Love Enough to Not Hate

My mother died when I was 6 years old and my father died when I was 41.

In all those years, my father never said a bad word about my mother or her family. He honoured her memory and was a consistent participant in all of her family’s events. Any opinions I formed about her family were based on my personal interactions and experiences with them. To me, this speaks to how much my father loved my mother. His love for her transcended her death.

During a time of mega-stress in my marriage relationship, one of my uncles pleaded with me not to say any bad thing about my husband to or in front of my children. I wish I could say I followed that advice.  However, I was forced to after my son told a friend how much it hurt him when I talked badly about his father and just in case that wasn’t enough, in a separate incident, my daughter also told me to stop talking badly about their father.

I learnt my lesson the hard way and since then, I’ve been thinking about my father’s relationship with my mother. One would say they must have had a perfect relationship but I remember clearly one episode, when I walked in on their quarrel, as a 5 or 6-year old. I believe my parents had a love-filled relationship but had times of relationship stress too. That part of their relationship was not shared with us even after my mother's passing.

Sometimes we hear people say they’re in their relationship for their children or that they can do anything for their children. But many times those same people leave scars on the hearts and psyche of the children that they love through their handling of issues with their partners. If we truly love our children, whether we’re still with their second parent or not, our love must be deep enough to not harbor bitterness for that individual even when they hurt us. We do not do it for them but for our children and ultimately, ourselves.

One of John Wooden’s most popular quotes says “The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” This also applies to mothers too, the best thing a mother can do for her children is to love their father.

This is not the passionate erotic love with a sexual angle commonly found between spouses but a deliberate sacrificial love that enables one look beyond the actions, inactions, words and misdeeds of one's partner. This is not love based on merit, but love given as an act of will that overlooks foolishness and excuses weakness. 
This does not mean that you become an enabler of bad behavior but that we leave the door open for our children to relate with their second main blood relative. It also means that we do not burden our children with our disappointment with the individual or relationship.

True love never dies but true love can be rejected. If your love was rejected, don’t let that make you so bitter you begin to speak ill of your spouse to your children. It is hard for pain not to overflow but it is harder for us to watch our children suffer because of mistakes we made by not checking the outpouring of our pain.

"Crying in the Rain" Photo by Alaric Hartsock on Unsplash

It is hard to smile when all you really want to do is cry. It is hard, but as a friend says, it is better to cry in the rain because then, no one can tell the difference. To shield our children from the problems in our relationships with their second parent, we must learn to dignify the messes our partners have made. When the hurt is so bad, we must learn to cry in the rain so that we can protect the innocence of our children and allow them to discover, if necessary, the truth we have shielded them from.

It is not an easy thing to do but we can definitely try for the love of our children, to love enough to not hate!