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"And you will grieve the loss of his family … "
It was 10 minutes into my first appointment with a counsellor after the heart-wrenching realization that my then-husband and I may soon be separating. Separating from the man I had believed, without a doubt, would be my forever husband.
She had started with what was likely her standard introduction to "What to expect when you are separating." I found myself thinking back to almost 25 years ago and reading What to Expect When You're Expecting before the birth of our first son.
Most of what she was saying didn't surprise me. That I would grieve the good things about our marriage, the loss of what I imagined the future together would have been, our memories and family traditions, having a partner.
But when she got to grieving his family, I stopped her mid-sentence. "No, no, no you don't understand. They are not just his family. They are my family, too. As much my family as his family. As much family to me as my own large and loving family. That won't change."
She looked at me knowingly, with sympathy, and said, "It will."
His family, "our" family, did everything together for the past quarter century. They are a beautiful, kind-hearted, outrageously funny (pee your pants funny) and a little bit crazy (or more than a bit crazy) Italian family. "Good crazy, really fun crazy, life-would-be-boring-without-it crazy" is what my younger son calls it. Our kids are all the same age. We vacationed together, raised our kids together, took care of aging parents together, celebrated life, marriages and death together, were there through life's hardest challenges together and healed hurts and grievances together. And we managed to do all that while living provinces apart and, for some years, continents apart.
After we separated, I did grieve all of the things my counsellor had mentioned. And thousands more. I grieved them deeper, longer and harder than I could have ever imagined.
One of the thousand things I grieved was the fact that the term "ex" was now a part of my life. I despise it. I have spent the past two years avoiding the term "ex" like the plague. I have only said "ex-husband" once, maybe, I always seem to find a way around it. I generally refer to him by name, even when people would not know who he was, which causes all kinds of confusion. But I still prefer it over using the term "ex."
But somehow, two years post separation, through a combination of circumstances and perhaps a bit of my own denial, I was not yet faced with grieving his family. The traditions continued and those that started to change were affected by things other than our separation. Our children were becoming young adults with more responsibilities and teenagers with summer jobs and our lives were pulling us all in different directions. We managed to continue to do what we had always done – we supported each other, vacationed together and celebrated special occasions together.
At the two-year mark, a few days after receiving the divorce papers in the mail, an acquaintance was telling me about her coming cottage weekend. "We do a girl's weekend every year" she said, "with my mom, my sister and two ex-sister-in-laws."
I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. Ex-sister-in-law? How could I be two years into this process and not have once considered that his whole family would, at least anecdotally, perhaps even legally, be considered "exes?" My dear late mother-in-law and father-in-law who I adored? My numerous sister-in-laws and brother-in-laws and nieces and nephews, each one with such an important place in my life? The extended Italian family of aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and third cousins once removed? Did I now have hundreds of "exes" in my life?
Over the course of the next few weeks, the universe made sure I wasn't going to skip over this part of the grieving process. I realized that certain casual family get-togethers had to go on without me, such as not getting an invitation to a special great aunt's 80th birthday party. Missing the wake and funeral of a great uncle. Planning a scaled-down version of our annual family vacation. None of this should have been unexpected or a surprise, but it was painful, very painful. Just as I had been warned, I was fully grieving "his" family, my family.
But from this grief came an acceptance of my current reality. And with that acceptance came a deep gratitude for the gift of being part of that family, along with the powerful realization that I get to choose my own rules and define my relationship with "his" family in whatever way I want. While things will continue to change, I have chosen that they will always have a huge place of my life.
Exes? Never. My forever family? Absolutely.
Alana Giustizia lives in Oakville, Ont.