The Holy Family
[Verse 5: Rihanna & Kendrick Lamar]
Tell me who you loyal to
Do it start with your woman or your man? (Mmm)
Do it end with your family and friends? (Mmm)
How you loyal to yourself in advance?
I said, tell me who you loyal to
Is it anybody that you would lie for?
Anybody you would slide for?
Anybody you would die for
During summer holidays, birthdays, or at Christmas, the wounds of separated families show on the surface. Rituals are the framework of families; frameworks wobble at Christmas. In everyday life, conflict lines flash less brightly. Those affected have usually found their individual way to manage the legacy of separation. Some train for marathons or follow a dietary dogma. Some become excessive yoga students or maybe Netflix junkies. Fathers over forty suddenly wear neon wool hats, drive Jaguars, and play Peter Pan. Mothers sign up on dating sites, fudge their age, wonder why it's only about sex, and cry themselves to sleep at night. Children develop an object fixation with their iPhones. The class chat is reliable. Which drama is good for the next Insta performance? Mad world.
After 8 years as a mother in a separated family, I can look back at the course of the pain lines retrospectively. Time has diluted everything, new rituals have been practiced, two households are integrated into life. Packing a suitcase is like packing a school bag. Half the students in a class live out of weekender bags. They live in two rooms, own two front door keys, two electric toothbrushes, two phone chargers. And often two new people sit at the kitchen table: the new life partners of the parents.
By now, I have accompanied three families up close through separations. It does not get better the more I operate in this sociocultural field. On the contrary. I feel my attitude becoming more critical because I can assess the price everyone pays for it. It is high.
The first months and years after my separation, I was busy coping with the new situation. It distracted me from other beautiful things I would have actually liked to enjoy as a woman in her prime. Actually, I wanted to grow old casually with my husband and grow into a mature relationship. It is a lasting crack.
Fifteen years ago, I would not have thought it possible to witness so many separations in my circle of acquaintances. All the beautiful weddings, life plans that held so much potential. Passé.
I can name eight men off the top of my head who left their families. And I wonder what virus is going around. Is the threat for a man over forty to become a square so great? Is it a personal battle that must be fought? Does this maturity test silence them towards the mothers of their children? Is that why they mentally quit? Do they let their relationships deliberately wither, dig trenches? Only to brag with a new conquest? Is the life plan of family, based on loyalty, an unavoidable shift in priorities with a separation?
My ex-husband still denies that the breakup of the family was a turning point in my life and in the lives of our daughters. From his point of view, it was the logical consequence of a breakdown. "We just don't fit together," he said casually to the couples therapist at the end of the last session. Only once was the therapist biased, and that was after this sentence. "After ten years of a relationship, such a statement belongs at the fair," he said. My husband shrugged. And packed his things.
The moment I told our daughters that their father would separate from me, and that everything would now be different, I share with countless parents and children. A trauma. All therapies and band-aids available to us were used. But I can see how it has affected the emotional development of our daughters. How often they get caught in loyalty dilemmas, especially on Christmas Eve. How stupid they find it that father and mother are in eternal tension with each other. They have grown into strong young women, but they also carry the crack inside them. They take it into their future relationships. They watched us turn the most important thing in life into a pile of shards. The Holy Family. Quite civilized, of course. How we maneuvered, suffered, fought, and failed. The failure of relationships is human. But is it also inevitable?
We put so much effort and attention into raising our children. Schools examine and question teachers, only to fail miserably at the basics. Loyalty, respect, and cohesion are the cornerstones of a community. It is the foundation on which the Holy Family should stand. A manageable sacrifice? Not from my point of view.
I am not inherently against divorces. However, we can generally reconsider our norms. I would be in favor of an official parental contract that obliges lifelong loyalty and appreciation as top priorities. Not the romantic love of the parents. That is far too fragile, too vulnerable to ego trips. Today, a partnership has to be able to do too much. We should have the courage to separate eroticism from the family structure. Then parents could continue to live out their desires, realize themselves, without breaking apart their families.
Loyalty means faithfulness, but also connection. Parents are connected, whether they want it over the years or not. However, countless separated family members suffer from the disturbed, hurt connection. And the question: How do we celebrate on the 24th? Here lies a chance for reconciliation. A command for peace at Christmas:
I am no longer faithful to you because I am stepping out of our romantic relationship. But I respect and continue to live our connection. I am loyal. Forgive me that I can't do better. But I respect our unbreakable parental contract. I will continue to honor you. Because we are parents.
Countless children around the world would write this step towards reconciliation on their wish list. Mom and Dad should stop arguing. And for that, they would give up a new iPhone.
About the author:
The author Stefanie Wilke was born in 1964 on Sylt, which was quite wild back then. She grew up on the beach among pirates. Today she lives in Hamburg and has contributed ideas and texts to magazines like AMICA, Allegra, Emotion, and enorm. Currently, she works as a copywriter in an agency. Writing about psychology and love is one of her favorite activities.