that is) but we sure as hell were once-in-a-lifetime sexmates.

Together Katherine and I had a wonderful, unabashed, deeply connected love life that was framed by a natural and mutual caring and trust.

Horizontal we were a match made in heaven and the relationship was effortless. Unfortunately, vertically, we were at odds and the relationship took work. We had a lot of fun together, a lot of laughs, and travelled well together, but our relationship, like many, could only succeed if you “checked in” a lot because we were very different kinds of people, defined by a different set of values.

But I didn’t check in a lot and we dissolved.

Here’s the conundrum. In any relationship, there is always something “qualitative” about the nature of your union. Consequently, there is always room for a sense of doubt. For example, “she does this well, but doesn’t do that well. He makes me happy this way, but not in that way”, etc. etc.

However, when you have a great love life together, that’s not qualitative, it’s absolute! And isn’t absoluteness exactly what we crave in our relationships? Extreme pleasure is absolute and addictive and life seems too short to live without it. Try harder I say.

So here’s the question-how far should we go to try to make a relationship work because you have a great sex life with your partner?

If you’re waiting for me to come up with an answer, forget it.

I haven’t a clue right now. I’m still talking to carpet mites.

How much do I miss sex with the Ex? Let me put it this way; “Katherine darling, it’s done. I’ve piled up all my brown furniture in the backyard together with my testosterone/war-themed DVDs. Got a match?”

Yes, I’m willing to compromise and try to have another go at our relationship, because a day doesn’t pass when I don’t think of my Ex, the road trips, the laughs and of course, our love life.

“Never give up on someone you can’t go a day without thinking about.” I read that from a stranger’s page on Facebook that was devoted to the millions of us suffering from a broken heart.

There’s another reason why I’m thinking of making contact with my Ex again. These words drifted into my head after I made a half-hearted effort to spend time with someone else; “After he kissed someone new, he found himself unintentionally whispering his Ex’s name, out loud, as if he were accepting the moment as a penance for his sins, rather than the celebration of life it was supposed to be.”

Just because I lie on the carpet floor, talk to mites and hear voices in my head doesn’t mean I’m haunted by my Ex does it?

Of course it does.

Feel free to contact Peter at peter@geronimocode.com

to tell him your own haunting story.

Related posts:

1. Single Parent Empty Nest Hard On The Heart
2. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
3. Peter Ehrlich’s New Bedtime Fantasy

By Peter Ehrlich
 I want to talk about my newest, ongoing, “driving me forward” sexual fantasy. This twisted new fantasy is the new fuel that has launched me to join yet another dating site and contact virtually every single woman between the ages of 42 and 52. I can go to any dating site now and know the bio of most Toronto women right down to their astrological sign. That’s how passionate I feel about doing whatever needs to be done to live my out this perverted dream.

Are you curious to know what the fantasy is?

I thought so, so with no further ado, here it is: A good woman, lying beside me in bed, in flannel pajamas, toes touching, heads propped up – reading together in silence.

(Ah yes, to be comfortable in your silence together. There is no better barometer for your relationship. The wonderful, kind and insightful Michael Kaufman once told me that – www.michaelkaufman.com.)

Nothing these days is turning me on more than that image. I don’t “take care of myself” to the vision of the image, rather, I may let out a sigh, exhaled under the cool abyss of my blankets. After the sigh, I turn on my side to embrace the only thing I can embrace – my pillow.

Sick eh? I’m a young baby-boomer. My sexual formative years happened during the golden age, a time before HIV, when every girl and they were just girls back then, was on the pill. Evolutionarily speaking, that time came and went in the blink of an eye. But I was in smack in the middle of it, acting out my fantasies like I was a young Caligula, but with a good heart. Back then, my penis made almost all of my life-decisions for me. I’m still playing catch-up.

What happened? I got older. I did. Two of The Beatles have long since passed and there’s no need for another notch on my bed.

A long time ago, I watched lonely, divorced, isolated detective Al Pacino pull up beside a hooker and ask her to get in. She then asked him what he had in mind. “I just want you to sleep with me”, and he handed her one hundred dollars. She was dumbfounded of course, but CUT TO: the hooker awake, spooning Al, who was fast asleep in a fetal position.

I remember what did Commodus told Lucilla in Gladiator when he was watching her son sleep; “He sleeps well, because he knows he is loved”. I never forgot that moment. And so, Al Pacino could finally sleep well. It mattered not that it was a hooker, all women, and I mean all women have a serious nurturing side that begs to be appreciated.

I’m in the mood to sleep well too now. I didn’t care back then. I do now.

My son Noah, nineteen, not only left the nest, but he’s trekking around in Chile and Costa Rica with his girlfriend. The bedroom I built for him stares back to me in mocking silence. His only presence is manifested by the maps of Chile on the wall so I can follow his wanderings from 5,000 miles away.

I never understood why the elderly fed pigeons. I do now.

I never understood the notion that as you got older, “companionship” becomes more important. I do now. It’s the stuff that we who have trod so many miles deserve and require to be happy.

I can go no further with this column without puffing out my chest to remind you, and myself, that when the primal calls for it, this Satyr is still enthusiastic about answering the siren call, to gallop on to fulfill said equestrian duty. But my “performance menu” for an evening’s festivities and frolicking must now include “comfortable in silence” moments and that’s new.

There was a time in my single fatherhood where I could revel in my celibacy. That era is over with now.

Now it’s time to revel and live out my new bedtime fantasy – lying in bed with a “partner”, in flannel pajamas, toes touching, heads propped up, reading a good book, comfortable in our silence.

I feel so human today.

Feel free to contact  Peter at   peter@geronimocode.com

No related posts.

This conversation comes up often and the feedback I get is mixed. So I figured it would be a great topic for discussion.

How soon after beginning a new relationship should you introduce your kids?

I have been a big believer in waiting until you are sure the relationship is for real. No need to bring someone into your children’s life  only to have them gone sooner or later. I have been challanged by others who say they do not even want to begin building a serious relationship until they see how they interact with their kids.

What has been your experience and thoughts on this issue?

Related posts:

1. Can a Relationship Survive This Much Stress?
2. Kids deserve straight teeth and success at school

By Wednesday Martin, Ph.D.

Don’t call them deadbeats. Research shows that today’s fathers are spending more time with their kids than ever — an average of nearly three and a half hours a day more than Dads of a few decades ago. Kids and fathers alike are reaping the benefits; more time spent together sows the seeds of closeness. But the flipside of this trend is that it makes divorce more painful for fathers than ever before. As one man I interviewed said, “There are no words to describe the pain of not being able to tuck my kids in every night.”

His dilemma is not uncommon. While dads are increasingly parenting on the front lines, custody is still more or less automatically awarded to mom. “Even when custody is technically joint, dad may get far less time with the kids,” says Texas divorce lawyer Stuart Gagnon. And so they want the time they do get together to be perfect. “I don’t harp on my daughter to pick up her towel since she’s only here for a couple of days,” one dad told me. Another said proudly, “My kids come whenever they want, and when they do, it’s all about them.”

It might sound good in theory (particularly if you’re the kid of such a “Disney Dad”), but it can spell trouble when there’s a serious romantic relationship on the horizon or in the works. For all the benefits that increased involvement confers, Uber-dads have a harder time than their fathers did when it comes to balancing their own needs and their children’s. Over and over, women and men I interviewed as I researched my book Stepmonster told me of guys who felt confused, even guilty, about repartnering. “He and his kids won’t let me in,” women say. “I feel torn between my partner and my children,” the men confide.

Here are some guidelines for the divorced dad who repartners while wondering, “Can I pull this off?” The short answer: Yes! You deserve to move forward not just as a parent but as a person. Here’s how:

1. Let go of the guilt. You’re allowed to have a relationship. And it will not harm your kids. In fact, seeing dad in a healthy, happy relationship can be a powerful lesson for the kids, reaffirming their sense that lifetime partnership can work.
2. Let go of the fear. Divorced dads are often afraid that their ex-wives or their children will “punish” them for repartnering. “It’s a common anxiety but, to get through it, have faith in yourself as a parent and as a person,” advises Marty Babits, LCSW, BCD, author of The Power of the Middle Ground: a Couple’s Guide to Renewing Your Relationship. “Yes, your ex may be angry and even say things like, ‘Daddy doesn’t care about you anymore.’ In this case, you need to demonstrate resilience: trust in your bond with your child while making it clear that he or she can talk to you about anything — including their doubts and fears. Do this and you will succeed in working through the challenges and transitions that lie before you,” says Babits.
3. Accept that it usually isn’t easy. Kids and dads can become incredibly close post-divorce. That may mean more resistance to a serious girlfriend, no matter how nice she is: “Hey, she’s hogging my dad!” If you expect that it’s normal for your kids to be ticked about the change, you’ll be less likely to blame yourself — or your partner — when you encounter such predictable (but trying) bumps.
4. Ask yourself the tough questions about your parenting. Do you parent from guilt and fear? Are you permissive? Have you created a child-centric household? Might your kids even believe they have veto power over your choice of a partner? All this sets her up to be the heavy, their opponent rather than their friend. Research shows that kids do best with authoritative parenting — high levels of warmth and high levels of control. Shoot for that to give your kids and your partnership a leg up.
5. While you’re at it, get real about your kids. Know that if your situation is typical, they won’t necessarily act in ways that make it easy for your partner to spend time with them at first. Indeed, it’s like that your partner may at some point become frustrated about the kids. Understanding that your kids aren’t perfect during this transition will spare your partner the common snag of being the meanie who points out their flaws to you.
6. Invite your partner to the center of the family — pronto. One interviewee told me that, as soon as he knew he wanted to marry his girlfriend, he had to tell his teen daughter, “I love you but I also love Holly, and I won’t let you be unkind to her. She’s here to stay.” This spared everyone months of agonized fighting about whose place was where, and whose role was what.
7. Give a “jealous” or resentful partner the benefit of the doubt. Stepfamily expert Elizabeth Church notes that stepmothers and stepmom figures often feel excluded and shut out — because they are. Jealousy on her part is likely a sign not that she is a stepwitch, but that you have not yet invited her to take her rightful place with you at the head of the table, literally and metaphorically.
8. Start from the ground up together. It’s important to avoid what I call Barnacle Syndrome. Many well-meaning divorced dads just want to stick a partner onto their lives as they already are, without altering a thing about their own routines, rituals, and habits. Sure, you have kids. But that doesn’t mean you don’t move into her place, get a new place together, or at the very least redecorate your place as a team. Acknowledge that things must change when you partner.
9. Take time away from your kids. It’s as important as the time you spend with them. You’re taking the pressure off them, and teaching them that partners take care of one another, every time you do.
10. Lose the unrealistic notion of “two firsts.” Remarriages with children are tremendously vulnerable and need extra tending. The sooner you tell your kids of any age, “I love you, but Susie is here to stay and I love her too, so you can’t be rude to her,” the better. Nothing is more confusing to kids or more demeaning to a partner than a relationship that revolves around your children.

©2009 Wednesday Martin Ph.D., author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do was a regular contributor to the New York Post’s parenting page for several years, and her work has appeared in a number of national magazines. She earned her doctorate in comparative literature from Yale and taught cultural studies and literature at Yale, the New School, and Baruch College. Martin, a stepmother for nine years, lives in New York City with her husband and their two sons.

Related posts:

1. The Favorite Single Parent Syndrome
2. No Excuse Not To Be Involved
3. How soon in new relationship to introduce your kids?

By Peter Ehrlich

Special to Single Dad Life

Listen. Can you hear it? The air is so still. And can you see the gathering clouds?

Looks as if a storm is headed right for our sometimes fragile single parent homes and, if not prepared, we’ll be picking up the pieces for a long time. It’s called the holiday season.

You weathered the first storm of the season, the summer holidays, by working out an access agreement that was equitable so your ex didn’t freak out and have to call the lawyers at $250 hour, which neither of you can afford.

Halloween is the start of the holiday season because that’s when we start sharing our children big-time for life’s big moments. (If you’re Jewish, the holiday dysfunction begins at sundown in September.)

Only a single parent can look at a Mars bar and get depressed, muttering, “Halloween is coming. Please Lord, help me.”  Our children, in their innocence, have a different take on those first candies. (“Wow! It’s Halloween soon and I get to trick or treat and then Christmas (or Hannukah) and holidays. Then New Year’s and I can stay up.”)

The holidays, the perfect time for a perfect storm composed of every feeling of resentment, pain and regret, with our children caught in a crossfire of biting hail and howling wind; a single parent opera choreographed to the music of U2.

Write me and tell me I’m wrong!

If there ever is a time to take the high road it’s now, because a Halloween mask should not be on a child’s face to mask their pain of watching us fight.

I’ve been reading about Buddhism and I came across the Four Noble Truths. One of them is “the origin of suffering is attachment.” With single parents and holidays this could mean an attachment to our children and past that gets in the way of their happiness, our ex’s and ours.

But the “cessation of suffering” is possible. By stepping back and detaching, you will understand that children only “know they are an embodiment of both of you.” You are left, therefore, with no choice but to make the holidays work by accepting whatever plan is right for the kids.

This means sharing your children because your children want and need to be shared. With no further ado, but much detachment:

Halloween – if you really can’t make the journey up the neighbors’ walk as a family, then choose your child’s favorite neighborhood, select a meeting place and time, and with grace, politely hand your child off to your ex. After the kiss, turn around, detach and be grateful for all you have.

At Christmas, alternate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day annually. (If both parents are capable and committed, no one parent should have both the evening and the whole next day 24/7.)

For Hannukah, access for four consecutive days and nights that end with the lighting of the menorah. When your child is not with you, detach emotionally, light the candles and love yourself.

On New Year’s Eve and Day, alternate access between parents each year. You have your child on the eve? Great. But you must detach and give up the next day.

Lots of us will fail our children in some way this holiday season. Failure or suffering is part of our journey, the first noble truth – life is suffering.

That’s okay.

James Taylor once said, “I failed, I failed and I failed again. And then I became a man.”

In our case, it is “I failed and failed and failed again. And then I became a great single parent.”

You can contact Peter by emailing him at peter@geronimocode.com

or visit his website: www.geronimocode.com

Related posts:

1. Home Alone For The Holidays?
2. Kids deserve straight teeth and success at school
3. Good Men Step In To Become Dads

By Peter Ehrlich
Special to Single Dad Life

There is a way back for John Edwards but it’s going to take courage and commitment.

Mr. Edwards needs to step up to a microphone and announce to the world, in a clear and unequivocal voice, that he is determined to take on the role and responsibilities associated with being the single father he truly seems to be.
According to press reports, a secret DNA test proved he was the father of the baby he fathered with Ms. Rielle Hunter. And if you look at the baby’s face, it’s obvious – Frances’ father is John Edwards.

I remember looking at a photograph of John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth renewing their vows and I thought, what a joke, because John Edwards is exchanging vows with the wrong girl.

Instead he should making a vow to Frances that, in consensus with her single mom, Ms. Rielle Hunter, he will take care of her as her father for the rest of her days.

Edwards is committing the ultimate sin at this moment. He is abandoning his child, and as I wrote previously for Single Dad Life, there is no excuse not to be involved. No man who abandons his child has the right to hold public office.

He has chosen to put his daughter into that great abyss of a black hole that is the final and unavoidable destination of all children who do not know where their father is.

Edwards has the resources and resolve to take care of his new daughter. He merely needs to call upon both to do the right thing.
As for his wife Elizabeth, according to her book she “begged” for fidelity. Well, it’s time for her to take responsibility for this relationship. If you have to “beg” for fidelity going into a marriage, let’s face it, he’s just not that into you.
And the fact that he cheats on his wife, while she has cancer is further proof that John Edwards doesn’t really want to stay married to her. His renewal of vows was a photo-op and that’s all it was.

I would have a lot more respect for Mrs. Edwards if she put forward the proposition that every child and I mean “every child” needs to know who their father is and have consistent contact with that father.

As a mother herself, she should understand that she needs to give John permission to do whatever it takes to see that that happens. For example, “why not invite Frances over to stay the weekend with us?”

Their marriage was likely finished years ago. They stayed married for his political career and their children.

But we wise single dads know, you don’t stay married for the children. In the end that only hurts the children, because children are uber-perceptive and all they witness and learn is how to conduct a loveless relationship.

Mr. Edwards, it’s time for you to step up to the plate, declare yourself the single father you are and undertake the responsibilities that come with the most wonderful job in the world – being a dad.

Do that and you have a chance at having a political career again, because you will have shown Americans that you’re not a deadbeat dad, you’re someone who took responsibility.

Feel free to contact Peter Ehrlich via his website - www.geronimocode.com

or directly via peter@geronimocode.com
 

 

John Edwards picture courtesy of Alex DeCarvalho

Related posts:

1. In Defense of John Edwards
2. What Single Dads Can Learn From Coach John Wooden
3. Summer and Single Parent Hedonism