I feel like I've been gut-punched. I feel like crying and it's hard to breathe. This morning I just received an online message where someone referred to my ex-husband as the "delightful and beautiful mother" of our sons.
Wait, what? The mother? Isn't that me?
Why would someone call him the mother?
At first, I'm really confused. He's told our kids that he'll "always be their dad."
He has transitioned, and he has a lot of enthusiastic supporters, so I guess that's the reason, logically. But the gut punch is real and I'm still struggling to cope with the shock and betrayal.
Yes, my ex-husband is transgender. The last couple of years, despite his assurance in the past that he would never do this, he has been transitioning.
I get it. He's on his journey. He's finding his "bliss" and "living his truth" and all of those other lovely platitudes that society uses to break up families and justify selfishness. Even though I know this, I still wasn't prepared to hear him referred to in such glowing and drippy terms as such a lovely and beautiful mother.
That feels so violating to me, as the actual mother. Nobody calls me lovely, beautiful, delightful, and I don't care. In fact, I'd be annoyed and grossed out if they did gush like that. PLEAZE.
But, I am, in truth, their mother. Their dedicated, prayerful, mother who loves them, ponders on them every day, and endures struggles of the heart and spirit on their behalf! That's motherhood.
And who gave birth to our sons? It was me. Not him! He can have his day with hormones, leggings, and anything else he wants to in the freedom of mid-life, but he never was and never will be our children's mother.
My heart aches on this point. You simply cannot steal that label. You can change your body on the outside, a little, so that others are fooled about your gender. But you don't simply change your history, your heart, your life's role like that. It doesn't work that way.
A mother is infinitely more than a feminine appearance or a hormone profile or a wardrobe. Nobody knows the joys, pains, and heartaches of a mother except for another mother. Nobody can know what it is like to be a woman at home with three little children, with no money, no help, hours left of homework, fights, meals, and messes -- and a husband who is always gone -- except for the woman who lived it. Nobody can know what it is like to struggle to advocate for the children's needs and wants when nobody will help her, but she must find a way to help these children -- except for that mother. The struggles and pains I bore as the mother of our young children were ones that were so deep, so tender, and at some times, so extreme, that God alone has born witness to them. Not only does my ex-husband not deserve the title of mother, but he was also the thorn that made my role of mother unbearably heavy at times when he could have lifted my cross. He was the one that serially abandoned me, mocked me, and laid extra burdens on me. What's hurtful is not the fact that he's transgender, and transitioning, which hurts enough, but it's the fact that he's never given any weight, gravity, or seriousness to the real pain and challenges of motherhood. When I was a young mom, he seemed to look at me with disgust, and not compassion. So that is what makes it all the worse when he, in a cavalier way, could ever deign to take on that precious title reserved through blood, tears, heartache, and the humblest of prayers for those women who live it every day, via covenant to God and deepest concern for the precious children He has entrusted to her care. Even when she is so vulnerable and alone, so poor, and so afraid.
My heart has no way to fully express what I'm feeling. This song comes to mind:
"There are moments that the words don't reach,
there is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
and push away the unimaginable."*
That song has always made me cry. It has touched something inside of me that weeps for the losses I couldn't prevent in my family.
God gives us each times that gouge our soul so deeply that we understand real pain. This is one of those moments for me. I've had plenty of them, as you probably have as well. But the sun will come out tomorrow, thanks to Jesus Christ, who makes hope a possibility. He has a bright future for anyone who will work for it, through Him. These are the kinds of things I have to remember when moments like this come. My heart may be heavy, but in Christ, I can be comforted.
*Hamilton lyrics, "It's Quiet Uptown"
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