Exactly correct and thank you for it, Norm.

I remember standing, one foot on the ground, bearing the load, the other waiting to slide my self into a battered and beat up pick up truck, peering through the filthy window of the open door, in tattered clothes one Sunday afternoon as my son, pleading in all of his glorious and glittering innocence enveloped by footed pajamas, to stay with him a little while longer. All the while, with his clean and sparkling image further obscured by the grey and leaden weight of my tears of guilt and rage, I said:

I can't.

That also passed.

I remember one fine spring morning, my beloved daughter at age seven, happily coloring in the book on her lap in the pews of a county courthouse courtroom, as the Friend of said Court addressed the assembled county commissioners. Holding my twelve-inch, approximately ten pound file (I measured but did not weigh it) the man declared that I am a whiner and had caused his office to "waste" an inordinate amount of record-setting time and resources maintaining the parental relationship I had with my children.

I remember my beloved and precocious daughter then looked up to me and winked.

This will not pass.

Lying awake one winter night in that previous life, I found myself visualizing my essence and gave it a purpose. That visualization resembled the living substance of that blob in the iconic sci-if horror movie of the same name.

I forced that amorphous and omeaboid substance to traverse the hundred or so miles of void separating my son and me. Eventually, with effort, patience and determination, the blob enveloped my son, encasing him in an ephemeral gel of love.

A little time had passed when my son tried to describe to me a dream he had recently had. He said it felt like he was floating, submerged and in over his head, in strawberry Jell-O with me, and laughing...

At some point during those days of debauchery and hedonistic excess, I witnessed a child, a boy on a bicycle, being struck by a slow-moving car.

At my immediate arrival, his lower leg being twisted in a grotesque and unnatural shape, prevented him, against all his might combined with his profound horror, from standing.

Lie there, boy! I told him as I grasped him an embrace, 'It will pass'.

My lady just left me too. She even took the TP.

It sucks man but keep on keeping on. It's all we can do.

That's OK as long as you don't give a crap...

My first wife was pretty aggressive wanting a quick monetary settlement and buy out.
That worked in my favor.

The lawyers wanted to play ping pong with the file to drive the costs up. I let it be known that another month or two of that happening there wouldn't be anything to fight over. It was a signed deal shortly after.

To the OP, just take it easy and do what you have to do and get through this. I was another one of those guys that drank too much and partied like a rock star, chasing pretty much anything that would put up with me at that point. It didn't take long for me to realize that I was living hard and wouldn't last long as a functional member of society. Had found a great gal to hang out with for a number of years and while she was great, we were not going in the same direction. No one got hurt and it was a good situation for the both of us coming out of crappy relationships.

All this set up the potential to have another shot at being in a relationship.
So far, so good!

Dude.

Thanks again for all the input. This week's been a little easier than last.

The part that's the hardest for me to deal with is, of course, our daughter. After the initial shock, she seems to be surprisingly okay about the whole thing. But, all of her life, her mom has been out of town for days at a time, so that may have tempered things a bit. I don't think we'll know the real impact of the split on her for some time.

If I could delete one bit of history from my brain it would be the evening we told her. That will absolutely haunt me for the rest of my life.

No kidding. Horrible, heavy stuff.

Then again, I've seen it happen (pretty similar anyway). It's important that we keep in mind here on the evening of Father's Day that in our system, MEN. DO. NOT. MATTER. Sorry guys, but fathers don't. Our system kicks males in the nuts again and again and again, telling us in ruling after ruling that our sole purpose is to go out and accrete as much money as we can so that it can be taken and "redistributed" to people who know best what to do with it - kids' moms or government bureaucrats.

I'm sorry to pile on here but CB's gut-wrenching story reminded me of a close relative's divorce that I got dragged into the middle of a couple of years ago. Hole-Lee-Fuk. Seeing what happened blew my mind. So utterly, totally one-sided and (eyes opened) I became aware of how common this is. We men do not matter one bit in the eyes of our system when it comes to our role in the lives of our kids. I am very, very lucky I have a good relationship with the people that matter to me and I am also very, very lucky to be single!

Scary stuff. I really hope you're okay CB man... Wow.

My friend of 30+ years was married to a truly horrible woman. They had a beautiful daughter. Dad worked his butt off, made millions while the wife bought everything from country club memberships to luxury cruises (without him). They send their daughter to pricey schools, got her everything she ever wanted (yes, a pony).

My friend finally figured out he was gay. (I joked that his wife could do that to any man.) But unbeknownst to me, he had been dulling his disquiet with alcohol in the evenings for a decade or so. Probably the most high functioning alcoholic I've ever known.

So he comes out. The wife kicks him out (not surprisingly) but poisons his daughter against him with (mostly) made up crap. He walks away from (my estimate $5 million) business he had built up. She's set for life.

He moves 3000 miles away, starts over, meets the love of his life, and at 66(?) is the happiest he's ever been. He has accepted that his daughter - who he doted on and gave everything to - will never speak to him as long as he lives.

Happy Fathers Day.

It is a mystery to me that some (seemingly many) seem to barely miss a beat and get past it in a few weeks while others languish for so long?

I once heard that men tend to not get over relationships. Instead, they finally just move on. Women, on the other hand, generally do get over it sooner and much more fully.

On yet another occasion, while playing hide and seek with my son, I deviously hid myself behind the door of a peculiarly-slanted cubbyhole off an upstairs bedroom in the house he had been born in and for which, I knew, the mortgage could never be retired let alone maintained to the satisfaction of the bankers.

Light and shadow were visible beneath the portal of the secret passage. I watched those shadows cast by my son as he searched for me in vain. Eventually, giving up the game, he retreated to otherwise occupy his inquisitive mind on something else.

I soon extricated myself to ask him why he had given up his search.

I didn't give up, said he, 'Why did you tell me you were behind the door? I thought the game was over.'

Of course, I had made no such communication, or so I thought.

The house was a blue house. By which just a week ago, my son asked to drive on our way from Tractor Supply for some chain we needed to drag the logs of a tree that we, together, as a team, had just felled.

'Can we drive by the blue house since we're way over here anyway?'

The tears caused by that house from so long ago and so very far away are nothing compared to the tears caused by that simple request from my son.

Don't know how old the daughter is.

Bet she comes around regardless of his sexual orientation.

If his partner is a 22 year old "tart" that may make it a little harder but I just don't see that for a 66 year old person with a robust work ethic.

Lee, sorry for your troubles. I know from experience that the divorce process can really hurt. Lean on your family and friends for support. Get through it as quickly as possible, even if it costs more. Move on. You only go around once. Things will get better. Look at the process as an opportunity for growth.

One day, I traveled the one hundred miles to be part of an audience of proud parents witnessing the deliverance to their children of 'Certificates of Excellence'. My daughter of junior-high age was amongst those bright and shining children who had achieved an honor offered by the community college to those who satisfied the requirements of a freshman year science project.

Afterwards, in the college parking lot, in that battered old truck (The Red Truck), she gave the certificate to me, which I still proudly own, and which I promptly tossed behind the seat.

'Dad!' She wailed in disbelief.

Don't worry, I said, there are going to be many more of those to come.

An enthusiastic hug around my neck ensued. Many more of those to come, too.

One of my many skirmishes with the Friend of the Court (they call them hearings), who had earlier recommended I be 'awarded' 'visitation time' consisting of blah...blah...blah, our 'family counselor' had agreed to testify in support of my fitness as a parent.

The counselor never showed up.

The brittle facade of yet another institution shattered. However, subsequently and in the entirety of the state of Michigan, that onerous and insulting term 'visitation' has been vanquished and supplanted by the words 'parenting time'.

Yes! A baby step at the time, but a step nevertheless.

I had something to say, but I didn't want to be a downer.

In the slanting light of the fading September before last, I hosted a barbecue for the families and friends of my daughter and her beloved the day before their wedding.

Of course, amongst the many of my guests that long and delightful evening was the mother of my children. Such grace and ease and happiness!

That party full of love and hope, that gorgeous and glorious night, as I noted to myself, was an entire universe away and a full millennium after my attorney summoned me to his office.

'You are being accused of 'inappropriateness' with your son', he announced.

After a long and tortured silence, 'By whom? Let me see it, I said.

By your wife. There's nothing in writing.

My words sounding more like the cough of a drowning sailor, 'Then bring it!'

Not a word of that heinous and desperate accusation has been uttered in my presence since. Now, as I think about it, the pain and confusion of my accuser must have been unspeakable.

Downer you say, Chris. Downer?

My story, like those of many others, is a small but precious story of love, life and laughter.

A few summers back, actually more than a few, as the drummer in a jazz quartet, we were invited to perform at an outdoor venue of a Cherry Festival. My children, all excited about it, were way more than helpful setting up my kit on the stage.

At its conclusion I noticed the crowd had somehow imperceptibly morphed from a few casual listeners into a largish crowd of clapping appreciation. I wonder if my kids noticed.

It was long ago, you see. Shortly before I lost all ability to hear in my left ear and 90% loss in my right.

Bummer. Downer, you might say.

Tomorrow, a special day for me, I will try to remember to ask my kids if they noticed that crowd.