Restored

In the months leading up to the dissolution of my marriage, a lot had changed for me. My financial situation was tight. But really, that was the hardest part of the adjustment. Mike would always tell me that I shouldn't worry about money. After all, I don't get to take my things with me when I die, right? But I might die sooner if I can't buy food. In reality, it was never all THAT bad. We just had to get creative. 

Mike and I moved in together in June. Finally getting to live with him... Wake up with him everyday, go to bed next to him every night... It felt like we had just started dating again! But all the happiness he gave me and filled my heart with couldn't quite mask the darkness I felt the day that I left that courthouse no longer married.

Don't get me wrong. The feelings I had that day had nothing to do with Justin himself. I had put everything I had into my marriage. I stayed when most people would have dug a husband and mistress sized hole in the woods. He repaid me by blaming me for his actions and doing it again. And again. And again. I put blood, sweat and tears into making this doomed marriage work. Leaving the courthouse that October day made me feel like a failure. If I couldn't make that work, what business do I have in a relationship at all? I had enough issues with self worth, but that day was probably the height of my doubts. My failures were now a stack of papers with an official stamp.

I got to my car. Sat down behind the wheel. Rested my hands on my 20+ Week pregnant belly, and I just let it all take over. I ran over every mistake I ever made that led me to that day. I never felt regret, but I felt a lot of sadness. The tears that fell were for the broken home my children now had to endure. I was scared that as they grow up, they would feel like they were to blame. I cried at the realization that nothing is a sure thing. I wouldn't matter how much I love Mike and how much I did to show him that everyday, if he wanted to leave, he can. I don't have the power to make it work on my own. I'm actually NOT in control. 

That's when it hit me.

I don't need to be in control.

Mike was guarding my heart so fiercely, I didn't realize that I didn't need to be worried. No, I couldn't make it work on my own. But I didn't need to. I actually have someone in my life who was putting in just as much work as I was. He makes sure I know every single day how much he loves me. When I am down, he never dismisses me. He surrounds me with his unbreakable love until he lifts me out of the darkness. It was a two way street. What a revelation!! There are TWO people in a real relationship. TWO people who can put in their all. 

TWO people. Not one. Not three. Just two. 

Knowing that Mike actually needed me and wanted me was a hard concept for me. He had his work cut out for him to break my bad habits of keeping everything to myself. I never wanted to rock the boat so I kept my mouth shut about many things. He saw it. He hated it. He would work over time to drag things out of me so we could address any possible issues. It wasn't fair for him, really. I was getting this amazingly loving, considerate, beautiful man to share my life with. He was getting a broken, beaten down shell of a woman who had no idea how a functional relationship was supposed to work. What a raw deal for him.

The task of putting me back together did not scare him. He took pride in rebuilding my heart from the bottom up. He found ways to repair parts of me that I thought were long gone. But the most valuable thing he has done... He is showing my children how a man is supposed to treat a woman. He has shown them what a loving relationship looks like. He has restored happiness in their mothers heart.

Beginning of the End

Divorce. 

I used to believe that I could "fake it til I make it". That I would never get a divorce because I could just tolerate and endure all the bullshit for the sake of my kids. Looking back now, I just can't believe how blind I was. How did I not see how much more it hurt my children for me to stay than it did when I finally left him? 

Let me be clear in saying that while my relationship with Justin was turbulent, it was never physically abusive. There's not much I can say for the guy, but that's one thing I can. He never got violent with me nor the kids. So yay for small victories, right??

I remember the night I finally decided I would leave the house though. At one point, we had discussed that we would just stay in the house until the school year was done for the kids. Make things "easy" right? Ha! It was the end of January and he had been on duty but for some reason that I can't currently recall, he decided to come home for something. I think we had been arguing via text over me still seeing Mike. The obviously progressed and he decided we needed to do that face to face. Naturally, it resulted in a screaming match and I made him leave. I looked down the hall to see my then 6 and 4 year olds cuddle up on the couch together crying. (Insert knife to heart) That was when it hit me how toxic this all was for them. The back and forth. The arguing. All of it. I needed to call it what it was.

Over.

The next day, I gathered a few of my things and got a hotel. Justin was on leave for a while since coming off of deployment so I decided to allow him to spend that time with the kids. I didn't officially file for divorce until April, but there was still plenty of fighting in between that time. 

I started staying with a friend who lived down the street to make it easier for school for the kids. Well, I was under the impression she was a friend, but I should have known better. That turned sour very quickly. It may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that she and her husband were still friends with my soon to be ex husband. Everyone knows that you can't both keep the same friends in a divorce. 

But I'll never really know what happened. She took the cowards way out and had her husband tell me I had to move out. He came to my work to tell me the same day I had taken Mike to the airport to fly back home for his Nannys funeral. So, I had to pack all my things and move out all by myself. Well, my brother came the day I actually moved my things and helped me load a few of the big things :) In the six days it took me to do all that, she his in her room and avoided seeing me at all costs. We might have been able to salvage a friendship if she had at least had the balls for face me and explain to me why they needed me to move out so quickly. But hey, at least they gave me back the rent money I had already paid them so I could at least afford to move out. 

It was tough. Not just like a lot of work. But it was emotionally taxing. I was a single mother who now had to move (again) with not much help. I ultimately had to move to my parents house. I was working part time and getting some financial support from Justin, but it still was not enough to be able to afford adequate housing for my kids. Probably not even enough for a studio apartment. Moving back with my parents was good and bad, as one could imagine. It had it's ups and downs, but I will always be so grateful that it was even an option for me and that my parents were willing to help. I think they were just happy that I was ending my marriage as well. 

There were a lot of people who had a lot to say about the demise of my marriage. Of course most people were very happy for me and were very quick to tell me how much better off I was, even though it didn't always feel like it. My financial security was just taken from me. I'm confident that was the main reason I stayed as long as I did. I was a stay at home mom for so long. I no longer had any marketable skills. Finding a real job (not at a climbing gym...) and child care... Those were all things I didn't have to address while I was married and miserable. 

No one tells you how to put your life back together. No one tells you that eating pasta every night for dinner should be considered a blessing. No one tells you that your kids will have to adjust to not being able to go to the store and get a snack just because or that our weekly trips to get FroYo are out of the question. 

There was so much change in such a small amount of time. I knew that if it was hard for me to wrap my mind around it all that it MUST be difficult for the kids. But as the days went on I began to realize that they were taking it all better than I was. They still got to see their Dad on weekends. I found ways to have fun with them that didn't cost money. I protected them from as much of the ugliness as I could. They really are resilient to the motions of divorce. 

As happy as most of our days were, there were plenty of days in which I wondered if I made the right choice. I'm not sure of the exact day that it finally resonated with me that I really did what was best for me and my kids, even though it meant a whole new lifestyle for us, but I know that I am raising some amazing children who have helped me more than they realize. I was ready for our divorce to be finalized so I could close that chapter. I wasn't prepared for how I would feel once that day actually came.

What I Really Meant To Say...

The state of our relationship, if you could really call it that at this point, was very fragile. He was still going through the emotional roller coaster and she was still tormenting him. By that, I mean she would call him and lay on the guilt, call him names, tell him how awful he was. He just took it. He told me once that he thought he owed that to her. That if she needed to say those things to get through what he had done, that he owed it to her to let her. From what I understood of their marriage, that wasn't a new thing for her. She was simply a mean spirited person who would use words to hurt him just because she could. While I will agree that what we had done to her was not exactly nice, I feel like she wasn't taking any responsibility either. I know that Mike disagrees with me on that, but I have been the person who was cheated on as well. I understand that my actions as a wife, played a role in pushing my husband away, to a certain extent. Again, Mike disagrees with that. But I digress.

Everyday he would take these verbal beating from her. I encouraged him to just tell her that if she had nothing to say regarding their son, that there was nothing for them to talk about. Eventually, he took that advice. For a while there, he looked like Eeyore to me. Always with the dark cloud hovering over him. So I did my best to keep him distracted and keep him busy. We would go climbing, hiking, or even just out to lunch at our little spot at Liberty Station. But there was one huge difference.

I wasn't allowed to see Justin.

That didn't last too long, but longer than I wanted. I love that kid and it killed me that all of a sudden I wasn't allowed to see him anymore. That was the one thing he let her control for a little while. But again, not for long.

During this transitional period, I knew Mike was being torn to bits. He knew what he wanted, but he hated that he had to hurt his ex wife to have it. It was inevitable, but that doesn't make it any easier. My ex husband tried his own things to try to get me to come back or to reconsider leaving. But I wasn't torn. With or without Mike being in my life, I was gone. Knowing how much turmoil Mike was feeling left me in a precarious position. He was always wanting me to tell him how I was feeling or what I was thinking, but I knew it wasn't good for him to hear it. He needed to sort out his own feelings before really considering mine. However, I needed to get my feelings out there too. I was frustrated and angry and hurt by a lot of the back and forth as well, but he didn't need to know that. Not yet. I wasn't going to act like his ex wife and make him feel guilty for not feeling how I wanted him to feel. So, I went to my go to stress relief... Writing.

I started journaling on February 19, 2012. I kept a little journal that I wrote everything down in, knowing that one day I would let him read it. I felt wrong keeping my feelings from him, but I told him that I was writing it all down and once I knew he was in a better place, Id allow him to read it all and then there would be no doubts. Looking back on that journal now, I can see that I went through waves of bliss and agony. Some days were better than others and the pages tell the story of us come back to one another. It's beautiful. Here is an excerpt from 2/26/12:

"I just need to be enough. I was never enough for Justin, and I feel like I am not enough for you at the moment. Nothing you are doing outwardly is making me feel that way... It's just this idea of the reasons behind why you want to go to Bishop. I know it will be good for you. I want you to have that clarity. But selfishly, I wish I had a way of knowing that my heart won't be devastated in the aftermath.""... it just feels like all roads lead to heartache anymore. Its just crushing, the weight of all the things I am insecure about." 

It was right after that trip to Bishop that I got to see Justin again because he did gain that clarity he was looking for. From that point, I knew where I stood, and it felt amazing. I knew I was his, and he was mine. That's something he still reminds me of, every single day.

But that didn't mean that troubled days with the exes were behind us. We still had to officially file for divorce.