Huma Abedin is sharing an emotional turning point in her co-parenting relationship with ex Anthony Weiner.
After the disgraced congressman was sentenced to 21 months in prison for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old, Abedin had very little contact with him because she was enraged at what he had done. But the two share a son, Jordan, who was just 7 at the time of Weiner's sentencing; therefore the former Clinton aide had to decide what kind of relationship she wanted her ex to have with her son, too.
While Abedin felt like the distance was a good thing for both her and her young son, that changed while they were on a Christmas trip to Hawaii.
Abedin opened up about the moment she knew her son needed to have a relationship with his dad in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. She admitted that she was initially filled with “so much anger and resentment” toward her ex. As a result, it sent her spiraling into deep feelings of shame as she tried to make up for what her son was missing with his father behind bars.
Abedin said she was constantly trying to make up for everything her son had lost by taking him on countless "adventures to distract him." But in all those adventures, there was one place the distraught mom didn't want to take Jordan — to see his dad in prison.
But during her and Jordan's trip, they encountered a child his same age. "It’s the end of a very long night," Abedin explained. "We go to dinner with his family, and the boy stands up and puts his hands up towards his father so his daddy picks him up," she said. "My little boy looks at this scene and breaks down and says, ‘I want my daddy, I want my daddy!’"
In that moment, Abedin knew that despite her own feelings of rage toward her ex, her son still needed a relationship with his father. “That was the day I decided I would not be ashamed about where my son would have to go to see his father,” she said. “I took him to see his dad [in prison], and he was giddy and was so excited.”
While most co-parenting relationships require the adults to let go of some complicated emotions, it's hard to imagine how much letting go Abedin had to do. But she knew that her son was the one who would end up losing out if she kept him from his dad. These days, she says the family has come a long way in terms of how they interact with one another.
Now that their son is older, Abedin says she and Weiner are trying to “always be sources of truth for him,” because they want him to learn about his dad's mistakes “before learning something on social media or through his friends.”
Huma also says that, now that some time has gone by, she doesn't have so much anger at her ex. “He was my best friend before we became anything else,” she said. “And we will always have this connection because we’ll always be a family.”
