My adult son now has the traditional family I couldn't provide. I'm happy for him, but it's hard to accept.

• When I got divorced, my dream of providing a traditional family for my son vanished.
• Now that he's engaged and marrying into a big family, he is finally experiencing a big family. 
• It hurts to know I couldn't give him that, but I am happy for him.

As a kid, I was always jealous of traditional families with married parents. I wanted parents who were interested and engaged in their kids' lives — along with extended family members and grandparents who added value to every activity through shared generational experiences.

Because I didn't experience precisely that growing up, I set out to create it as an adult. For a moment, I had a husband and a beautiful son. Unfortunately, when my marriage ended, so did my hopes and dreams of creating that traditional family experience for my son.

Since then, it's always been the two of us — Johnathan and I against the world. There were many family members and friends who weaved in and out of the picture and supported us from the sidelines, but at the end of the day, it was just us.

Now, my son is engaged to the woman of his dreams, and they're creating the family I never could give him.

My son found his perfect family

Johnathan recently met his soul mate. Her parents are from El Salvador and have a beautiful relationship and long-term marriage. My son and his fiancé live a few blocks from her parents, so they all spend a lot of time together.

The first time I met her parents, at a surprise birthday party for my son, I cried on the way home. I could see how much they loved him, how well they knew him, and how special he was to them and they were to him.

I was very happy for my son, his girlfriend, and her parents; they developed a special bond. At the same time, my heart broke a little bit. For the first time in my son's life, I felt like a true outsider.

The more time I spent with her family, the more I enjoyed and appreciated how they treated my son and how their family operated.

But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't challenging at times

A few years ago at Christmas, as we were sitting by the fire and finishing up a gift exchange, it hit me: This is hard.

I looked around to see an engaged grandmother, loving parents, sisters who act like best friends, two soon-to-be sons-in-law who are also best friends, and then me. On the surface, it was hard to be alone and feel like an outsider at such a family-oriented gathering, but the emotional harshness of the situation was much deeper than that.

I was overwhelmed by the love and sheer "normalcy" of a traditional family — something I couldn't provide for my son.

Tears rolled down my face, silently at first, then so violently that I had to excuse myself. My tears were full of happiness and gratitude that my son now has such a beautiful family and sadness that I wasn't the one to create the experience for him. 

It wasn't long before I had a full-blown panic attack. My son came to my rescue when I hid in the bathroom.

He convinced me to take a walk around the block with him. The fresh air was good, and we had one of our famous heart-to-heart talks. I told him the honest truth: "I'm happy for you, but this hurts, and this is harder than I imagined."

My son understood and was supportive. We talked about the good and bad times and what we wanted to create in the future. We relished that it was 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and we were walking around in 70-degree weather on a street lined with palm trees while sharing a legal joint. We'd come a long way from Iowa and my family experience growing up.

My son and I lived in a completely different reality than what was expected, and we could be proud of that.

Of course, the blessing of a traditional family came in a way that was different from what I expected. That doesn't make it any less valuable, any less traditional, or any less loving. It was the love I was after, and as we talked, it was obvious that the love had been with us the whole time. In that sense, our love will continue to enhance and add value to all the new relationships we create.