She never forgets Things seem to resurface at the oddest times.
My brother and my SIL are going through the transition to empty nester status. Their youngest is a Freshman in college. The positive side effect of this is that my brother seems to be reconnecting with mom and dad and I.
While we were on our Big Bend Christmas adventure with mom and dad my brother and I had a text conversation for several days as connectivity would allow. One evening my DW and I were talking before falling asleep and I reviewed the ongoing text conversation with her.
She got a little quiet then said something along the lines of 'I know how it feels. When (the Skid) was on visitation (in SpermLand) and the family took the trip to the Carolinas without him it was hard on me.'
I apparently lost the plot on that comment. It was completely unrelated to our own early nester experience and the subsequent 9+ years since our empty nester years began.
How she related a family trip, our first without SS, from 20-ish years ago to the empty nester years that started 9-ish years ago I do not know.
That trip was the beginning of our transition from focusing on SS's absence during visitation with the SpermClan and living our life whether SS was with us or not. I consider it to be a watershed moment in our evolution as a couple and as a family for the long term and not just for the visitation years.
Apparently I completely misjudged history.
To avoid an extensive tense period I side stepped her comment with 'I can see why you would think that though our kid was about 8 when we learned to not make it about his being with the SpermClan. He was not transitioning into adulthood.'
Then we went to sleep.
I am sure that long ago event will surface again periodically for her. It is not something that I even think about until either someone on STalk is dealing with the issue of a partner who is hell bent on making everything about the Skid(s), or, my DW brings it up during things that I in no way feel are related to that trip.
An interesting blast from the past memory.
I hope it takes another decade or more to resurface.
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Comments
It sounds like at least from
It sounds like at least from that moment on, you were able to enjoy things as a couple sometimes. Even in intact families, i've noticed that the couples who stay together are the ones who can enjoy each other's company and have something of their own, separate from the kids. I also think it's better for kids in the long term to have a stable couple as the head(s) of the household. The couples that i know from years ago whose relationship was totally child-centric are mostly all divorced now.
Certain things can bring a
Certain things can bring a memory when child was young. That's a normal thing for a parent to feel. It doesn't matter how long ago it happened. Something could trigger that memory. For you it might be unrelated but for her it is. You don't relate to her feeling of missing her child and you can't be expected to understand everything other people feel, but hopefully you can show understanding or just allow her space to feel whatever she feels.