Mommy and daddy are going to be living apart for a while... and so it begins

I’ve never liked chopsticks. Trying to snag a bite of Lo Mein with those things is like trying to catch Bigfoot with a butterfly net. However, strange as it may sound, I think I need to reevaluate because chopsticks also just accomplished the impossible. They actually have me feeling that perhaps divorce is survivable after all.

It happened like this. I went out to dinner with my kids, like we’ve done nearly every Tuesday since their mother and I separated. Sometimes we have great conversations about what happened in school. Sometimes everyone’s crabby. No matter what, I usually leave the restaurant in a lousy mood because this wasn’t how it was all supposed to be. I never wanted to be in a world where I take my children for dinner, but then drop them off on my way to a different home.

And yet, this has been my reality for nearly three years now. Trying out new restaurants on Tuesday nights before getting them back to their mom’s house. To add an element of adventure to the process, the rule is that at least once a month, we have to try places where the menus don’t come with crayons or offer any combination of pizza, hamburgers or chicken strips. Which is how we ended up at a local Japanese café tucked away in a strip mall.

Both kids did their usual complaining, but we went in, ordered a few variations on the chicken teriyaki theme, and sat down to eat. To quiet the complaining, I grabbed the chopsticks and started waving them around. Within minutes, we were having little sword fights. Then came the mini-javelin tosses. Followed by the invention of tiny ski poles. Before I knew what was happening, not only were they eating their dinner without a fuss, we were all laughing. A lot. As if none of the dramatic changes of the past three years had ever happened.

But, of course, they did happen, and nothing that occurs from here on out can change that. You can get a new house. You can find a new mate. You can develop a whole new style for yourself. However, kids are the reminder of divorce’s permanency, which makes them even more important in your life than they already were. How you deal with them is the best indicator of how your second life is going to go.

That pressure begins the minute you pull them aside to explain that mommy and daddy are going to be living apart for a while. I’m sure there are things more painful in life than that moment -- losing a limb maybe – but it’s very hard to top the stomach-churning stress you feel for the weeks leading up to it. Looking back, I realize I’ve actually repressed much most of my memory of that day. The one thing I do recall, however, is the advice I’d been given. Come prepared with a gift.

The best you can hope for in explaining the news is that they realize none of what’s happening is their fault. And the best way to reinforce that is to offer a present. Whether it’s baseball cards, a new American Girl or lots of Baskin-Robbins, having something to balance out the shock doesn’t hurt. I can see how this sort of emotional bribery might seem like it would ultimately do more harm than good, but trust me, in that horrifying moment, it’s a safety net worth having.

Getting through that first phase is tough, and unfortunately, it doesn’t get much easier. The trauma of moving into a new (and probably less enticing) new place is bad enough when you’re the grown-up. Nothing looks familiar and you have to start creating new traditions for yourself in order to feel at home. It’s even worse for kids, who now shuttle back and forth between the home that has all their stuff and That Weird New Place. Which is where every soccer trophy, every Splash Mountain photo and every giraffe made out of egg cartons is so essential. The more you display the things they’ve earned and made, the more (hopefully) this second home will feel like one they belong in.

Likewise, since those early days, we’ve established a few rituals that also make this new, two-household life seem nearly as normal as their previous one-home days. Whether it’s pizza and videos every Friday night or playing a board game every Sunday night before bed, having something constant and (I hope) fun to look forward to also seems to have helped ease both me and my kids into as good a place as we can be.

And, again, I know there will never be a perfect place. However, there may be a positive side to all of this that I’m only now starting to understand. In a very unexpected way, divorce can actually create better parents. It requires you to appreciate every minute with your kids in a way you probably didn’t in your married days because you know your time is now limited.

I’m not proud of this, but there were plenty of times years ago where I’d allow work to control my schedule. I spent many an evening working so late in the office that I’d miss dinner with everyone, arriving home in time maybe for helping with a bath or reading a bedtime story. It’s not like I was negligent. I just knew that what I missed on a Tuesday night I could easily make up for on Wednesday night. Now, that’s no longer true.

When I’m with my kids, I have to really be with my kids. I’m more aware of the passage of time with them, of the importance of every moment that we have together. Which is because we now don’t have as many moments together. I have probably become so obsessed with making every Little League game and karate belt test that they wouldn’t mind me actually easing up a little. It maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing to take an evening when they’re with me to get a sitter so I can go out. I suppose they’d appreciate this, partially because it’d show them I have developed a social life of my own but mostly because their favorite sitter always brings cake.

Which is all well and good, but it depends on one thing – that you actually have a social life. I never thought developing one above and beyond your kids would be as difficult as, say, a conversation with Joaquin Phoenix. You spend so much time trying to make their lives okay during the early years of divorce, it’s easy to feel guilty later when you want to start getting out to do things for yourself. The idea of going on a date, at least for me, still feels kind of like I’m cheating on my children. I know it’s not logical in any way whatsoever, but it’s stuck there in my head.

Still, I will admit that there are many times when I think it’d be nice to get out to dinner with someone who makes me laugh, who takes a genuine interest in what I have to say, who has to be back home early enough that I still have time to watch SportsCenter. This sounds like a perfect and unforgettable date, which I know because I still remember the last one of these I had. When I took my kids out for Japanese food and ate with chopsticks.