My Kids Will Spend the Holidays 8,000 Miles Away

First: Honor your feelings. “The only cure for grief is to grieve,” advises internationally recognized bereavement expert, Rabbi Earl Grollman, in his groundbreaking book, Living When A Loved One Has Died. You can apply the same philosophy to other divorce shrapnel: self-pity, betrayal, white-hot indignation, the desire to set the record straight and exact revenge.

“Invite the turmoil in as your friend,” explains Jeffrey Katowitz, based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. He has over three decades of experience as a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified mediator. “This embrace leads to acceptance, which opens your heart and soul to your next phase of life.”

Despite family therapy tenets to the contrary, I didn’t hide my grief from my kids. “Pretending you are not devastated by divorce sends your kids a ridiculous message,” my kids’ counselor told me. “Do you want them to think, la la la, I didn’t care about our family anyway?”

Second: Put yourself first. Often, we divorce because a partner cannot love us the way we need. It’s understandable, but also idiotic, to expect your ex to suddenly prioritize your needs. Don’t sell yourself short when it comes to financial support, child custody, payment for health care, education and travel soccer cleats. Your divorce may be the most impactful arbitration of your life.

However, this doesn’t justify fury towards your spouse; focusing on him actually disempowers you. Shifting the focus to yourself and exploring the ways the divorce triggers your childhood trauma gives you more agency. “The ‘hatred’ you feel during a contentious divorce is not about your spouse,” explains family therapist Katowitz. “It’s about the ways your ex awakens attachment and abandonment trauma formed in early childhood. Recognizing this, accepting it, and letting go of this pain is the highest form of self-care you can practice.”

Third: Live your post-divorce life with gusto. Divorce means getting another chance. At love, yes. But far more critically, at being you. At being a more authentic parent. Of letting go of that chapter. You can now establish a relationship with your children that is purely yours.

Lastly: Renegotiate what doesn’t benefit you — starting with your own attitude. Although the financial and custody arguments may be settled, you don’t have to be a doormat on other fronts. For me, the secret power here is looking at my blended family through my kids’ eyes — not my ex-husband’s. “Love supersedes hurt, pain, envy and rage,” Katowitz argues. “Especially the love between a parent and children.” My kids are happy, stable and thriving in their young adult lives. Truly, by comparison to how free I am now and how grounded my children are, my ex is easy to ignore.

For example, although I love hosting Thanksgiving dinner, my kids prefer spending the holiday with their dad and his wife’s exceptionally fun extended family at their exceptionally large house. As a single woman with a small apartment, I simply cannot compete. Over time, my ex’s second wife has come to like me — after all, we have so much in common, right?

So when they started inviting me to their raucous Thanksgivings, I decided if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. My daughter put it best. “Mom, look at it this way,” she told me the first year I decided to enter enemy territory for the holidays. “You don’t have to cook, clean or pay for anything. You get to show up for this holiday surrounded by people who love you.” Ah, it’s a blessing to have raised smart children who offer such wise counsel.

So, this Christmas, my kids will be 8,000 miles away. I am thrilled that they will experience this South African trip of a lifetime. As for me, I will celebrate Christmas with two families I adore. My cats and I will be pet-sitting my daughter’s wonderful red Labrador. Sleeping late Christmas morning. Listening to my favorite carols from childhood. Missing my children, yes. But confident that I am loved by them and that they will return with open arms, having missed me, too.

Are any of you alone during the holidays? Do you enjoy it? Let us know in the comments below.