I’m Figuring Out How to Get My Kids Through the Divorce. But One Part Haunts Me.

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by PeopleImages/Getty Images Plus and Antonio_Diaz/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My wife and I are in the process of divorcing. We separated, and she moved out. For a year or so, we went to counseling (at my request), and she moved back in. Now, six months later, she has moved out again and filed for divorce. I have realized at last that no matter what I did on my end, trying to correct my “mistakes” that she brought up in counseling, she had no interest in staying married to me. Her job, her hobbies, and our kids (in that order) are what matter to her. Our kids—three girls in the latter part of their teens—have admitted that the best time of their lives was when their mother and I were separated, and the constant bickering ceased. The plan is that I will keep the house, and we’ll have a 50/50 custody agreement, which at the moment is 100 percent me (until she finds a permanent living arrangement). In reality, once she is settled, custody will most likely be 90/10 due to my location (near their school and friends), her rotating work schedule, and her leisure activities. It is also my opinion that she isn’t, and doesn’t want to be, as involved in her kids’ lives as most mothers would want to be. I have read a good bit on divorce and how it affects the kids, but I have one question I haven’t found an answer to. What do I do with the family pictures that are hung up throughout the house? I have no interest in leaving up any pictures with my soon-to-be ex-wife in them. But what about the kid’s feelings if I take them down—basically erasing their mom from the house they grew up in with her? If they want a picture of their mom in their room, I have no issues, but in the rest of the house, where I have to look at them all the time? The kids seem happy and sad at the same time: happy that the ongoing drama and bickering are no longer a part of their lives, but sad that the family as a whole unit no longer exists. Would taking down all these pictures add another level of sadness, reminding them of the latter and that she is gone? I wouldn’t throw them away. I would put them in boxes in the attic, out of sight, but so that the kids can take them in the future if they so desire. —Picture the Problem Dear Problem, I know this is a hard time for you, and I’m sorry for that. And I certainly wouldn’t want you to have to live with something that causes you constant and perhaps increased pain. I think before you put all the family group photos in storage so that you don’t have to look at them, you should offer them to your kids now to hang in their own rooms or to put away as they choose (perhaps somewhere easily reachable, like their own closets), where they can look at them whenever (and if) they want. Be honest with them about your not wanting to look at the pictures of their mom now that she’s left. Tell them it makes you too sad, too hurt, even too angry. Apologize in advance: Tell them you hope that your taking them down won’t make them sad. And let them know that it’s fine with you if they want to divide them and hang them in their own rooms—that you want them to have some happy memories of when you all lived together. I’m not concerned that hiding these pictures away in the attic will “remind” your children that their mother is gone (they know—they are aware of it all the time, trust me). But they deserve the option to keep them where they can see them. And you can just stay out of their rooms. They may tell you they don’t want to hang the photos in their room. They may tell you they don’t want them at all. Then you can box them up and put them in the attic, letting them know you’re doing that “just in case” they change their minds later. And hang something else in the spots those pictures were! No one wants to live in a house full of walls that bear the ghost-markings of family life. Why not let the girls help you choose what hangs in their place? —Michelle More Advice From Slate My husband and I both grew up in American upper-middle class families; lucky and privileged sure, but worked fast food jobs, had to budget for college, begged for brand name jeans, etc. As adults, we’ve both always worked higher-end, white-collar jobs and lived a matching lifestyle (ski vacations, pay for cars with cash, nice suburban home), but not like one percenter-type stuff. We try not to shower our kids with everything they ask for; they earn allowances and have to save up for luxuries like a Nintendo Switch. The issue is that, so far, we have kept secret from them that they stand to inherit multiple millions of dollars from my husband’s parents when they pass. Advice Family Kids Parenting