Eight years and nearly four months ago, I left my husband, my home, and my comfort zone and started over again.
It wasn't easy to do, but it was the right decision for me then and still holds as such today. It took many years to get to the point where I believed I had done all I could do and knew that I could not continue to live as I was. Telling our kids we were getting divorced and I was moving out was hard. Having the days and nights where they wanted us together or were struggling with us being apart was harder. Seeing your child cry and struggle is an arrow to your already tender heart.
As the mother, it was hard to leave my home and my family even knowing that our dissolution agreement gave us shared 50/50 custody. It bothered me that people might think that I was the one at fault. That I had done something to end my marriage. That I was the cheater. I wasn't, but no marriage fails because one person made all the mistakes. Marriages fail because people forget that it takes two people working together every day in kindness and patience with love and respect for one another to get through. The reality is that life itself is tough without having two people with all their personal baggage try to make a go of it without ever unpacking and divesting themselves of the hurt, pain, unmet expectations, rejection or whatever else they came into the marriage.
Yesterday was the eighth year since our divorce was final. We stood in front of a magistrate to legally unbind us from one another, but we're forever bound by our children. Few people talk about that part which has challenges and beauty all its own. In the first years after the divorce, there was such weight to this date. This time of year. It was seven years and week before that date that I was pregnant with our babygirl and got a call from the woman he was having an affair with to tell me how he'd left a dozen white roses in her mailbox as he headed to NY to hunt with his father. Who knew already how many deer he'd gotten. A woman who knew my husband in ways only I should...but that, too, is now just a date that passes without a disruption in my life. Another old wound that is healed, though still scarred. A lot of healing has happened in these eight years. For all of us.
I spent my day yesterday with my babygirl. She is fourteen now. We watched TV and some movies, I made lunch, we even had hot tea and cocoa in the afternoon before she talked me into taking her shopping on Black Friday which I loathe. Lately, she has wanted to spend more time with me and more time one-on-one with me. It's a strange, happy thing since in the years leading up to this, she was always with friends and doing things. Much too busy for time with mama. As our time with me as the mama of a non-adult child draws near for both she and her brother who is two years closer to that time than she is (he will actually be seventeen in January), I cherish these moments all the more.
In the eight years since I chose to stop living as the wife of a liar and cheater, I have learned much. I have learned to forgive their father for his shortcomings and see him for his whole self again. He is an invested, caring, loving father to our kids and while we've raised them from different homes, we have raised them together. Our firstborn son is twenty-two now and nearing his four year anniversary in the USAF. He is back in the US for the first time since he finished his training schools. When he was born twenty-two years ago, I was twenty-two and serving in the military. It's funny to see things come full circle. Our two kids at home are always on the merit and honor roll, but more important that their good academics are their kind and caring hearts. I am so proud to be their mother and see how each of them has fared after we divorced. As a child of divorce myself, I have to say the thing that has made all the difference has been that their dad and I not only have a good relationship and don't use the kids or anything else to hurt each other and we're both present physically, emotionally, and mentally to our children.
Time doesn't heal the wounds on its own. It takes work. It takes self-reflection. It takes forgiveness and grace. But in time, a new perspective is born, old wounds have had time to heal, the scars are still there, but not screaming red and irritated any longer. Life anew grows in the ash heap of the old things. Time, instead, becomes the way in which new perspectives, new loves, new ways all take shape and form. It is the thing that passes as we take each new step into living presently.
It wasn't easy to do, but it was the right decision for me then and still holds as such today. It took many years to get to the point where I believed I had done all I could do and knew that I could not continue to live as I was. Telling our kids we were getting divorced and I was moving out was hard. Having the days and nights where they wanted us together or were struggling with us being apart was harder. Seeing your child cry and struggle is an arrow to your already tender heart.
As the mother, it was hard to leave my home and my family even knowing that our dissolution agreement gave us shared 50/50 custody. It bothered me that people might think that I was the one at fault. That I had done something to end my marriage. That I was the cheater. I wasn't, but no marriage fails because one person made all the mistakes. Marriages fail because people forget that it takes two people working together every day in kindness and patience with love and respect for one another to get through. The reality is that life itself is tough without having two people with all their personal baggage try to make a go of it without ever unpacking and divesting themselves of the hurt, pain, unmet expectations, rejection or whatever else they came into the marriage.
Yesterday was the eighth year since our divorce was final. We stood in front of a magistrate to legally unbind us from one another, but we're forever bound by our children. Few people talk about that part which has challenges and beauty all its own. In the first years after the divorce, there was such weight to this date. This time of year. It was seven years and week before that date that I was pregnant with our babygirl and got a call from the woman he was having an affair with to tell me how he'd left a dozen white roses in her mailbox as he headed to NY to hunt with his father. Who knew already how many deer he'd gotten. A woman who knew my husband in ways only I should...but that, too, is now just a date that passes without a disruption in my life. Another old wound that is healed, though still scarred. A lot of healing has happened in these eight years. For all of us.
I spent my day yesterday with my babygirl. She is fourteen now. We watched TV and some movies, I made lunch, we even had hot tea and cocoa in the afternoon before she talked me into taking her shopping on Black Friday which I loathe. Lately, she has wanted to spend more time with me and more time one-on-one with me. It's a strange, happy thing since in the years leading up to this, she was always with friends and doing things. Much too busy for time with mama. As our time with me as the mama of a non-adult child draws near for both she and her brother who is two years closer to that time than she is (he will actually be seventeen in January), I cherish these moments all the more.
In the eight years since I chose to stop living as the wife of a liar and cheater, I have learned much. I have learned to forgive their father for his shortcomings and see him for his whole self again. He is an invested, caring, loving father to our kids and while we've raised them from different homes, we have raised them together. Our firstborn son is twenty-two now and nearing his four year anniversary in the USAF. He is back in the US for the first time since he finished his training schools. When he was born twenty-two years ago, I was twenty-two and serving in the military. It's funny to see things come full circle. Our two kids at home are always on the merit and honor roll, but more important that their good academics are their kind and caring hearts. I am so proud to be their mother and see how each of them has fared after we divorced. As a child of divorce myself, I have to say the thing that has made all the difference has been that their dad and I not only have a good relationship and don't use the kids or anything else to hurt each other and we're both present physically, emotionally, and mentally to our children.
Time doesn't heal the wounds on its own. It takes work. It takes self-reflection. It takes forgiveness and grace. But in time, a new perspective is born, old wounds have had time to heal, the scars are still there, but not screaming red and irritated any longer. Life anew grows in the ash heap of the old things. Time, instead, becomes the way in which new perspectives, new loves, new ways all take shape and form. It is the thing that passes as we take each new step into living presently.
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