Co-Parenting, Apologies, and Unexpected Blessings

“I apologized.”

I apologized to my ex-husband’s new wife.

For a totally unnecessary altercation.

It was needed—the altercation.

Way beyond wanted. But still, unnecessary.

This altercation came after a drunken hug and an agreed co-mothership between me and her.

It was a beautiful, tipsy moment before the moment of trigger.

See, my folks—and everyone else carrying that same dusty mindset—would think that when your ex-husband remarries, your children are doomed under the wicked stepmother.

“I’m only worried about the trauma they could go through.”

“Oh, the poor kids,” they’d say.

The whispers got me barking unnecessarily.

They said she was marking territory and claiming entitlement.

They built up hate for me that I didn’t need.

My chapter with him—as a husband, lover, anything but my children’s sire and incredibly heroic dad (trauma breaker)—was over.

He is no longer my territory.

Nibitch kwanini?

They said stepmoms come in decorated and flowered, then turn into monsters.

But listen—if he marked and locked my soul, and I know I’m good, the law of attraction doesn’t lie.

She’s a good one.

I attracted a good one because I am a good one.

I know he picked a good one.

(I’m guessing this is is how African women traditionally chose their

Predecessor wives) 

Another girlie I met recently told me about the mixed family she grew up in.

She’s in her mid-twenties, and her parents divorced when she was a kid.

“My stepmom loves me like I’m one of her own,” she said.

She spoke of her five siblings like they were brewed in the same womb.

Her biological mother, after their dad moved on, is happy.

Has been happy for years—loving and being loved.

This girl gave me a confirmed perspective:

Happy parents—together or apart—make happy kids.

Together, apart, remarried, newly gay, off marriage—doesn’t matter.

They’re happy when we’re happy.

My kids used to do badly in school while their dad and I lived together.

Tell me why my son’s papers are now the class’s marking scheme, now that his parents are divorced?
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