The wound that never heals

My best friend had court today to finish hashing out custody of her daughter with her ex (heretofore to be known as Assjuice or AJ for short).

Now, a little background, I have been friends w/ her for 9 years. She was married to AJ when we first met in England. She left AJ, and moved to Oklahoma. We later got stationed 20 miles from where she lived.

Anyhow, it has taken five years to settle this issue (it's not settled b/c AJ likes to f*ck with my friends life). So as I sat there listening in court, I just became so down about the whole process. It's so depressing to realize that something so big (marriage) ended this way. With a child being hurt. A child that is afraid to say what she wants. A child that must forever have two different addresses, a life split in half because two people couldn't make their marriage work.

I understand that marriages fail all the time. I guess I have a certain insight since I was a child of divorce. It's a wound that never heals. There always has to be sides. The "good" parent and the "bad" parent. And of course there are the rules of play. One parent bashing the other so the child thinks badly about someone who created them. The other parent who is the "fun" parent.

Being a kid is hard enough without having that added stress. I just want to fast forward her life so that the pain and hurt to come will not leave a scar. I see her future and it's painful to watch from the front row.

I try to tell my friend to take the high road (which she does, EVERY SINGLE TIME) that it will get better in time, that E will see with her own eyes and heart what her AJ father is doing to her emotionally. I want to take the pain. I want............ I want to make things better for my best friend and her daughter.

Not only is my friend and her daughter being hurt by this, her other children are as well. They are losing out on their sisters time. I wish that I had been given a bigger role in my sister's life.

In the end, all I can do is be available to my friend and her daughter. Sometimes life just sucks.