Mommy? Are you and daddy

......going to get a divorce?

(so uttered by my youngest DS today on the way home from the grocery store)

HUH?

OKay, well, in light of what has happened in the past year, maybe not such a weird question.

Rewind.

Exhibit A

Our backyard neighbors got divorced. I am very good friends with the wife. But I tried to take the high road and facilitate reconciliation until the soon to be ex, showed his true colors. I won't go into the details only to say that what I witnessed leading up to the split and the aftermath shocked me and I'm not easily shocked.

Exhibit B

Another couple, good friends, also decided that after three kids, and 10 years, that they were friends, not soul mates. No anger. No finger pointing. No, she said, he said. Very sad. And they are trying to make sure that their mistake doesn't affect their kids ultimate good. It's just so surreal. The marriage... a mistake? Maybe? The kids, never. Never.

Fast forward to Friday.

Hubby and I are having a very "passionate" debate about discipline, specifically relating to the kiddos of course.

Here's the thing. I am not one to wrap my kids in a little cocoon of idealized life and by it's extension....marriage. In my book it is wrong and sets up unrealistic expectations later on in life. I am not June Cleaver.

Two days later, I get the question.

"Are you going to get divorced?"

And a completely logical one, given the events of the past year and my lame brained explanations.

I need to back peddle. Lame brained? That would be because I have told both of them, in the previous two cases, that sometimes mommies and daddies don't get along and they decide that everyone is happier if they don't live together. (Which is an utterly simplistic and abbreviated version of all that went wrong, but do ANY of us really need to know the full details?? NO....moving on)

Fast forward to my life. My husband and I don't always see eye to eye. I'm a flaming liberal. He....is a dyed in the wool conservative.

Needless to say......we have different points of view.

But not a different goal.

After 18 years, we are still here. Together.

I won't sugar coat it here folks. There have been times when I have wept, gnashed my teeth and been about ready to hurl myself into the abyss.

What has stopped me?

1) Knowing that I have a partner in crime and in time. My husband has had the same doubts and fears and despair and has shared them with me on more occasions than I can count

and

2) My boys...enough said.

So to Thumper and his query?

Driving home from the Publix, I said

"Mommy and Daddy, we don't always agree. And sometimes we get really, really mad at each other, just like you get really mad at your brother. But I can promise you this. I still love your daddy, even when he makes me crazy. And he still loves me. And we made a promise to each other a long, long time ago before God and our family and our friends. And we aren't going to break it...EVER.....pinky swear."

post script

I came home, unloaded the groceries and the boys, to my best friend, aka dyed in the wool conservative, make me crazy, husband and went up to our room and cried.

For my girlfriends, whose husband's didn't live up to their pinky swears.

For their kids, who just want to know that everything in their world is going to be okay.

Sometimes...you just need to cry.