Category Archives: divorce

finding my voice

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Last night, I had a dream that I was in labor with Lucy, and Dave had disappeared and nobody could find him. So I left the hospital – while still in labor – to go look for him.

Yeah. I hardly need Freud to show up and interpret that one for me.

I struggle a lot with how to maintain a balance online, trying to figure out what’s an appropriate amount of my life that I can share. This blog isn’t anonymous, and I try to be careful not to hurt anyone among my family or real-life friends who may read it. I also try to be careful when I think about what my kids might read someday. My usual rule is that if it affects more people than just myself, I don’t talk about it.

Last week, in a state of panic, I talked about a lot more online than I usually would have. And I got a hell of a lot of push-back for it. I was accused of airing my dirty laundry in public, showing a shocking lack of judgment, etc. An anonymous Twitter account was created to accuse me of “setting the stage” for the events that happened (which, if you think that anything that happened last week was fun for me? You’d be sadly mistaken). The account was later deleted – I’m guessing that the person knows me somehow, but I can’t fathom a guess as to who it was. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

The fact is, right now this divorce is an integral part of my life, and that’s probably what a lot of my blog posts are going to be about for a while. I have no intention of dragging Dave’s name through the mud. Yes, I’m hurt and I’m angry, but I know I’m not perfect either.

But I need to be able to talk about some of these things, because as Aunt Becky would say, I cannot live a [redacted] life.

I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness to admit that I could use some support from my online friends. But in order to get that support, I need to be able to talk openly about what’s been happening.

I might password-protect a few posts. I don’t know. I haven’t decided how I’m going to handle this. I’ll figure it out as I go, I guess. Just like the rest of my life.

two months later

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Dave moved out two months ago.

Overall, I think I’m doing ok. I get through my days. I’m doing a pretty good job at work, apparently. My manager is pleased with what I’m doing. And I’m lucky that I love my job enough that I can sort of immerse myself in various projects and forget about everything in my “real life” for hours at a time. That helps a lot.

But Lucy still isn’t sleeping, so I’m tired a lot. And I worry about Catie. I’m so glad my mom is here, because it keeps me from feeling lonely. We watch TV together, plan meals together, that kind of thing. It’s nice.

So, you know, I feel like I’m getting by ok.

And then, suddenly, I’ll be hit with this wave of sadness so hard that it feels like I’m drowning in it. The other night it hit me because I caught myself starting to fiddle with my wedding ring, only to realize it isn’t there anymore. (I do that a lot. I never realized how often I touched it every day until I stopped wearing it.) (I took it off the day after he moved out. I know some people take a long time before they can take off their wedding rings. I… needed to not look at it anymore, if that makes sense.)

I don’t want him back. Really, I don’t. The past several months have been so awful, there’s no way I would voluntarily go back to that. I don’t like roller coasters – literal or emotional – and now that he’s gone, things feel calmer. More steady. And that’s what I need right now, both for myself and for my girls.

And I’m realizing all kinds of things about myself now that I never realized. Like the fact that I bottled up so many things for years, because I hated the idea of conflict, and I never wanted to fight. Now it’s all sort of exploding out of me. I don’t think I could go back to bottling it up again if I tried. I’m feeling sort of like the Pandora’s box of emotions, to use a really bad analogy.

But even though I don’t want him back, sometimes I still miss him. We had these inside jokes, as you do when you live with someone for over six years. We made each other laugh a lot. I miss that. I miss the connection.

And yet… Sometimes I can envision what my life is going to be like in the future. And it’s not the future I had in mind at all, but I see myself with my girls, and I see us in our own little house, doing our own thing. Going on outings and vacations together, just the three of us. And I know we’re going to be ok. I really do know that.

But man, transitions really do suck.

Listed

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house for sale

There’s a decorative, non-seasonal wreath on my front door, and a purple mum in the ceramic planter on the front step. Curb appeal, you know.

Our realtor said she wanted me to paint the front door, but I told her that was more than I could handle right now. I figure the wreath shows that I at least made an effort.

kitchen

The kitchen is cleaner than it’s been since we moved in.

All of the kids’ toys have been moved out of the living room and family room, and we’ve turned the bonus room upstairs (previously Dave’s office) into a giant playroom.

family room

living room

It’s done.

And now, we wait to see if somebody comes along who falls in love with this house as much as I did two years ago.

(And I am not telling them about the Bad Divorce Juju happening in this house, because, well, I’m pretty sure that doesn’t fall within disclosure requirements.)

Now I can go back to focusing on these two.

My Catie-bug
My sweet Catie-bug. She keeps having nightmares and waking up at 3 a.m. This transition is so hard on her, and I do my best to reassure her, but it’s not enough. I don’t know what to do for her, except to keep telling her that we’re going to be ok.

Captain bib-face.
Lucy is (thankfully) oblivious to all changes to her environment, so that makes life easier. Now I just need her to sleep through the damn night already.

Next on my to-do list: find a statue of Saint Joseph and bury him in the yard. I’ll take all the help I can get.

treading water

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Last week, a friend told me that I seem to be handling all of my recent life events in an unusually calm manner.

I laughed. I told her that she should take a look inside my head sometime. Apparently I’m pretty good at faking like I’m ok when I’m an absolute mess on the inside.

The truth is, I’m completely overwhelmed. I’m trying to juggle two kids, a full-time job, as well as the process of selling our house, all by myself. It would be panic-inducing on its own. Top it off with the fact that Lucy currently wakes up at least two times per night? The exhaustion factor means that I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m about to lose it.

Oh, and there’s the whole post-partum depression thing too. Let’s not even get into that. The timing of all of this could be a lot better.

I spend a lot of time wishing that I could crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there for at least a couple of weeks.

For better or worse, these two seem to make that impossible.

Catie (& alligator) snuggle on Lucy.

Freaking kids, man. They have all these needs.

So, yeah, I’m functioning because I don’t really have any other choice. Falling apart isn’t an option right now.

I’m incredibly grateful for all of the people who check in on me to see how I’m doing. Honestly, I’m so, so thankful for my support system.

Speaking of my support system, my brother came up this past weekend to help me rearrange furniture and start getting the house organized. We also hung out and watched movies, and he bonded with his new niece.

Lucy loves snuggling with her Uncle Chris

That was really nice, I needed that break.

And more of my support system is still on its way. Greis is coming for a visit this weekend. Her trip was planned months ago, and was supposed to be a fun girls’ weekend. Now it’s turned into a “hey, come stay at my house and hold my baby while I pack boxes” sort of visit. Which sucks, but I have a feeling we’ll still manage to sneak in at least one margarita at some point during the weekend.

Next week, my mom is coming up. She’s driving up rather than flying, so she can stay for an indefinite amount of time. She’s basically moving in for at least a couple of months, to help me get everything sorted out. I can’t begin to describe how grateful I am for that. My mom is my anchor, and I really need her right now.

So, I know I’m going to be ok, mainly because so many people around me are there to catch me if I fall. It’s a comforting thought, and it’s what’s keeping me afloat right now.

moving on (in so many ways)

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I cannot even begin to thank y’all for all of the kind and supportive words on that last post. So many people also reached out on Facebook, Twitter, etc., and I’m just overwhelmed. This whole situation is so awful, but I also feel so blessed to have such an amazing support system around me, both online and in real-life.

Yesterday, I met with our realtor. We’re going to be listing our house on the market soon. I can’t afford the mortgage by myself, and it’s too big for just me and the girls. I feel the need to downsize and simplify our lives as much as possible. I think I want to rent a house for a while. I like the idea that if something breaks, someone else has to pay for it and fix it.

It’s sad because this place was my dream house, but now I’ll forever think of it as the house where my marriage fell apart.

The weird part? We bought this house from a couple that was divorcing. You know that horror movie cliche where the haunted house turns out to be built on top of an ancient Indian burial ground? I think this house was built on top of the graves of a really bitter and angry married couple. I even burned sage when we moved in, to get rid of any bad juju lingering around. Fat lot of good that did me.

Overall, I think I’m coping ok. Like I said, I have a pretty fantastic support system around me, and I’m so, so grateful for that.

But if you don’t hear from me much over the next few weeks, it’s probably because I’m going to be frantically de-cluttering and reorganizing this entire house to get it in “showable” condition. That should be… fun?

I’ll also be spending as much time as I possibly can hugging these faces.

Hard to get mad at these faces when they wake me up on Saturday morning.

Mostly successful, only slightly uneven bang trim. Yay, I'm improving!

You sure can't tell that she's sick.

Can’t really blame me for that one. They’re pretty darn huggable.

life, right now

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Dave moved out last week.

Today, I’m meeting with a divorce attorney for the first time.

My heart is broken.

I don’t usually blog about the bad stuff when it happens. Mainly because so many people in my family read this site, but also because I worry about my girls growing up and reading this stuff someday. I worry about what they’ll think of it.

And oh God, y’all. My girls. My heart hurts more for them than it does for myself. I feel like I failed them. My parents have been married for over 40 years, it never even occurred to me when I got married that it might not last forever. That just wasn’t an option in my mind.

I don’t want to get into details or place blame. A lot of things went wrong. And they’ve been going wrong for a while. I don’t want this, but the decision isn’t entirely up to me.

This is, without a doubt, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Please keep us in your thoughts, as I imagine that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.