She bad-mouths me to them.
After a decades-long marriage, my wife and I divorced. We have two sons, now grown. Before we separated, our relationship became increasingly distant. During that time, she refused any physical closeness, telling me, “That part of my life is over.” |
When my wife left, it was for a “trial separation” (her idea). Our younger son stayed with me. Our older son had been out of our home for several years and has had problems with drug addiction since he was a teenager, with multiple stints in jail and several stays in rehab. He is currently in jail. |
After my wife left, I initiated divorce proceedings, and we were finally divorced about a year later. As in most separation agreements, there was a clause requiring each of us to refrain from disparaging the other to the children. I have done my best to abide by this clause. |
Not long after our divorce, she asked to meet so we could discuss some things. She proceeded to tell me about things she had done during the years we were married, because she wanted “to try to be a better person.” At any rate, she confessed to multiple affairs, some long-term, and to some one-night stands that she initiated. She said she left me to pursue a long-term relationship and marriage with a specific man she was involved with. She said the “trial separation” idea was so that if she could not persuade the man to marry her, she could come back (he was also married). This information pretty much blew me away. |
I have not told either of our children anything about this behavior by their mother. I have tried not to criticize her, except when one of the boys complained about something she had done and asked me if it was right or proper. I’m not saying I have been perfect in my life, but I have never done anything like the things she confessed to me. However, since this revelation, she has continually criticized, disparaged and run me down to the boys. They tell me about this. She places the sole blame on me for every problem ever experienced by our family, including the drug addiction of our older son. When I recently contacted her about visiting him in jail, she said he didn’t want to see me. I contacted him and found that this was not true. |
Frankly, I am tired of this. My question is whether I can tell my sons what their mother is really like and what she did. I have been struggling with this for some time. I’m not sure that they will eventually see the truth for themselves, in light of the constant disparagement of me by their mother. I am now happily married to a wonderful woman and have become financially secure. My ex-wife is still single and claims to be financially struggling. |
 | | The New York Times |
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“Deacon Cuffy Lambkin of Five Ends Baptist Church became a walking dead man on a cloudy September afternoon in 1969. That’s the day the old deacon, known as Sportcoat to his friends, marched out to the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn, stuck an ancient .38 Colt in the face of a 19-year-old drug dealer named Deems Clemens and pulled the trigger….”
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Pick up the paper this weekend to read new fiction from James McBride, adapted from his forthcoming novel “Deacon King Kong” and presented by the Magazine in a print-only special section.
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