Originally written July 7, 2018 - After two long painful years, I am almost divorced. I have kept a lot of feelings bottled up and now it it time for me to start writing, again.
I started a new job this week. One I am extremely grateful to have, that I have worked hard to get, and that with a lot of help from "my circle" I got.
It was hard to leave my other job, I truly loved the people I worked with and my boss became my friend and I will miss working with my little group of GAL's, attorneys and social workers.
I have felt this adjustment in my life. I thought it was because I am giving up my flexibility, I now work 8-5 Monday-Friday and that has been the hardest adjustment from switching jobs. I am actually doing the same job just back in my county as a county employee instead of a private contractor. I traded my flexibility for benefits and retirement.
But when I was really thinking about this new adjustment it hit me that I am just covering up the elephant in the room - the biggest life adjustment I have ever made - deciding to get a divorce. I have volumes of things to write but I feel that I am coming out of this horrible "dark place" I can see the light and I am going to be okay!
I have had to trade in empty dreams and broken promises that were never going to come true. I have had to dig deep and find out what I am made of over and over again. I have had to go back, start my life all over and now at almost 50 I am beginning to set my own course, make my own decisions, and live my best life.
For the past 30 years I have lived my life for others. Putting my dreams on hold while I followed my husband around in the military, raising a family, and being a wife and mother, I think I got lost in there somewhere and I have had to find out who I am and what I want. I am not saying that the last 30 years were a mistake, I loved being a mom, I loved being at home with my kids, I planned on being home and available for my grand kids. Again, an adjustment, not an easy one.
But when I found out that the person I have been married to for almost 31 years now, we are still not divorced, has been cheating on me off and on for those 30 years, it has made me really think about the lie I had been living. The false hope of the happy family, the lost dreams of enjoying time together with, who I thought was my best friend, it is an adjustment.
When I found out that Scott was telling my children, about 2 years before he told me, how miserable he was, how "mean" I was and how unhappy he was and that he was going to get a divorce, it was an adjustment. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around that manipulation of our children and the depth of betrayal to me that was done. He was slowly grooming them to take his side, to gain their sympathy, to look like the innocent victim, and to go against their own mother. I almost get physically ill thinking about that. He was so good at manipulation that when he told the kids he hired hookers they felt he was justified. They believed every huge lie, laced with a little bit of truth, he fed them. He set out to destroy me so that his misdeeds would go unnoticed. It changed my relationship with my children, and that was an adjustment.
I have finally started to see the light at the end of this dark tunnel, I am stronger than I ever though possible. I have survived daily panic attacks, worked my way through school, almost there, and landed the job I set my sights on several years ago. All that while fighting for my what has felt like my life.
I have felt loved and guided along the way. I have "my circle" of close friends that take me on my good and bad days, probably more bad days. I have relied on them and they have been there for me every step of the way. I have old friends that check in on my to make sure I am ok and to let me know they are thinking of me. I have new friends that challenge who I am and make me think differently. I have one friend that is so brutally honest with me, that keeps it real for me at all times.
I have lost friends, I have lost an entire side of my family...people I dearly loved that haven't even bothered to see how I am doing. They bought the whole innocent victim story from the master manipulator. That has been an adjustment.
I don't fit with the married crowd and I don't fit with the singles crowd, I am in no man's land. I have been in this place of not belonging, not fitting in, and not sure I want to fit in anymore and that has been an adjustment.
So as I adjusted to getting up early and going off to work this week, I kept reminding myself of all that I have accomplished, I raised seven pretty awesome kids, I worked full-time, and went back to school full-time and adjusted to being a single parent, and I changed the direction of my life! There was a smile and a cheerfulness about me and a knowledge of no matter what happens I will be just fine!
