When I started posting blogs again, I was so excited. I had a notebook full of topics I was gonna write about, and I had every intention of doing this regularly. But, man (and woman) plans, and God laughs. I, rather unexpectedly and suddenly, found myself going through a divorce.
Does anybody really know what divorce is like? I've read several first-person experiences, I've heard other people's stories. But they've mostly been long after the fact. Nobody seems to want to talk about the mess while they're in the middle of it. Maybe because it feels too big, too scary, too urgent. I don't know what anyone else feels, going through divorce. But I'm gonna tell you how I feel. Maybe it'll help someone else. Maybe it'll help me; Lord knows I need some kind of help. So, this is what divorce is like, for me.
It's getting a brick thrown at your stomach when the person you've been with half your life tells you they're not in love with you anymore.
It's feeling your heart break late at night (because you can't sleep) when you realize you're not in love with them either, but you weren't willing to quit.
It's kicking yourself for not meeting with that attorney three years ago when you were willing to quit and wondering if you wasted those three years.
It's wondering if, aside from your kid, you wasted all those years.
It's being a little mad at God because, you truly believe God told you this was the one and you wonder why the hell He told you that if it was going to end like this.
It's resenting that your partner won't even try counseling because, evidently, a 20 year relationship and a kid aren't even worth trying everything to save.
It's realizing that if your partner doesn't think the marriage is worth saving, you deserve better. And it's trying not to feel guilty for thinking that, or thinking about yourself at all, especially since you've rarely thought of yourself in 20 years.
It's trying to find a job with no degree after 4 1/2 years of being a stay at home mom. And trying to find a place to live because the thought of staying in the house makes you want to scream.
It's getting excited at the thought of a new life, one in which your wants and needs and hopes and dreams matter.
It's having to explain to a four-year-old that mommy and daddy aren't going to live together anymore, and realizing kids get broken hearts too.
It's not having time to mourn the death of your marriage because you have to work and parent and meet with lawyers and generally keep living. There's no time for the emotional breakdown you deserve, so you cry in the bathroom at work or during your commute, then suck it up because life goes on, with or without you. You consider getting false eyelashes because you can't be trusted with mascara.
It's worrying about your kid because her parents are separated, she's starting school, and she's seeing mom go to work full-time, and that's a lot for a kid to deal with. And, for the first time, you're not there for her 24/7.
It's realizing that the upside to 50-50 custody is me-time, which you rarely had while married.
It's eating nothing but chocolate ice cream for weeks because the thought of real food makes you nauseous. Then hating yourself for being fat and disgusting.
It's noticing that your face cleared up and that, chocolate aside, you've lost weight and you feel beautiful.
It's having to avoid certain movies and songs because they're so strongly associated with your former partner and you just can't handle that yet. It's wondering if you can ever handle it.
It's not wanting him back because you know that eventually you'll be better off and you're just hoping you can hurry up and feel that way.
It's constantly beating down the hopeful, foolish part of you that, even now, just a little, believes that your love story is too epic to end in such a pathetic and final way.
It's trying to date, if only to wash the taste of your failed marriage out of your mouth, then realizing you haven't dated since you were 19 and you don't have a clue how it works.
It's cycling through the stages of grief regularly, because no matter how much you wish you could cut your ex out of your life, you keep having to talk to them and see them. You share a child and you know he's a good dad, so you try to make it work.
It's absolutely despising the fact that, while he has his own struggles, getting over you clearly isn't one of them. Then you really fucking hate yourself for giving so much of yourself to someone who isn't even sad you're gone, apparently.
It's being told that you're bitter, like you're not allowed to be, and that your feelings aren't valid.
It's trying to navigate the murky, uncharted waters of coparenting and friendship with this person who you once considered your one true love, and both of you fucking up from time to time and then having to fix it.
It's having to own your flaws and trying to learn from your mistakes so you can be the person, the woman, the mother, the friend, and, maybe someday, the partner you want to be.
It's wondering which of your flaws and mistakes killed your marriage, even though you know that death wasn't all your fault.
It's trying to write about divorce without bringing up your ex's flaws and mistakes, because you're committed to taking the high road, and because his issues aren't the focus of your life anymore.
It's second-guessing everything you do, because for the first time in your adult life the only person whose opinion matters is your own.
It's getting to make decisions only for the betterment of your daughter's life and your own.
It's being so lonely that you sometimes burst into tears at night by yourself. And then realizing you were that lonely before the divorce, so then you cry about what a fool you were instead.
It's realizing that you have some of the best friends and family, and that as long as you have them, you'll never have to question if you are loved or even worthy of it.
It's a whiplash inducing emotional roller coaster. 0/5, do not recommend. But, if you have to deal with it one day, know you're not alone. Know you're not crazy if you feel all these things. Know that I still have faith and hope. I know that I'll get through this one day. I know that I have too many good things to offer and too much love to give to let this destroy me. On my good days I'm OK. And on my bad days, I know I'll be OK.
People often can't talk about in the moment b/c it IS too much pain/anguish to process all at once, and describing the 'emotional whiplash' in words can't do it justice; they don't know HOW to talk about it/where to even 'begin'. ('0/5, do not recommend.' That made me chuckle for a good minute.) Takes time to settle & heal.
ReplyDeleteMine was a non-marriage separation, yet I still remember some of those same thoughts/feelings, as a man. Esp the second-guessing...and being a fool to have ignored the warning signs of 'cold feet' beforehand (dismissing it as nerves & normal reaction to a life changing decision I'd never gone through before), ignoring them & pressing on anyway, and believing it could ever be True & everlasting when all my internal instincts told me her feelings for me were real, but never True.
I can't even recall every thought/feeling that ravaged through me, but the night after I served my ex with the legal papers, I nearly died of stress in my car after finishing my work shift. My mind, heart, & body completely shut down...and I found myself at the doctor's a day later--surrounded by my parents, a lab tech, & the head physician. Apparently, my body temp dropped to 90 degrees...and the tech was testing my body for drugs, but was astonished to see that there was so much 'nothing' in body, instead, that my blood cells 'had no vital signs of life' in them for me to even be alive.
So here I am: lucky to be a single dad; lucky to be alive again...to live part of my time again (even if it is only partial custody) w/ my one true love in life: my son.