Falling in Love With My Sons’ Girlfriends

I am aware every day here in my early 60s of a strange sadness and pain that will likely never leave me. It’s not a singular sensation. It’s a grouping of memories and hopes and dreams. I fell in love with a number of my sons’ girlfriends during the nutso, crazy time of their teens and early twenties. I can’t help wondering about those young women regularly, even now, years later. What a strange sense of loss.

They were my buddies. I attended their sporting events — sometimes with my sons and/or my wife, and sometimes just by myself. I sat with them at my sons’ baseball games and theatrical performances. My wife baked with them. They usually sat to my left when they came over for Sunday morning sausages and pancakes. In many cases, it wouldn’t feel like Christmas for any of us until they arrived.

I was charmed by their brilliance and humor and the special joy with which each of them viewed the world — far different individual thinkers than those boyfriend sons of mine.

We have too many photos of ourselves with them (these days stored away, of course). Those photos still break my heart when I bump into them. We were once a family of five. Our three sons were joys to raise. Even now, they’re joys to be around as they head through their 20s and 30s. But there are several photos where we are clearly a family of eight.

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For years my wife and I felt like we had missed out on something truly wonderful because we didn’t have a daughter. Three kids was enough, thank you very much. But every once in a while, we mused on what might have happened and who we would all have become if we’d just gone a bit further out on our branch of the family tree for that last magical limb of a human being. I would ask my boys, “What would we all be like if there was a sister (or sisters!) in our family?”

Little did we know. When you have all boys (which is truly a great and awesome lot to be given in life), young women eventually do come into your life. There were many short-lived relationships. But there were also sustained and committed ones that seemed like they might go on indefinitely.

The pain starts, of course, after breakups. You’ve fallen in love with an amazing, noble, smart, usually hilarious and charismatic bright light of a human being. You don’t want to ever lose that feeling of connection and joy with that special, amazing person. Breakups require so much of parents. They don’t tell you that in any of the manuals. Yet, as we tell our kids in all phases of life: Change is the only constant.

In the case of young love, you aren’t allowed to argue about what amounts to enforced change for you. If you don’t want your head bitten off, you also need to be super careful with any questions you may have about what happened. More than anything, you need to shut up, listen, and try to accept reality. You got to know an amazing person who further taught you the value of respect and friendship, and that there are so many important kinds of love in this world that no one talks about until they’ve all but evaporated from life. That’s a pretty good deal!

Of course, not only does that wonderful young woman vaporize from your life, but, generally speaking, the close bond you’ve developed with their parents is also more or less kaput. We did hold on to some of those friendships a bit longer after the end of things for our kids, but those relationships tend to fade or morph over time. You occasionally meet up in the supermarket or at a school event. The hugs are slightly longer than you may have with other friends. Catching up can be an ebullient relief (or, occasionally, surprising and painful).

Maybe great early partners (of any gender genre) for our kids give us hints of their future. What I think I learned over that extended era of parenting is that the love and friendship I saw connected to my sons was an indicator that there are people out there who can compliment my sons and make them happy.

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You’d think you might learn slowly with three kids not to get too involved. Maybe some readers have already decided that this writer is a dumb-ass. I wish it were that simple. The thing is, sometimes good parenting means being a dumb-ass when things really matter. We raise them to leave home, without doubt. And we raise them to find their way to careers that they can enjoy. But we also raise them to find meaningful love in their lives. Maybe my problem is that of those three things, the one that always mattered most to me was love.

Our middle son got married a few weeks ago. Our oldest was married last summer — four months into a global pandemic. The youngest may wait a few more years, but he has found his life partner, too, and we look forward to welcoming her into our motley clan when the time arrives.

Without doubt, we love these young women who have chosen to connect with our family indefinitely. We are also overjoyed (and relieved) that they are far less likely to leave our lives. We are grateful as heck, too, that their parents are wonderful, loving people and that they seem to tolerate us as much as they do.

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I understand the lesson that comes with all this growth — the lesson for any parent who has to go through what we went through. It’s obvious. Your kid isn’t the only one learning about love. So are you, especially in their teen years. Hopefully, you have learned what a gift new people are to your life and that you should never take your friendship with those people for granted.

Of course, the other lesson is to tread lightly and temper your emotions. That person is going to be with you for many years. They’re actually going to have to get to know you in a serious way, and you them. It never ends, that parenting thing. Hopefully, though, we get better at it and everyone can live happily ever after.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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