Divorce

I took a writing class once, and in that class someone said, “ you can’t write about something while you are living it.” I don’t believe that is true. I do some of my best writing in the middle of life situations. During my divorce I journaled a lot. Mostly to get my emotions out so I could function day to day, or so I could fall asleep and not spend the night replaying everything. Yet, I didn’t feel like I could write to share with anyone at that point.

My marriage ended for many reasons, the most impactful reason was that I had become involved with someone else. We spent about a year and a half “working” on our marriage trying to keep it together. We attended marriage counseling, but my then-husband was so angry and hurt that we couldn’t talk about anything that had caused us to get to the point we were at. So we just kept going through the motions, which I felt, got us into the situation in the first place. Fake-it-til-you-make-it doesn’t always create happiness. One thing I know for sure is when it’s time to let go, it’s time to let go, because if you don’t let go you’ll end up even more hurt and distressed.

We had moved back to Utah from Texas, and decided to live separately while trying to “date” each other, hoping it would help us resolve things, and actually talk. We went on a date and the whole night barely said more than “how’s your dinner”. As I was dropping him off, I knew that was the last day we’d spend together as husband and wife. I told him I was going to file for divorce, and expectedly, he was incredibly hurt. As he slammed the door and walked away, I drove away in tears.

One stoplight away, I took a deep breath, and knew I had made the right decision for both of us. Even though in the moment it felt awful, we didn’t get married planning to get divorced. We’d had ups and downs but alway pulled through somehow. However, with this, there was no turning back, deep in my soul I knew we didn’t need to. We needed to move on so we could both get over the hurt we had caused.

The first few months apart was so difficult. I had trouble sleeping, eating, and even talking. I didn’t know how to feel. I felt boundless, and devastated at the same time. Not only was I losing my husband, and friend, but an entire family. I lost my 50 year plan for the future. At the time it felt that my dreams of a family, a home, and so much more were extinguished with the decision to divorce.

For years I had flashbacks of the moment things fell apart. Flashbacks of the fights, the tears, the pain. My breath would freeze, and cement my heart in my chest. It was a pain I never knew existed. Yes, I was the one who chose divorce, but it still hurt. I hated knowing I had broken someone’s heart who I promised to love. But, deep in my heart I knew I gave it my all every day I was a wife, until it fell apart.

One of the most important things I learned is not to deny myself. I learned that holding back and stifling my feelings to keep things normal for someone else is not the way to go. I learned that even if someone isn’t receptive to hearing me, I still need to speak the truth, and always love myself enough to let my feelings be known. It might hurt in that moment, but it will make all the difference in how a relationship develops or ends.

In the months, and years after, I tried to find some sort of normal. Life kept moving, so I felt I need to do the same. Nobody around me had been divorced, so everyone’s advice was to keep going. Some days I wished I could have not. I wished I could have disappeared into a cave somewhere to sit with myself and God. To work through my thoughts and emotions in whatever way my heart needed. Most days I’d put a smile on my face and pretend to be ok. I wanted to move on from the constantly repeating memories. I wanted to move on from the grief. From the feeling of overwhelming loss. But I didn’t know at the time that I needed to find myself to be able to move on.

It took years to get to a point where I felt I had caught up to myself. The part of me that wanted to work through my feelings so I could let go, had finally caught up to the me who was trying to bury it all. I finally took time, and gave myself permission to actually work through what was going on in my heart and head. I was finally choosing to take care of myself. I found a meditation class one night, and I decided then, that I was going to stop being someone else’s idea of who I should be. That I was going to be ok with whatever I felt inside and I wasn’t going to continue to hide my feelings.

That meditation class was the best thing for me. I went for just over a year. I was able to learn to see so much deeper into myself, past the emotion and repetitive thoughts, to a place that needed to be healed. Divorce no longer defined me, it is only a piece of my story.

Going through divorce taught me to expect the unexpected. One thing I’ve always said, but believe even more now, is to expect the best and prepare for the worst. We never know what life is going to throw our way. We can, however, always control how we react to it and grow from the lessons it teaches us.

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