How do your family relations change? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
All relationships change to some extent when divorce takes place. Some are minor changes and some are major. This can include changes with both family relationships that you have.
I am glad that it has not been that I have ceased any contact with my former in-laws. Normally when a divorce takes place, it is easy for each set of parents to side with their own child. The other child becomes the bad guy (or girl) and becomes the one responsible.
That hasn’t happened yet, if anything, they have assured me that I will always be a son to them. Her brother has assured me that I am family. Her Dad helped us pack that day when I had to leave Georgia and he did assure me that they will always see me as a son. I am grateful.
At the same time, communication becomes awkward. We have talked some, but not as much as we used to. I suppose this is natural. If anything, whenever I remarry, things are likely to be more different as I will have a new set of in-laws.
I can assure anyone that there is no bad blood between us. Mike and I will even be rooming together at ETS this year. They would not say I was a perfect husband, as no one is, but that if anyone was wronged in this one, it was me.
That’s one family. What about my own?
My family’s love for me has never been called into question. We have had our difficulties and our struggles, but they have always been there for me. That also includes my sister in Nashville.
Still, there is something different. Since I have had to move back in with them, family relations are here and really, I am so independently-minded I don’t care for it. When I moved out, I meant for it to be a permanent thing and to be on my own. Returning back here was not what I wanted.
Disability has always been a part of the relationship seeing as I am on the spectrum, but now you can add divorce to that. Every now and then, something will be brought up to remind me of that as I try to work through it on my own. Shortly after the 24th fo July, my Dad actually said to me, “Did you realize that was your anniversary?”
No. It never once occurred to me all day long. Not a bit.
There are also aspects of your life that you don’t want to talk about with your parents. One reason I definitely want to get out on my own is that I think that will make future dating easier. After all, unsolicited advice is problematic. That’s not the only reason naturally. As I sit here, I see Shiro and wish I could give him a whole new apartment that he can run around in instead of just one room of the house due to my parents already having a cat.
For my sister, I’m not sure how much change there has been. We have talked some, but my sister and I have a relationship where we are committed to one another, but we also only talk when there’s something that needs to be said. We don’t talk to talk. This is something my mother hasn’t really realized about us.
Note that none of this indicates any animosity with anyone in this post. It just means that it’s different. If anything, I think the difference with my own blood family stands out the most, but that’s because I live with them. Things will be different I’m sure when I get the extra income to be on my own.
Thanks for being there, fellow travelers.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
Support Deeper Waters on Patreon!
