|
The Book Nook |
When the Divorce is With You
By Jeff Rubin
I am the child of divorced parents.
Three months after my Bar Mitzvah, when I supposedly became a "man" in the eyes of my Jewish elders, my father and mother split up. I was 13.
My mom flew to El Paso, Texas, crossed the border into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and got a divorce. When she returned it was just the two of us, in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I got the bedroom.
That began a difficult adjustment time for me; some of my friends would say that I'm still working on it. But I was one of the lucky children at a time, in the mid 1960s, when divorce was uncommon and parents were still staying together "for the sake of the children."
When I was 14½, my mother met Benson Meth, the man who was to become my stepfather. I'll never forget our first meeting. He came to pick up my mother in our fourth-floor apartment in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. He had a great smile, the kind that let me know he was really glad to see me, even though we had just met.
Smart aleck that I was (and most of my friends will say that I still am), when my mom and Ben were getting ready to leave on their date I said to him, "Now get her home by 11." And Ben turned to me, still with that sweet smile on his face, and said, "What time I get your mother home is none of your business."
I loved Ben immediately. For a child starved for a male role model since my dad left the premises and rarely saw me, Ben would become my best friend, mentor and father.
As I said, I was lucky. My friend and national Speakers Association colleague, Kali Schnieders, had a rougher time when she married into a family that included stepdaughter Elizabeth, still stinging from the death of her birth mother five years earlier. Their emotional journey, step by step, gave birth to a relationship that enabled them to defeat their hatred and become best friends.
Kali and Elizabeth's inspirational story is the subject of their new book, You're NOT My MOM, Confessions of a Formerly "Wicked" Stepmother, available on-line and at bookstores. It's a good read for anyone - not just stepchildren and stepparents - interested in improving their relationships.
| |
|
|
|
|