You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

~Bishop Desmond Tutu

In the wake of my kids discovering that I'd been married before and feeling the need to apologize for publically calling my ex bat shit crazy, Char has been emailing back and forth with her.

This isn't a complete surprise; before my parents moved out here she and Kathy spent some time together on visits back home, and they got along. I never would have expected it, but they liked each other. So now they're swapping email and stories about what our kids are up to and the things her now-grown step-kids have been doing. I get it third hand, because, to be honest, it all feels a little weird and I'm not keen on trying to forge a friendship with my ex-wife.

I hope she doesn't take that personally. It's not meant to be; as stung as Alex was by the revelation for my first marriage, he would be hurt if he ever found out I was talking to her, and that's a pain I don't wish to inflict on him. And while I like my ex...I am just not compelled to sit down and fire off an email to her.

No, I don't mind that Char has formed a somewhat unique pen-pal type friendship with her. I have gotten some insight into things that left me baffled when we split up; she didn't want kids, yet turned around a married a guy who had six kids of his own, and custody of all of them.

By then I had long moved on and Char not only had wrapped me around her little finger, but we had already gotten married and had Alex; it was still a little off putting to realize that it wasn't that Kathy hadn't wanted kids; she didn't want them with me.

There was amusement wrapped up in the WTF feeling; she had little experience with small kids and was suddenly surrounded by them.

Over the last couple of months, Char and Kathy have talked about this; whatever Kathy told her, Char understood in an estrogen-soaked way, comprehending Kathy's thoughts in a shorthand that I've come to think only women understand.

That's not a slap against women; it's an admission that men in general don't always get the way women communicate, especially with each other.

Basically, I didn't get it.

Then this morning Char handed the latest Reader's Digest to me with it held open to the above-mentioned quote by Desomnd Tutu. This is what she means; it's what you already knew. You two were together to hold a place for the families you were destined to get, not the family everyone expected you to create.

I can accept that. I'm not sure I believe it 100%. Our familes may be God's gift, but to use someone else as a placeholder, especially when hearts are on the line and there is so much inherent expectation, feels a little bit cruel.

But what do I know?

If we were using each other it never felt intentional. And in the end, we're both much happier people now, with our priorities lined up in an exponentially more mature line. We're where we want to be. It was worth the pain to get here.

I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.