I think my son "gets" what's going on. By that I mean I think he understands beyond the fact that his dad left, which I've decided I'm grateful for because even though he was out of town when it happened, he knows it was his dad who left us (I stress leaving ME, not THEM). In a strange sort of vindictive way, I'm glad I'm not the bad guy in this part of the story, though I'm sure the ex would spin it that way. I'm pretty sure I'm perpetually green, warty, and wearing a black pointy hat in his truly warped memory and mind. Having caught glimpses of that disjointed, haphazard way of recalling past events during fights the last couple of years, that noncontextual area of his brain is a deep, dark, smelly place.
I started to say that I think my son understands the complexities involved in this deconstruction of our lives. He seems to have compassion and empathy when something crops up that upsets me, and a strange reluctance when we find that he just needs his dad's help with something. And even though the last couple of years were spent seriously lacking dad's presence around here (he was home, but never for long), it's even moreso now, and I think he feels it. Sometimes I have to remind him he can call his dad for help with things. I'm not sure if it doesn't occur to him, if he just doesn't want his help, or if he's maybe a little angry about the circumstances and just wants to come up with a dad-free solution. I could be wrong on all those, I know, but that's what occurs to me. Maybe they talk more than I know? That wouldn't upset me. I just wish it was ME who could help HIM more, but I can't really change my skill set, my lack of knowledge of the more manly things of the world, or my puny muscles and uncanny ability to hurt myself just looking at tools. I'm not so arrogant as to think I know every time the two have had a discussion or placed a phone call. He was never a terrible dad. Just absent and mentally removed. But I know my son and I can see in his face when he knows I'm hurt by something, and I'm pretty sure he can figure out the circumstances on his own.
My daughter, on the other hand, is all sweetness and light and singing and dancing with long, skinny, wavy arms, giggling about everything possible. Except when she's slamming her door and telling me to stop telling her to do things, but that never lasts very long and secretly makes me happy because it means she'll probably be like me...able to express herself, get it out, and move on instead of stuffing her feelings. She'll find the hardest part of expression is finding someone who doesn't call that weak and impulsive. I'm not talking about raging at full volume and slamming vases against the wall (though I think I did that once as a teenager, and probably a couple times as an adult), but being able to raise her voice for a few minutes and actually say the words she's thinking. Just 30 seconds of nonabusive saying how you feel about something or the way someone is treating you...it's not the end of the world! And now I'm remembering back in college when a certain someone broke his hand punching a concrete wall, and then in 2003 put two giant holes in the bedroom door by punching and kicking through it--so you see where stuffing your feelings will get you: A violent explosion of unpredictable force. But I digress yet again.
I don't know how to make her understand I'm not interested in the "funny" things dad says or does. He's her dad, I'm her mom, and I want it to be that way in her brain, but I think she's not separating the relationship of "mom and dad" very well. There's enough divorce in the world for her to understand what it means on the surface, but this is her experience of it, and with everything being so much the same around here, I'm not sure she really and truly grasps that mom and dad are not mom & dad now, and aren't going to be ever again. I figure the best I can do is the best I can do. I can try to keep this house in whatever way I can, but in the end it'll come down to dad being the bad guy again and the three of us moving out to only God knows where, probably without the pets everyone currently knows, loves, and gets comfort from. And that's going to be his fault too. :)
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