Fatherhood (3) – new born to Adult in a nano-second

Sometimes as a father/parent it will seem like time is compressed and on other occasions it will almost surely be the reverse.

During the first 12 months of Ashleigh’s life things were really relatively easy. We had a nice place, supportive families and we were bumbling our way along as most new parents do. Things that will scare you or be memorable include:

• Bathing a new born baby
• Changing a new born baby
• Taking your baby in the bath or shower with you
• Feeding a new born baby (as a women on the breast) or as a dad via a bottle (perhaps with expressed milk or formula)
• Trying to get a baby to sleep
• The first night a baby sleeps through ( say six hours – this will generally scare the S…. out of you)
• Taking your baby to the clinic for checkups and immunizations (there is nothing like the cry of a newborn when jabbed with a needle)
• Lovemaking after the birth

After about 10 months, Karen went back to work. For a period we continued to develop as a family but it wasn’t long before some major changes occurred simultaneously in all of our lives:

• New job for Karen (with shift work)
• Decision to build a new house (and as a result add additional financial pressures and workloads to the relationship)
• Selling our house and moving in with my parents (oh by the way I had a vasectomy during this period – too late I hear you say)

Our new house was finally built (very nice it was) and we moved in. We started to turn it into a home but for lots of reasons our relationship began to change and within a short period of time reached a point of no return. With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight doing all of these things (at least in my opinion) together was a huge mistake. However, it took some time for this to actually result in any material changes. No individual was to blame but also all individuals were to blame. Relationship don’t break themselves they are broken by the people (or the pressures that are created) within them.

I remember the night this occurred vividly (and it was another time I cried as a man). There is nothing like the breakdown of a marriage/long-term relationship in terms of emotional “pain”. I personally felt like my heart had been wrenched from my chest when we took a decision to separate late one night.

However, as a person I am a rational/pragmatic (some say cold) person. Once the decision to separate was taken there was no turning back (at least for me) and my focus then from the next morning turned to “solving the problem”.

Remember we had Ashleigh who was in day care (~18 months old), a relatively new house, one car, little or no money and we were both working (Karen – working shift work).

So how do you solve such problems? There are many different ways – none of them right, but some are clearly better in my view in the long-term than others. How do you judge this? Time (and a future chapter?) might provide some insights.

My initial solution was to do the following:

• Take a week’s leave from work (time to sort out immediate issues)
• Take responsibility for Ashleigh - I had a 8-5 job near the daycare whereas Karen was working shifts
• Work on agreeing amicably how to separate our worldly possessions
• Work on trying to build a platform for a long-term friendly relationship with Karen (and between us and other parties)
• Put our house on the market (and find a new place to live)
• Get back to work (and act like nothing had happened)

For the first couple of months Ash and I lived in our house and we caught the bus to work (to the city) as Karen had the car. I would drop Ash at Daycare and pick her up and take her on the bus home. More often than not we would stop in a restaurant on the way home – this was a good way for us to spend time together at the end of the day and for us to eat good meals (without me having to cook/wash up). I am sure that this has contributed to her current fetish for Takeaway or going out to restaurants.

It wasn’t long before we sold the house, I got a car (Nissan NxR – part of what I now refer to as my redundancy package) and Ash and I moved to a house owned by a friend/work colleague in Mt Hawthorn (thank you Helen) and the next phase of our lives began to take shape.

Karen also moved on – moving in with a friend (Sarah) and settling into a routine which meant that she would ultimately spend more time with Ashleigh.

To our great credit (my view) we managed, despite all of the great personal hurt/emotion and interests of other parties, to separate amicably and to make decisions that were beneficial to us and in particular Ashleigh with a longer term view in mind. While in the moment this was often difficult (and not understood by others around us) this has subsequently proven to have been one of the “best” actions taken by us collectively. You can’t plan this and you are lucky to achieve it, but if you can do this it will save everyone additional emotional anguish, a hundred headaches and thousands and thousands of dollars.

As a father during this period all I sought to do was to be a something consistent in Ashleigh’s life and to provide time for the turbulence which inevitably occurs in such times to subside. No-one ever stopped loving Ashleigh during this time, but everyone "managed" the time somewhat differently.

Young children (say anyone less than 30 - just kidding) are always the most vulnerable in such situations as they have no control and no ability to influence the environment around them. Babies (<20) often can’t choose, all of their decisions are made for them and we can only hope that the adults around them do the right things (unfortunately this is not always what happens).

During this time Karen and I were supported by family and friends and all of these people helped in some way (so thank you to all).