Hellobee

Sometimes, throughout the night, my four-year-old daughter will push her back up against me and say, “Crook, please.”

She wants to get into the crook of my arm and I happily oblige. I don’t care that I’ll wake up multiple times throughout the night with her tossing and turning. Or, the fact that we spent so much time and money sleep training her throughout her infancy and toddler years, only to arrive at this point now, where we share a bed, and I revel in it.

It’s because I know that this all might change – substantially – in the future.

I’m in the middle of a divorce and, because of how much we love our daughter and the fact that she’s the one who brought us together in a whirlwind romance on Kauai in Hawaii, where we only knew each other for two weeks, before feeling compelled to conceive a child together, we feel that she’s the source of a love that’ll continue on after our marriage is over.

During one couples’ coaching session we participated in a year ago, the duo facilitating our conversation pointed out that it’s not in our daughter’s best interest to be the focal point of a triangle of love.

We know this.

And, I’ve been doing my best to manage my emotions as an adult. To ensure, even energetically, that none of this messiness of separation is seeping onto her in any way. But, I can’t deny the fact that there will be a time when I will have to “share” my daughter in a way that means I don’t get to sleep beside her every night.

At first, this realization was heartbreaking. And, because of it, I stayed in my marriage longer than was healthy for me to be in. I wanted everything to work out. I willed it, put up with behaviors that hurt me deeply, and applied every spiritual practice I could think of to manifest a different outcome, and still, here we are.

It’s only in surrendering my desire for “happily ever after” in the traditional sense that I see how good this is going to be.
One of the elements that’s helped me to release my stronghold on wanting our lives to turn out a different way is a reminder that I only have a limited consciousness about what’s best for us all in the end. I can’t predict the future. I’m not omniscient. In fact, because we had such a romantic start to becoming a couple that absolutely involved both of us feeling like there was a force that wanted to come into being, it’s helped to take a step back and lean into spiritual beliefs that our souls all made contracts before we arrived on this planet.

We knew what we were getting ourselves into — and our higher selves still do. It’s the human parts of us that have a hard time catching up.

One of my favorite spiritual teachings to listen to is Abraham Hicks (which is admittedly super woo-woo if you’ve never heard of it or the Law of Attraction before; give it a Google or a YouTube search). Abraham says that children of divorce, especially those who are young, asked to experience this “contrast,” because it’s in witnessing how different people live their lives and the outcomes that unfold that they’re able to define for themselves from an even earlier age what they actually want for themselves throughout their lives.

The other thing that’s helped profoundly is being able to take a step back to see how much I absolutely love my daughter. There was a moment recently, during this month of taking space away from each other where my daughter and I are actually in a different country than my soon-to-be-ex-husband, that I had an aha moment: Oh, I thought to myself. This feeling of love I have for her right now — this is what my husband has for her, too. This is why he wants to be close to her. This makes sense.

For me to deny that kind of connection is ultimately quite cruel. It’s me wanting to micromanage the small steps in hopes that I can re-jigger the big ones. Instead, I can have compassion in understanding that we’re all human.

And all any of us ever want at the end of the day is to love and be loved in turn. We all want to be accepted just as we are. Even when we make huge mistakes.

It’s in this spaciousness and grace that I can approach my husband differently. To not be so attached and instead, focus on the ideal outcomes, because the more I put my attention on what’s not working, the more that’s what I’ll see.

Despite how difficult it is, I can take a breath and know that I love my daughter unconditionally and will do my best to provide her the safest and most joyful upbringing available — and in so doing, I manage the things I can control, while releasing attachment to the rest.

It allows me to trust that everything will work out for the best for all involved. Even when it’s hard in the moment. As one of my favorite quotes from The Best Little Exotic Marigold Hotel says, “It’ll all be all right in the end. And, if it’s not all right, it’s not the end.”

So… it’s not the end.