The Rules Are Different For Me

The Rules Are Different for Me

I’m told to wait.

Wait until the papers are signed.
Wait until the judge says it’s over.
Wait until the marriage that already ended
on the inside
is officially dead on paper.

Because it wouldn’t be appropriate,
they say,
for my children to meet someone new.

So I wait.

I don’t bring a man around.
I don’t introduce possibilities.
I don’t blur the lines
for four little hearts
who have already had enough confusion.

I wait.

Meanwhile,
you get six hours.

Six precious hours a week
to be their father.

Six hours that should be yours
to make memories,
to hear their stories,
to wipe their faces,
to be there.

But somehow
those six hours become three.

Because the other three
can be spent at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

And then you show up
with someone new beside you.

A “friend.”

Another face
my children are expected to recognize
while their mother is being told
that she should wait.

Wait.

Funny word, isn’t it?

I waited through years
of broken promises.
I waited through apologies
that never changed anything.
I waited for things to get better.
I waited for you to become
the man I thought you could be.

And now,
when I finally stop waiting for you—

I’m told to wait again.

You get to move on
in front of them.

I’m told to protect them
from moving too fast.

You get to bring strangers
into your six hours.

I’m told meeting someone
would be inappropriate.

You get to hand them off
for half the time
you fought to have.

I’m expected to guard
every boundary,
every introduction,
every choice.

While you seem to get
to make your own rules.

And maybe that’s the part
that hurts the most.

Not the women.

Not even the hypocrisy.

It’s knowing
that everyone is watching me
to make sure I do this right,

while somehow
no one is asking
why you aren’t using
the little time you were given
to actually be their father.

So yes—

I’ll wait.

Not because you deserve
my patience.

Not because the marriage
still means something.

Not because I need permission
to begin again.

I’ll wait
because my children
deserve one parent
who puts their stability
before her own loneliness.

But when the divorce is final,

I hope everyone remembers
the difference between
being careful

and being controlled.

Because I have spent enough
of my life
living by someone else’s rules.

And someday,

when the waiting is over,

I will choose
who gets to know me.

Not you.

Not the court.

Not even the people
who love me enough
to think they know what’s best.

Me.

And this time,

I get to make the rules.