Not As Easy As It Looks – 15/6/11

I gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience
in which I must stop and look fear in the face...
I say to myself, I've lived through this
and can take the next thing that comes along...
We must do the things that we think we cannot do.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

So this whole divorce thing is not as easy as it seems. I am doing brilliantly, my smile is genuine, my happiness is real but so is this pit that fills up in my stomach every time I talk about things being so final. I know that this is the right thing given the circumstances and the way things have played out, but it is so damn hard. This whole situation is a shit show and I have been made to be an active participant. I don't want to be part of it, my heart hurts.

I have looked back on how we got here. If I recap the last 7.5 years of our lives together, we have seen one of our children suffer a serious illness, 2 others suffer chronic illnesses, the deaths of 4 family members, a struggle and fight to get a dream job, financial difficulties, work related stress, major family issues, my health issues and a dream home that began falling apart within days of us moving in despite being just built. That is the bad stress, add to that the birth of 4 beautiful little boys, life altering achievements and dreams and you can maybe see that we carried quite a load. I never thought my ex would let the stress destroy us though.

I am angry and bitter that we had the strength to make it through all that and then all it took was a couple of overly friendly dispatchers and a skanky neighbor to tear it apart. I am angry that my ex found comfort and pretentious understanding in his current girlfriend so many months ago instead of in his wife who he did not care to consider was suffering through the same shit he was. I am pissed off that these young girls who have no responsibility or struggled through this loss were seen as a better option because they did not have the above mentioned struggles and could dote 100% on stroking my ex's ego. I am angry that my neighbor unravelled any progress we had made in our counselling sessions.

Above and beyond anything, I  am so mad that my ex made the choice to say fuck everything we have made it through, I am more important than my family. I am angry that my ex did not see that I was fighting tooth and nail to keep my head above water too, that my heart was broken just as much as his was. I am angry that we neglected each other and pushed away when we should have pulled together. I am mad that we forgot why we got married and why we were best friends.

This whole situation was probably not preventable given the way life unfolded for us.  The manner in which my ex decided to get out was less than admiral. He could have chosen a more grown up manner to leave the marriage. Even though this whole situation lies soley on my exs shoulders because of the choices he made, I cannot hate him because I know how we got here. I am so mad that we were given so much shit to handle and then expected to make it through unscathed. Something had to give and unfortunately it was us. There was a weak spot and it broke.

FInalizing the divorce is the end to one of the most courageous fights I have ever been in. It is hard to accept that my wing man, my comrade, the man I loved through the struggles just gave up and walked away without a second thought and now it is over.

I refuse to lay down and give up. I will fight for my new life and for the happiness  and success that fills me. I will keep the piece of me that still feels our marriage was worth more than this ending quiet because it only hurts me more if I let it out. I will take whatever life hands me and rise above each time. My trip to the ocean to see a good friend could not have arrived at a better time. I need some tranquility, time to reflect on how far I have come and how looking back is pointless.