I am bad at resolutions.
In all fairness I did warn you before I made a resolution to post a new blog every week.
But something has happened since I made that promise, and I didn’t really know what to say. I still am not sure I know exactly what to say.
My divorce is finally final. Its over. Officially.
January 12th 2015. 15 1/2 months after he was served with divorce papers. 19 1/2 months after I finally decided I couldn’t be married to him a moment longer.
I am not sure what I expected when I imagined the day it would be over, but its not this.
I am happy I am not married to him, but I am also sad, worried and angry.
Sad that my boys now have divorced parents, 2 homes. I am sad that an 18 year relationship ended in divorce.
I worry all the time about being able to care for myself and my boys financially and emotionally.
I am angry that I didn’t stand up for myself more during the divorce proceedings, I thought giving him what he wanted would make for a faster process. So I gave up child support in lieu of a 50/50 split of anything for the kids. I should have known I would get screwed with that arrangement.
So I am sad, angry and scared most days. And I am trapped.
I still feel trapped by him. I know I am not, that its all me allowing him to trap me. But fear keeps me this way. I am afraid that if I push back or stand up for myself he will take it out on the kids.
Often times in my marriage, I just went along with what he wanted, to avoid an argument. I thought if I compromised the kids wouldn’t witness a fight. I thought it meant we were happy. This same need to protect my children is what keeps me feeling trapped. I know its all in my head. I know he has no power over me any more, but I can’t help but repeating this old habit.
I wish I didn’t fear him, fear what he will do, what he will say to the kids.
I write this blog anonymously because I am afraid of what he will say. I fear he will make fun of me or be angry for putting all our, no sorry, my problems out here for everyone to see.
I am still friends with him on Facebook, hell I am still married to him on Facebook. Because I am afraid, trapped. Trapped by my fear of him. I know I am not trapped by him, I know its all in my head, I just don’t know how to stop these feelings.
And really there is no reason for this fear anymore, he rarely talks to me these days, which is great. But every time he is around I worry about what he is going to say or think. I wish I knew how to stop feeling this way. I wish I could get on with my life. Move past my fear of him. I know one day I won’t be stuck in this rut. I just hope it is sooner than later.
Dear Running,
Thank you for posting your honest emotions. You are not alone. I’ve been there. It really sucks. There is so much loss with divorce, but mostly loss of the fantasy that you can have the white picket fense life that we wanted when we walked down the isle.
I’m nearly 10 years divorced from a 15-year union with two teenage boys, almost out of the nest, and the sadness still gets me sometimes too.
But, hang in there. It does get better. But, you have to do your part …. you have to feel all that sadness, cry your eyes out, get trauma therapy and spend a lot of time grieving. Anyone who tells you that you can just move on hasn’t lived in your world. I read somewhere that Robert Kennedy disappeared for 6 months after his brother’s murder and read poets and philosopy and books on death and dying. He said he owed it to his brother to completely live in the space of grieving for him. When he came out of it, he was a great father, husband and ran for President.
You can come out of it too. Just give it the time your fantasy of marriage deserves. You didn’t go into lightly, nor parenting nor the decision to divorce. And whether he was horrible or not, you still wished for a happy marriage and to avoid divorce, like most of us.
It is just time to grieve and as you do, you will feel better and begin to be grateful and happy again.
My therapist Jessica told me once, feelings are just feelings. They come and they go. Don’t be afraid that they will stick around forever, because by the very definition they won’t.
My prayer today is that you have a deep-felt cry because I know that when it passes, you will feel better.
Your life is different, but not worse. And though it is hard, it will get better. Hang in there.
You are stronger than you think you are,
My husband of 34 years walked out of our marriage and me on September 16th, 2013, without a clue to me that he wan’t happy and nothing was ever said. He just left.
There was me, and our two sons, in our rental house, cheering that he left, because he was not the nicest person before he left. Days later, it hit me that he was really gone, and the trauma of it all came crashing down on me, crying in my bath towels, so my sons coudln’t hear me, drying my eyes and crying some more. i am a petite woman, 5’3″ 107 lbs, but couldn’t choke down much for for weeks, a chewing food was painful to do.
At age 57 years old, and not yet divorced from my husband, who lives in a big rig truck now driving all over the country, I feel that I was much too good a person for him, who never deserved my love and attention. I never thought I would be getting divorced, but believed the fairy taile of married happily ever after. But things, and life doesn’t work that way, and although I cried and cried for many mornths, I did what it took to try and recover, to help my disabled son get the help and medical attention he needed.
After only 4 months of my husband leaving me, I got a phone call from my brother in NY (I live in WA) at 8:30 pm, telling me to sit down because he had something “astaounding” to tell me. That is when he proceeded to tell me he was cleaning out our dad’s apartment-and found— my adoption documents”!!! What? I never knew, and neither did my brother, Dave.
But, once the shock of this news had hit me, it gave me the opportunity to do something else than crying over my husband, and start looking for my French birth mother, Jenny. So, life does have a habit of helping you see things so clearly, rethink things, calmly, and quietly, without interuption, and you will all find the strenght you never knew you had inside you.
Yes, my life is continuing to evolve now, and soon will be moving to CA to meet my first cousin, and dig through all the boxes for the family photos of my brith mother, and family I never knew I ever had.
thank you both for your tremenduous wisdom.
It does help to know others are going through this, or worse, too. I think the one thing I have not done in weeks is cry. And I am not going to cry. I think I will write a post on why I am not going to cry. Thank you both for your inspiration.