My elder son and I were texting tonight. He is 41 , with a successful career. He told me he would give everything he had for his mother and me to be together again. You see, we divorced when he was two. I remained in his life. He even lived with my current wife and me when he was a young adult recovering from some bad decisions that he made,

 Today is his mother’s birthday. I realize this terrible fracture to his emotional security haunts him still.  Her birthday brought his sense of loss to the surface.  

I have a good marriage today, emotional maturity, an eternal grounding for my life in the Roman Catholic Church, over two decades of sobriety. And yet, the scar remains. That decision to divorce (not my idea, for what that is worth) haunts him and me still. I can only imagine what his mother thinks.

I can fantasize about sexual escapades all I want. But that sacred bond of marriage I trampled on so long ago has more value than any erotic reverie I may ever entertain.