Proud and Guilty

The kids have been spending every other Sunday with their dad. He has, since the beginning, forced the rest of his "family" (Crazy-who I will call "M" and Crazy Jr-who I will call "K") on the kids. There are so-so with it. Sometimes they just want dad and not all these other people there, sometimes they don't care, sometimes they ask to stay home and sometimes they ask to come home. I personally find M and K to be fake and phony and maybe the kids pick up on some of that. I do not say anything about them and the kids do not ask me about them.

Last night, I was sitting on the couch watching TV with C (after the 7845th time he got out of bed). I asked him how he felt about sleeping at dad's house (he has trouble with change so I have been trying to casually bring it up to him every couple of days). He said "Ok". I asked him if dad showed him where he would sleep. He said that he has a bedroom at daddy's that he shares with M and it has a TV and a couch and a carpet but not a bed.

It seems like he is handling it fine. He does not have any anxiety about it...so far. He knows I am only a phone call away. B and I both agreed from the beginning that they could come home if they were too upset (and he would not force them to stay just so he wouldn't have to admit that I was right and he was wrong).

C sits there for a little bit...kind of deep in thought. I ask him if he needs to talk about anything else.

He says "Do you think dad will get a new M before we sleep there because I don't really like the M he has?"

I know that I am supposed to be supportive of B's other relationships, I know I need to make this easier on the kids and I know I cannot say anything bad.

But, you know what, I was so proud of my little boy at that moment. Proud of him for seeing who and what she is, proud of him for expressing it and proud of him for knowing he could come to me and talk about it (and of course, proud to know that he isn't replacing me that easy).

With all the proudness also comes the guilt. I should have said something like "That is not nice to say" or "Dad really likes M and he wants you to like her too". Deep down inside, it would feel like a lie. B does not like or love her. He spends every pick up and drop off asking me if I miss him, how much he misses me, how different he is, blah, blah, blah. M is not nice and what C said was a perfectly nice thing to say considering who she is. He was far nicer than I am when talking about her (not in front of the kiddos).

Like I said in My Greatest Fear post, I will not be perfect and I will make mistakes. I will not tell my kids to like someone just because. They can be civil, they can be respectful but there is no way I going to tell them that they "have" to like her.