I have been married before. Should I tell my child? This is a question you can legitimately ask yourself.
You have a beautiful toddler with your new lover but everybody knows you are divorced what means you have been married before… All your thoughts converge on this painful moment of your life which in reality concerns… only you!
Many divorced and remarried mothers ask themselves this question. I have to say that as long as you don’t have a child yet, this story is gaining momentum and seems dramatic to you.
You already imagine yourself, later, in a few years, conscientiously telling the story to your child. You want to be honest with him and not hide anything from him.
I’ll explain why this story is growing in your head…
First of all, since you didn’t have children in this “first life” with your first husband, you didn’t really experience family life. You then focused on things that you don’t even look at when you’re a mother: work and the desire to succeed and to prove things to yourself, but also to prove things to others, keeping an interior clean whether it is an apartment or a house, the organization of your private evenings or your holidays. Frankly, you don’t give as much importance to these things when you become a mother!
Then you suffer from impostor syndrome. You have divorced and many religions consider divorce as shameful. Then you don’t feel worthy of this new happiness that is coming your way. Yet you suffered with your first husband to the point of divorce! That is to say your distress was huge! You deserve happiness. In this life and on all plans the others will make you feel guilty for many things. So no need to blame yourself! This is a very bad plan!
Let me tell you my story. I got married very young, too young. I was 24 years old. At 21, I was studying Communication and Information when one of my close friends committed suicide. For months I could no longer bear the vision of the streets of our small town in the Paris suburb. So I decided to go on vacation in the Alps. There I met a boy who had just lost his father. Both bereaved, we quickly went out together. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that this relationship was not working. But as soon as I mentioned the possibility of returning home to Paris and resuming the studies I had left behind, he cried and threatened to commit suicide. Eventually I got a job there and put on a disappointment and heartache costume with him. He didn’t like what I was, an artist who wanted to make a living from her art, and I couldn’t stand his pretentious side. Under pressure from his family, we got married anyway. After a year of marriage I was only a shadow of myself. He treated me like shit and I had lost all my self-confidence. I decided to divorce. It was my decision. It is the best I have ever taken in my whole life!
Five years later I had a baby with another man who did not become my husband. I wanted to be a mother but I no longer wanted to get involved in a messy relationship. Today I am finally married for 10 years to the man of my dreams. We have a child together. We are a blended family. We all four live with my eldest son and his little brother. They don’t have the same dad but my husband knows my first son and has been raising him since he was 4 years old. We lead a dream life in the pink mansion we bought in a famous spa resort. We ended up coming to live on our holiday place! We are both self-employed and we organize our weeks to make the most of family life.
I can assure you that when you are immersed into the intensity of family life, the past is really behind for everyone and especially for your children!
It’s a fantasy of a single mother or a divorced woman without children to believe that their divorce is going to be a problem for their children to come!
My first son adores my husband. They got along really well from day one. My youngest son knows that I have been married once and understands that my eldest son’s father was one of my companions. He is very intelligent and only considers the present time… like all children! Children aren’t used to looking back or crying over the past unless that’s how you raised them!
Raise your children in the importance of the past and they will be nostalgic! Raise your children in constant expectation of the future or of a better future and they will become anxious! To have children who are fulfilled and happy to live, they must be educated in the present moment!
So you see this story of fear of announcing to your children what you consider to be your biggest flaw or a “sin” is illusory… Remember: fear is a message from your unconscious that tells you either “you’re not ready to do this” or “beware there is a danger”. Apart from these two very functional messages, fear remains an… illusion! Do not maintain the illusion of fear but rather live in the present, telling yourself that each day is enough!
There are no rules for telling your children that you’ve been married before. And believe me, you will be surprised by their reaction! They probably don’t care at all!
