Now Boarding

My bag is packed for the shortest long trip I'll ever have to take. Actually, it's the fourth such trip of the year, and it's still February. I am flying out from my new home in suburban Atlanta to spend three short days with my two young children, ages 5.5 and 2.5, who live with their mother 1,100 miles away in Maine. I've been trying to live this impossible life for two months and am already nearing the breaking point.

On the one hand I can't just not see my children, not when they are so young. On the other hand, the routine is taking its toll on me emotionally, physically, and financially. One day I'm ready to drag my new bride and stepdaughter up to Maine, even though my prospects for employment there are dim, at best. The next day I convince myself that it will be OK if I only see my kids once every 2-3 months. The third day I start to believe that this routine of flying up every odd weekend will be fine. By the fourth day, I just crawl into bed and cry.

If you've read this far, then you won't mind hearing the short version of how I came to exist in this pickle.

Ten years ago, while living in Washington, DC and building a promising career I met and fell in love with a pretty, seemingly innocent, recent arrival from Maine. We got engaged, first to each other, and then in a state of warfare with my entire family, who objected not to the marriage, but to our plans for a modest, small-town wedding. Soon after the wedding (which my entire family boycotted), we decided that we couldn't live in the midst of my meddling relatives in the DC area, so we relocated to her hometown, in spite of the fact that neither one of us had a job there.

For the next seven years I struggled and mostly failed to secure a decent living in Maine, subsisting on out-of-state consulting work and then taking a low-paying and wholly unrewarding job as a local bureaucrat. In the meantime, we welcomed two children into the world, first a son in 2004, and then a daughter in 2007. She became a devoted stay-at-home mom, and I went to great lengths to limit my working hours so as to maximize my time with my kids. It wasn't easy, but it was completely worth it.

Soon after the birth of our daughter, two important things happened: 1) we purchased a two-flat apartment building and moved into the first floor unit, and 2) I got a job with an out of state consulting firm that required me to travel frequently. Everything was finally falling into place--we had a very nice home that was made affordable by the rental unit, and I would finally earn a good salary. Our marriage had grown a bit stale, but maybe these things would improve the situation.

There was just one problem. It turned out that the upstairs tenant, an affable, elderly widow with a severe drinking problem and advancing Alzheimer's, had a 41-year old son who sat in his room all day long watching TV, drinking can after can of Budweiser, and smoking. Well this confirmed bum saw the pretty young stay-at-home mother downstairs struggling with her children all day long while her husband was working (and all night long when I had to travel), and he decided to come down from his room. I don't know when exactly the affair began, but by last April when they went to Florida together for the weekend (ostensibly because he was buying an investment property and needed her home-buying advice), the score was clear to me.

She first kicked me out in May, telling me with utterly no emotion that she LOVED me but was no longer IN LOVE with me. I told her that we should at least try counseling, but she refused, saying that she had given me enough years to work things out. She then told me that her upstairs paramour would be moving in as a "roommate" to help pay the bills, as his mother was moving away to live with his sister in Massachusetts, and he needed a place to live. She insisted that they had no romantic relationship, and that she would sleep in a twin bed in our son's room. Right...

I went to a hotel for a week then out to my boss' bayfront house in Wisconsin where I could both work and decompress for a week. During this time, I began speaking with an old flame from Atlanta who had divorced from her ex-husband when their daughter was two, as I didn't know anyone else who had been through divorce with such young kids. I tried to convince myself that she was just a good shoulder to cry on, but my heart was starting to tell me otherwise.

The day before I was to return to Maine, my wife called to tell me that she missed me and wanted me to come back. I was elated--in spite of our distant marriage, the only thing that mattered was being able to live with my kids again. In the intervening 24 hours, her would-be lover showed up at her door drunk at 2am and demanded to talk to her. She told him to leave, but he grabbed her and dragged her into the hallway. She pushed him away long enough to close and lock the door. She called me in the morning to tell me what had happened, and I convinced her to call the police. They arrested him for assault and she got a restraining order against him.

I moved back into my home, so beginning a wonderful family summer, with lazy evenings in the backyard, weekend afternoons at the beach and trips to amusement parks. My wife and I were getting along OK, though I still tried to convince her that we should go into counseling. I shrugged off her refusals, though, as I was having too much fun with my kids. In the meantime, her would-be boyfriend violated his restraining order twice, once for hanging around outside our house and once for calling and leaving a message, and got arrested two more times. I figured he had gotten the message and wouldn't be coming around again. I was wrong.

It occurred to me that there might be trouble again in mid-summer, when my wife said she was going to the gym, a trip that usually took 60-90 minutes, but didn't return for three hours. I asked her where she was and she replied that she just wanted to do an extra-long workout. This happened again the following weekend, with the same result. On the third weekend she returned from "the gym" smelling of cigarettes--I knew something was fishy.

That night, after the kids were in bed, I confronted her about her "long workouts," and then used that and the cigarette smell to accuse her of seeing her lover. She offered a pitch-perfect repeat of her speech from May, this time adding that the whole summer was a charade. She had dropped the restraining order on her boyfriend in June and had decided to get rid of me once and for all. The only reason I was invited back, it seems, was so she and her boyfriend could get their ducks in a row so she could file for divorce and not risk losing custody of the kids to me.

Tired yet? Oh, it's just getting interesting now!

Within the next seven days: 1) She handed me divorce papers, 2) I moved into a furnished one-bedroom apartment a few miles away, 3) her boyfriend moved in with her and my kids, with no pretense of him being just a roommate, 4) I talked for hours each night with my Atlanta flame and realized that I still had feelings for her, 5) made arrangements with said old flame to fix her hair up pretty and meet her in Atlantic City, 6) found out that I was in danger of being laid off from my job. Even leaving pointless hockey and Bruce Springsteen references aside, it was quite a week.

That weekend in Atlantic City, my life changed again, as the in-person meeting confirmed that the love was strong. But what then? I was in Maine with my two kids, and she was in Georgia with her four-year old daughter. By the time we parted ways, we had agreed that we would marry someday and that we'd move wherever I could find work.

Over the next three months, while my divorce case festered in Maine's clogged court system, I scrounged in desperation for any decent job that would keep me in the area. Even in good times, decent work was hard to find in Maine--in this recession, it was hopeless. I spent as much time as I could with my kids, having them over to my little apartment frequently, and even having my son stay there with me on occasion. It wasn't great, but it was becoming OK.

In December, the divorce was sealed, granting me legal custody to have my children every other weekend, plus holidays and extended summer visits. Yippee. I also agreed to a separation with my boss, as work was getting low and my performance was slipping due to my personal catastrophes. I had no place to go now, other than to go down to Atlanta with my fiancee, so she flew up to Maine just after Christmas and we packed up my apartment. I also had the kids with me most of the week.

The day before we were to leave Maine, I was at my apartment with my kids and my fiancee, when there was a knock at the door. It was my newly-minted ex-wife. She was crying, and asked me to step outside to talk. She looked like she'd been hurt--maybe her boyfriend had hit her? I asked her if he had, but she said no. She then said something like, "I made a terrible mistake in divorcing you. I'm not going to lie to you--I'm not in love with you, but I'm in love with our family. I've been so miserable this week without the kids, and I realized that I missed you too. I feel so guilty that you're leaving town. I don't want you to go."

I replied, "Are you asking me to come back?"

"If you want."

"What about your boyfriend?"

"He can be gone by tonight."

I looked at her for a second. This was it--my last chance to stay with my kids. All I had to do was think of the betrayal that she'd inflicted upon me, and I simply said, "Leave. Go home. I'll bring the kids by later."

Three hours later when I dropped off the kids, she was all smiles. I asked her if she was OK, and she cheerfully answered, "Yep. We talked things out, and he's going to make some changes." The next morning I left Maine behind. Now, two months later, I have started a job (albeit part-time) in Atlanta, but have flown back to Maine every other weekend to see my kids. I have rented another apartment there that I'm only using for two weekends per month, but it beats hotel rooms. I am now remarried to my old/new love, and we are trying to build a new life.

And so the ending seems happy, right? I found a new love, a new job, and I'm working to rebuild my life in a new city. But there is the small matter of the toll this is all taking on me--each month I spent more than $1,000 in rent, airfare, and taxi fare just to have a few days with my kids, not to mention spending a whole day (6 hours, 4 times per month) just to travel back and forth, the emotional strain of knowing that my kids live so very far away, and the thought that they aren't even getting to see my new, happier life. When I see them, it's just me--they aren't going to feel like they're part of my new family at all.

Why have I made all of this public? It's quite simple--I've asked counselors, friends, and total strangers if they know of any books or websites offering any sort of support for people in my situation, but they've all said no. I know there are other fathers out there who, for whatever reason, live far from their kids. I know I'm not the only one dealing with the guilt, anger, sadness, and emptiness that goes along with this lifestyle.

I don't know if my kids will ever understand or appreciate how much I love them, nor do I know if they will understand why I've had to move away from them. Their mother, who cheated on me and willfully destroyed our family, has them most of the time and gets to look like the good guy, while I, who is simply trying to weather the storm, feel like an ass for moving away.

As I fly out tomorrow morning, I'll be earning another 2,200 Frequent Father Miles. This blog will follow me as I continue to accrue them. I may not earn free trips or hotel rooms with these miles, but seeing my kids is the only perk I really need or expect. If you are a fellow traveler, I'd love to hear your stories too.