Divorce Regret? Do What I Did!

Divorce.

What kind of crappy word is that?

Do we all walk down that aisle in our full-on wedding bliss and completely miss out on the absolute fact that this marriage only has a 50/50 chance of working?

Do we bring into this world these beautiful, healthy babies while all along thinking that there is another 50/50 chance that their dad will walk out and leave and only see them four days a month?

No.

1. We don’t think those negative thoughts while we are in our perfect little world of gumdrops and wedding bells. We think about the positive side of getting married. Like spending weekends together and fishing together and never having to be lonely again.

We think about being great parents to our children and being there for them in all of their childhood activities. We focus on the here and now in our perfect little worlds. We don’t focus on the past or the future.

But we become consumed with negative thoughts when we lose a marriage.  And thoughts of the past. Regardless of whether it is for the best…it is still a loss. And for me, I didn’t grieve for my loss until a year after the divorce was final. I was so sick and tired of the jerk that I had married 12 years earlier that I could only feel relief when I signed the final decree.

Fast forward a year, and all I felt was pain. This intense, heart wrenching pain that would not go away no matter what I did. So what did I do? I focused on the past. I focused on how I could’ve been a better wife. I focused on all of the things that I did wrong in the marriage.

It got so bad that I actually begged him to come back. I told him everything I thought he would want to hear. That I would be the best wife in the world, things would be different, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Worst freaking mistake ever. He was too busy getting “busy” with his neighbor to even think about it! But this turned out to be a blessing.

Thanks to my best friend of over 25 years, who has no filter between her brain and mouth, I finally snapped out of it! Took me three long weeks to come out of the “love fog” that I had surrounded myself with. She told me to remember all of the bad things in my marriage and what went wrong. She reminded me that this “man” threatened to have a custody battle if I didn’t give in and continue to be a good wife. That if I ever left, he WOULD take my children from me. She told me about all of the times that he tried to control me and manipulate me into giving in and doing things his way. All the time. THINGS WERE ALWAYS HIS WAY!!!!!

BAM! Mama got mad! I was furious with the way I had handled my emotions and I was furious that I showed them to the one person I should have distanced myself from. He was controlling me again with the the simple “good morning” text messages every, single morning to the random “working hard today” texts. He kept checking in to keep tabs on me. Every time I responded to a text it just pumped up his ego a little more. Made me feel like the back-up ho. And all of this happened because of one thing…I focused on the past. Never again my friends, never again.

There was only one thing left to do. I let go.

I let go of all of the guilt I had felt about the parts within the marriage that I did wrong.

I let go of all the anger and hurt that I felt towards him.

I let go…and then I forgave. I forgave myself for making mistakes.

And what’s even better is that I forgave him. I forgave him for being a bad husband. I forgave him for all of the threats and lawyer bills and drama. I forgave him. But I will never forget and I will continue to grow as a person while he will continue being the same narcissistic, self-absorbed man-boy that he is, never learning from his mistakes and always placing the blame on someone else. But that someone else will never be me and for that, I will always be thankful.

A marriage ends for very certain reasons. Think about all of the reasons that your marriage ended. Write them down or tell a friend. But don’t ever forget why it ended. There is light on the other side of the tunnel, trust me on this. Mourn your marriage. Journal your thoughts. Get angry!! And eventually you will forgive and let go. And once you let go, you will move on and find the happiness that we all so deserve.