This is the fifth year in which I have shared with Akron Beacon Journal readers stories about my five children and our lives.
I have two batches of offspring: my now-adult sons, Claude, Hugo and Jules, from a previous marriage, and my caboose troupe, Leif and Lyra. The father of the last two, Max, has been a constant in the lives of my first three children for 13 years.
Long before our first kiss, Max and I were friends. A colleague at his law office invited him to our book club intending to set him up with another friend in the group. That didn’t pan out, but Max continued to attend and, as a former English professor, brought added insights to the book club conversations.
At some point, I asked Max to join me on the board of an arts nonprofit of which I was president. Eventually we found ourselves working together on the difficult task of winding down the organization, which is how we became good friends.
A year after I left the big boys’ father, Max asked me on a more-than-friends date. At the time, two other recently divorced women I knew were turning to dating websites to find eligible bachelors. Their results ranged from underwhelming to atrocious. I felt lucky to date a friend.
Even after our relationship became committed, Max and I maintained separate households until our son Leif was 2 years old. That’s when Max bought a house in Akron big enough for all of us and we smushed the contents of two 2,500-square-foot houses into one with 3,000 square feet. Lyra arrived a year later and the house was full of children until the big boys began cycling out for college.
Life is a continuum of change.
Without going into any details, for the past few years Max and I have been trying to resolve some issues in our relationship. Last summer, we decided the resolution to these issues was to return to living separately.
In order for me to move into my home, which Max began renting in 2015 as his law office, he first had to move his business to his home. Since then, and thanks in part to the stimulus money, I have made both necessary and pleasing improvements to what I call my “lady house” where I have lived since last fall.
When Max and I became a couple, I told myself there are no do-overs. Then we had babies and I felt I did have a do-over. I’ve now parented with a man who takes an active role in the lives of our two children as well as my three boys. (For the past six years, the big boys’ father has not attempted to see them and has contacted them but a handful of times.)
Now I’ve gotten a do-over in breaking up. Where my ex-husband was extremely difficult to divorce (it took over three years) and did so with a scorched-earth approach, Max and I have calmly worked out our arrangements and helped each other reconfigure our homes.
As for the children we brought into this world together, they have gone between these two houses their entire lives, which they refer to as “Mama’s house” and “Dadda’s house.”
Given remote learning due to the pandemic, it has been nigh impossible to set up a regimented custody schedule. Max and I have easily worked together during this most unusual school year to accommodate the needs of the children along with our mutual work schedules.
This summer, I will again take Leif and Lyra to northern Michigan for two months of day camp on the shores of Lake Michigan. Then, when school resumes next fall, we will establish a custody schedule, the predictability of which is important for everyone, especially the kids.
I know several readers will be surprised by this separation. Trust me, this was a decision made after long and deep consideration. These past few months I have felt a bit like Barbara Stanwyck’s character in my all-time favorite movie, “Christmas in Connecticut,” in which she’s a family columnist purporting to write from her Connecticut farm where she lives with her husband and baby, when in actuality she’s a single woman in an apartment in New York City.
The truth is, as with any major relationship change, this has been a process. Until recently I myself did not know how things would play out and only now do I feel able to write about it.
But this I’ve long known: The true character of a partner is revealed when you leave them. Max will continue to be a loving father invested in his children’s lives and we will continue to raise them together as committed co-parents — now from two homes, 2 miles apart.
And so begins the next chapter.
This was first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on April 4, 2021.
Whoopsie Piggle 