Sunday Newscape Magazine

Today it has been three months since my soon to be ex filed for a divorce. Where I live, we should technically be divorced today - three months, 90 days. How odd to think that one can end a 19 year relationship in just 90 days. Of course, we still have financial issues that need to be resolved, so I don’t think that we will be divorced today. I honestly have no idea how that works.

I do know that it has been almost five months exactly since my ex left me. Five months since my whole world has been turned upside down and the life that I previously knew ceased to exist.

There are a lot of emotions that are barreling through my sense of being right now. Although we may not be technically divorced today (how odd to think that yesterday I was married, but today, not so), I have been divorced from the ex since he left me. Since the day we stood in what was once our bedroom, and he told me he no longer loved me, nor was he happy, I divorced myself from him that day. The second he stood in the middle of everything that was wrong with our marriage and blamed me for not fixing it, I became a divorced woman.

As I said, I have a lot of emotions about my divorce, and even though my ex left me, I feel I carry the weight of the burden for its failure. I am angry, of course. I feel sad, guilty, bitter, scared, and a whole other plethora of emotions that I can’t even begin to name.

Oh, but I am angry. I am angry at all that I lost. I’m not talking just financial security. I lost the right to stay at home and raise my kids. I lost the ability to meet their needs in a way I haven’t been able to since the ex bolted. Vanished from me are the children I once knew – secure and happy. Now they are replaced with children who say, “Mommy, you’ll never leave, right?” I am angry that my children even have that fear instilled in them: the one where people you love leave you if they aren’t happy. Because that is the life they know now.

I feel sad too. Sad that I couldn’t make 15 years of marriage last. I play it over and over in my mind, wondering what I could have done differently. But he wanted me to change into something I wasn’t – or to change back to someone I used to be. He never changed, but when I did, instead of appreciating the growth, he resented it. It threatened his way of life. I’m sad I couldn’t make him understand that soon, it would have been better. Now it is too late; I could never go back to someone who hurt me in such a devastating way. The betrayal alone still makes me catch my breath.

The guilt I feel is ironic. I’m not the one who caused the failure of my marriage, but I am the one who feels the most responsible for it, apparently. I still cry for what was lost – not for the man, but for the union. I cry for the broken vows, and I feel guilty for promises broken, even though I’m not the one who broke them. The guilt I have over being a statistic – I’m a “broken” home, and it tears me up. I watch TV or movies and see all the families, and I feel guilty because I’m a single mom now. I couldn’t give my girls a family - I couldn’t keep my family together. They say the man is the head of the household but the woman is the neck. I guess my ex thought the neck became too weak to hold him up any longer.

And the bitterness. Yes, there is bitterness. I’m working on getting over the bitterness, but it’s hard to when it was so easy for him to move right on…and with one of my ex-friends. There is great bitterness in that betrayal. I get the experience of knowing the ex is playing house with my girls and his girlfriend every weekend. Yes I’m bitter about “the other woman” but not out of jealousy. I’m bitter that she pushed me down, and is now trying to stand in my place – a place I once cherished and honored: that of wife and mother. I’m a little bitter that she is trying to replace me. Someone needs to send her a note though; the real mother can never be replaced.

I still get very scared. My future is so uncertain that fear takes up residence in my being constantly. I’m going to be scared for a very long time, I think. Accepting it does not help dissipate it either. That whole “You have nothing to fear but fear itself” is garbage. I have things to fear. Big, real things, like the mortgage, food, gas, work, and now, it’s Christmas. Yes, I’m scared of Christmas. I won’t have money to purchase my girls Christmas presents. How am I going to do that? I don’t know. Fear of the unknown…my whole future is unknown; therefore, I fear it.

I don’t feel very strong, despite reassurances that I am developing great strength during this time. I feel like hiding, in all honesty. I feel like burying myself in someone’s arms and letting it all melt away. I need that in fact. Someone to hold me up for a while, until I can get my bearings. That’s what friends are for, and I’ve got some great ones. I’ve been blessed in that area. It’s amazing how lonely one can feel though, even though she is not alone.

So it’s been five months since I was betrayed, left, and broken. Not shattered, just broken. Today, I should be getting divorced. And technically since it only takes three months to get divorced, I shall continue to consider myself divorced. I’m not separated - the split is final. All that’s missing are two signatures on a piece of paper. And that will come soon enough.