Divorce... who knew?

I realize that divorce has suddenly become a very common theme to my posts here. I guess it goes to show how much I don't understand it.

The latest is that my sister's boyfriend's ex (did you get that connection?) has decided to move back to Pittsburgh to be closer to her family. It's a reasonable decision on her part but it sucks for everyone else involved. I believe she wants to take the kids with her which leaves my sister's boyfriend to decide if he's going to stay in Colorado or follow suit. There are so many aspects of divorce (when kids are involved) that I never ever thought about before.

What would you do? Would you follow your ex so that you can stay close to your children? And my sister? What would you do if you were her? It's not an easy choice and I'm sure I'll be posting about how he chooses to handle it.

Naive Reffin?

During my heated conversation with my mom, she made a comment about how maybe it's lack of experience on my part, more experience on her part, her being older and wiser, or simply more jaded... call it what you will... but you come to a point in your life where you realize that sometimes you can't "just play nice" and expect things to turn out for you. Her pending divorce (call it what you will) has turned out to be a full-out game where neither player (my mom nor her husband) are playing nice.

Is that the way it is? When I get older, will I be jaded like her out of pure necessity? That's just what happens as people age? They grow less and less naive that the Golden Rule really works? I hope not. But who I am to tell? I obviously don't have the same experiences that my mom has under her belt.

Way to go, Reffin?

I recently offended my mother by accident. I wish it was possible to say something, one might call it "positive criticism" but it's not even that, without my family reading more into it than I intend. I don't know if it's the way I say it or if it's just my family needing drama all the time, but I wish it were different.

Anyway, I insulted my mother without intending to. Without going into details, I ended up talking to her about it the next day. As I feared, she had taken my simple statement as a huge judgement. And of course, this led to an intense conversation that opened up Pandora's box.

What was different about this conversation, however, was that I REALLY feel like I was able to not only clean up the mess, but I was able to do so AND still stand my ground. This might be a first for Reffin and it's almost unheard of when people confront my mother. I think I was actually able to explain that there is a difference between an "opinion" and a "judgement" so Go Reffin!

The thing that makes me feel great about it though (as great as I can for having such a heated conversation with my mom during a particularly vulnerable point in her life) was that I think it was the best I've ever REALLY stood up for my husband. Not that he has needed a lot of defending in the past, but usually I take the stance of "Just keep your mouth shut and this will all be over soon."

So... Go me?!