Thoughts on my divorce

I started this blog for me. I have neglected it, just as I feel I am neglecting myself right now, but what do you do when you have 3 kids, two of whom are 6 month old twins?? a house to care for, a budget to worry over, and a husband to pamper because he is just the most wonderful thing ever...I think that I need to come here and write what I am feeling but then I worry that I am sounding whiny. Well...I may just come across that way for awhile. It is not what I want to end up being but maybe what I need right now. There will be random posts of random things coming out randomly from my random brain. Got that?

I have started this post a thousand times. I hate that I even need to speak of it, but I need to get it out. It's going to be long...

My ex...
ex what??
ex-husband
ex-love
ex-friend
my ex-world got married in October and his wife is pregnant...

He has been gone since Motor Mouth was 8 months old. He left half way through our 7th year of marriage. We were the couple that everyone envied. All my friends thought I had the best husband ever...and so did I. Sure, things weren't perfect but nothing is, right? The thing about it was...I married for forever. Period. End of story. In all of our years of marriage we never even uttered the word divorce until I asked him the morning he left if he wanted one, to which he replied, "I don't know." But he did. He knew it was over. I didn't. Not by a long shot.

We had decided after MM was born to move in with my parents and pay off bills for a year so we could get a house. Things were very stressful that year; living with my parents, an infant, both of us driving 60 miles to work 1 way every day. But I thought it was just one of those rough years you make it through and come out the other side stronger. Yeah no, not so much. I thought nothing could tear us apart. We were going to make it.

When he left that morning in January, my world fell from beneath me. It left me completely, utterly falling into space. This was not supposed to happen to us...not to us. My love...was telling me he didn't want me anymore. The one who knew me best, every fault, every flaw, every fiber of my being, was rejecting me. Was telling me that he no longer wanted to be married to me. No longer wanted our famliy...no longer wanted our hopes and dreams...no longer wanted our little girl we had planned for next...no longer wanted me.

Surprisingly, I was strong through it all. I felt like I had to be. Everyone around us was devastated; my family who looked at him like a son and brother, his family who was losing me, our friends who so often asked us for relationship advice, my friends who loved him...they were all in utter shock at what was happening before our eyes. Sure, they saw my sadness, my mouth that no longer laughed, my eyes that would fill with tears way too easily, my body as I literally melted before them by losing 50 pounds in a few months. But they never heard the gut wrenching sobs that would overtake me as I lay in my now cold bed reaching toward his empty pillow. I felt like he had died and I often wonder if it would have been easier if he did.

He never could give me a straight answer why it didn't work. It's my fault, of course. I treated him like a child. Which I am sure I did...since he acted like one much of the time. I had to be the grown-up in the relationship. I took care of the bills, the cars, the business side of everything, plus all the housework. I often felt like his mom, so I am sure I treated him as such. But we could have worked through it. The day he left was the first time I realized just how seriously unhappy he was. Too little too late. Could I have done things differently?? Sure, but who knows if it would have been enough. He had quit on the marriage long before he left. He was a pretty good actor, I will give him that. He was having an affair with a co-worker which he lied to me about even after he left. In fact, I found out a wealth of lies that he told during that time. So much that I stopped believing anything he said to me.

I got over it...it was tough for a long time, but I went to counseling and had a wealth of friends to support me. I moved out on my own shortly after he left and began my new life. After 4 months, I filed for divorce and we signed our papers on our 8th anniversary. Hah!! Talk about weird. But I moved on. I healed. I still mourned for the death of my dreams of a perfect family. But for the most part I had accepted this new phase of my life.


Then a year and a half after he left I got a phone call from a close friend of both me and my ex. I will never forget those words she said, "Your Ex just walked in and said that he made the biggest mistake of his life."

To Be Continued
because it is 12:30 a.m.