Duplication

I mentioned my thoughts last week about how our family is less than ideal. It's not bad. But never does a woman get married thinking, "Well, I'll be married for about eight years, then I'll get divorced and then I'll remarry to a nice man and we'll have a great big happy blended family, and that will be so much better than if I were to just get married and stay married to the father of my children for eternity!"

No, no, I'm pretty sure we don't think that way. In fact, from a young age, as Latter Day Saint children, we are taught that "The family is ordained of God." and "Children are entitled to... be reared by a father and mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity." There is no mention in The Family: A Proclamation to the World of divorce, step parents, or blended families. Other than the admonition to "honor marital vows with complete fidelity" (which would imply not getting divorced) there is no talk of divorce to be found.

So, if I know what the ideal is, and I was striving for that ideal my entire life, and I am committed to that ideal, how to I reconcile my less-than-ideal circumstance with the prophet-directed ideal?

Elder D. Todd Christofferson's talk last October came at exactly the right time. My divorce was almost final, and I was feeling very brokenhearted about the idea of my "ideal" situation dissolving. I couldn't deny the truth of his statement that, "There is no better setting for rearing the rising generation than the traditional family, where a father and a mother work in harmony to provide for, teach, and nurture their children." But I am glad that he did not stop there. His words were a soothing balm to my aching newly-single-mother heart, "Where this ideal does not exist, people strive to duplicate its benefits as best they can in their particular circumstances."

And that, my friends, is where we are today.

Although our children are not being reared by a biological father and mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity, they are being reared by a step mom and a step dad who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. And we focus on the next part of The Proclamation,

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

I am convinced that the benefits can be duplicated if we focus on these things.

In our blended family and home, we try to be unrelenting about family scripture study and family prayer. We try to teach our children repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, and hard work. As much as possible, we try to duplicate the benefits of the best setting for rearing the rising generation.

I guess we won't know how successful we were until our children are gone, but I have faith that Heavenly Father will guide us as we try to do our best. And, as Elder Ballard said last October, "It is impossible for us to fail when we do our best when we are on the Lord’s errand."

How do you try to duplicate the benefits of the ideal situation in your less-than-ideal situation? We all have something less-than-ideal about our lives. What is your fix?

Less Than Ideal

It's Friday night, which is a pretty lonely night for me these days. Our kids all go with their other parent on Friday nights, and my husband works until 11, so it's just me, writing about our mixed up life.

I haven't had a lot of time to read or write - and I have felt like I haven't had very many interesting things to say.

But I am active on a Facebook group of LDS women who elicit tidbits from me every now and then when I have a minute to check in on what they are chatting about. I love those ladies - they keep me grounded in my faith, they remind me of the important things in life, and they help me keep my covenants. They are women from all over the world, from all walks of life, with one thing in common - they are faithful covenant keepers.

We've had a lot of conversations lately, and one of them in particular has been about the attack on family in society today. The attack comes in several different ways, and I don't want to debate about feminism, women in the church, same sex marriage, or any other hot topic. I want to talk about blended families.

I am a staunch advocate of traditional marriage - one man, one woman, raising their children together. We can get all sorts of specific with the types of families that don't fit this mold, but I want to get specific with only one...

Lately I have been mulling over the idea of our blended family. My children have two "fathers" now - their biological father, and their step father. Both fathers are very real fathers to them, and fill very important roles for my children. Similarly, my step children have two "mothers" now - their biological mother, and me - both also very important and very real to them, fulfilling much needed roles in their lives.

So it got me to thinking... how is my children have two "moms" and two "dads" different from a child being raised in a same-sex relationship by two moms, or two dads? This is an earnest question, and deep down I know that a mom and a step dad raising kids together is different than a dad and a step dad raising kids together, but the question is still rattling around in my brain - far from being satisfactorily answered.

And honestly, I have more questions than answers. Which is not unusual for me.

I read this article today about another type of blended family popping up around the world - the family where the step dad is married to the biological dad, rather than the biological mom. It is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever read.

The thing is, divorce is heartbreaking for me. Remarriage is heartbreaking for me. Sure there are fantastic things about my life now - but in the back of my mind there is always that nagging reminder that we are not in an "ideal" family situation.  Which is why I keep thinking about less-than-ideal family situations, and what differentiates them from one another.

What are your thoughts?

Perceptions

An old friend messaged me on Facebook after my first couple of blog posts saying that he loved my posts and thanking me for telling my story. I wrote him back and said that I had been nervous to share my story because of how I would be perceived. The friend wrote back and said, "I think you're helping to change 'perceptions' and that's a good thing".

So what was I so worried about?

I was worried about being judged. Which is ironic, because ordinarily I don't give a rat's patootie about what other people think of me. I do what I feel is the right thing, and if I find out later that it isn't the right thing I will be incredibly apologetic. But while I'm doing what I think is right I find no reason to apologize.

Divorce and remarriage was entirely different for me. I worried what people would think of me when they found out I was getting divorced. I am usually free to explain myself, but with my divorce I knew there was no way I could accurately explain myself without causing inexplicable harm to both my former spouse and my children, which is something I could never do. You will never know, dear reader, what I went through in my divorce, because I will never tell you.

When I got remarried so soon after I was divorced (we got married less than 30 days after my divorce was final - but Utah has a 90 day waiting period for divorce, so we had filed for divorce longer than that) I was worried that people would judge me. When I married a red head (my youngest baby, born about 4 months before we filed for divorce, is a red head) I was worried what people might say.

I was worried what people would think of me getting married to someone I hadn't known for very long.

I was worried people would think I was somehow a less faithful Latter-Day Saint for being divorced. There is a part of the movie 17 Miracles that makes me gush tears every time. A mother of two small children is leaving England to emigrate to America to join with the Saints. She receives a blessing in which she is counseled about leaving a spouse. Whether truth or fiction it always touches me and I identify with her character at that moment.

I don't want to make it seem like divorce is a good thing. It isn't. Whenever some trial comes up that is directly related to divorce or indirectly related to divorce through remarriage and our blended family, Justin and I say to each other "Divorce sucks." Because it does.

Divorce is like cutting off your leg. Sometimes amputation is necessary to save the rest of your body, or to keep an infection from spreading. But you would never think of amputating your leg without first trying every thing imaginable to keep it. Amputation should be an absolute last resort, and it should be more desirable than keeping the leg. For example, if you break your leg, you aren't going to cut it off. You'll have a doctor set the bone, put it in a cast, and wait for it to heal. Sure, it may take a long time, and your leg may never work exactly the same, but you will still have your leg. Sometimes you may not have a choice in whether to amputate or not. Maybe your leg gets caught in heavy machinery or someone maliciously cuts your leg off. Whatever the situation, it is always better to have your leg if you can keep it.

Please do not take any part of this blog to be an endorsement of divorce. I don't want to give you the impression that you should get divorced because my happy remarried life looks better than your crappy marriage. If you want to know specifics, or if you feel like you need to talk about divorce or your marriage, feel free to email me. I am not a therapist, and most likely I will encourage you to see a marriage therapist - either with your spouse or by yourself. But if you just need some friendly advice, or even just a listening ear, please reach out.

If you have lost your leg already, please have hope. You can still live a full life as an amputee! And that is the true purpose of me sharing our story with the world - I hope that you can see that, although divorce and remarriage and blended families are not the ideal, your life can be full and amazing anyway!

Are you going through divorce, remarriage, or learning how to blend a family? What questions do you have? Have you been there, done that? What advice do you have for the Andrewleys?

the first of many more

I'm not entirely sure how to begin. You know, they say it's best to start at the beginning, but at this point in my life there are so many. Beginnings, that is.

So if you want to read the real beginning, you'll have to go back to our Rowleypoly blog. This is the beginning of the Andrewleys (Andrews/Rowleys). I can't just call us the "Andrews" because Vince, Joseline, and Seth are members of our family, and they are Rowleys. And the idea of hyphenating my last name has never appealed to me. Plus, I am now an Andrews rather than a Rowley. But my kids are, and the best way I could think of meshing the family name without hyphenating is Andrewleys. It's got kind of a crazy sound to it, which is perfect, because crazy definitely describes our family.

The year 2013 was a pretty big year for me. I had a baby, then I got divorced, and because of that I had to go back to work. That story is pretty miraculous in itself, and it deserves its own post, and so it shall get one.

Toward the end of September I was freshly divorced and received some counsel that I would get married again. Well, I wasn't even close to being ready to get married, and I was 100% sure that if I was going to get married again I would have to know the guy really really well, and have known him for several years. I also knew that if I was going to get married again I would certainly want to get married before I was past child bearing years, because I have always wanted a large family. After Joseline I thought I wasn't going to be able to have any more kids and my heart was broken. Then after Seth I got divorced, and I was completely devastated. I wanted a house full of kids!

Not really wanting to think about marriage, but being pragmatic, as always, I started thinking about my options. If I didn't have kids I would just go back to a Young Single Adult ward. After all, I was just barely 27. But with kids, being in a YSA ward would seem kind of weird... plus I didn't want to date a bunch of kids fresh off their missions. I wanted a guy with some life experience. Someone whose testimony had withstood trials, someone who was dedicated to the gospel through thick and thin. After a while I came to the conclusion that I was probably looking for a single dad. Either divorced or widowed.

Well, there is no "Single Parents' Ward" (although that might be a good idea! Ha ha), so I went to the only other place I knew of to meet a bunch of single people with kids. The internet. It's not as scary as it maybe once was, and I signed up for a popular LDS dating website. Within a few days I had a date set up with a single dad of 3 young kids, about the same ages as my kids. He was a little older, but after chatting a few times I felt like he fit the basic requirements - he had seen a lot of life and was true to the faith in spite of (or maybe because of) all the experiences he'd had. We seemed to have a lot in common, so I felt good about a date. He ended up being a lot more ready to jump into a relationship than I was. I wanted to meet lots of different guys, date around, and in a few years make a decision. I didn't stop seeing him, but I did continue to talk to other guys on the phone, via email and text, and eventually set up a few more dates.

The next guy I went out with was a single dad of only one kid, he had been divorced for a long time, but we enjoyed talking about the gospel and having some deep doctrinal discussions. He seemed like a really good guy, and I enjoyed spending time with him. He wasn't forward about being romantic, just friendly and we had a good time together.

Then I talked to Justin on the phone - same story, single dad who had seen life and was dedicated to the gospel in the face of anything, we had a lot in common - so we made a date. In the process of making our date we discovered that we lived about 2 minutes from each other, that our Stake President (who played a huge role in my starting to date) had been his bishop when he went on his mission. Of course, we hadn't met, but it felt like we had.

I had season tickets to the Utah Symphony and Opera still, and the next event was the Utah Opera's production of Salome. I asked him to go and he said yes. The next evening was the opera and he showed up on my doorstep. First impression at the doorstep was fantastic. He even brought me some charming flowers. If I remember (and I might not remember correctly) it was a combination of daisies and lilies. He had told me he was kind of old fashioned.

Then we walked out to his car. I almost turned around and went back inside. Okay, that's not entirely true, but my opinion of him went down just a hair. His car was a shiny red Dodge Charger with 22" rims and dark tinted windows, black leather interior, and a spoiler. I was certain I was not going to like this guy. Too concerned with image. I was shocked by the irony of his music choice. When I got in the car he was listening to Seminary video soundtracks. It almost balanced out the car.

The evening was fun. We had fun chatting about the opera, and I realized that despite his lack of exposure to classical music he caught on quick and was pretty intelligent. I like intelligent. My season tickets entitled me to after parties with the musicians, but we ended up being early to the after party and decided to take a stroll. We walked around the corner and passed The Melting Pot. I told him how my sister had gone there once and raved about it. He asked if I had been, I said no, and he said, "Let's go!" So in we went and we spent nearly 3 hours eating delicious food and having the best conversation of my life. I can't even entirely remember what we talked about, I just remember feeling comfortable and at home.

On the way to the symphony we kept trying to figure out if we knew each other from somewhere. We eventually decided that we couldn't have met before, even though we felt as if we had.

After our fantastic evening out I came home on cloud nine. I'd had a pretty good time with the other guys I had dated, but something felt different about Justin. I felt like I knew him already, even though I didn't know him, and I was euphoric. I hadn't felt that way in a long time.

(to be continued...)