DIVORCE: What does it feel like? It feels Like DEATH. I was walking around like I was a zombie in the 1970’s film the LIVING DEAD. I was living but a part of me had died. At that time my husband and I were once two people who became one. But we’d started to drift apart and I knew I had lost him, yet he was still here. I had to hear about him every day, think about him and see him knowing our marriage had died. The reality of divorce hurt; a lot. I suffered. A lot. It was like hell every day. How long did the feeling of death last? As long as I allowed it to.
MY JOURNEY:
LET THE HEALING BEGIN: I will forever be grateful for Mesa Springs Behavioral Health Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. I spent 5 weeks going to outpatient care for emotional health and healing. One day, after my prior husband moved out, I stood in our home office and looked around at the empty walls and began to walk through the house and felt like I was on my way out of here. I mean I felt like I was about to lose my mind! I called my aunt and uncle and told them “Something is wrong with me. I need help.” After I hung up with them, I called Mesa Springs and told them I needed help. I drove myself there and stood at the front desk and said again “I need help. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I was falling apart.
WHAT LED ME HERE: Up to this time, I had already suffered a lot of trauma and tragedy from the age of nine. I’d not realized how broken I was before I’d gotten married. In hindsight, I now see I should have continued the therapy and counseling I was receiving as an adolescent throughout my high school years. Unfortunately, I did not. Oh, I forgot to mention that. I’d gone to counseling and therapy as a child so I knew how helpful it was because of the tragedy and trauma I’d endured. But this was my adult breaking point. Here’s a brief look at my life before and after marriage:
MATTERS BEFORE MARRIAGE:
1. The kidnapping death of my mother and murder eighteen-year-old sister on 9/11/1986.
2. The tragic burning death of my aunt & three cousins in December 1986. (One of whom was my best friend)
3. So many other tragic family deaths that I almost can’t count them at this time.
4. Child molestation from the age of seven until fourteen
5. Family discord
6. Feelings of Abandonment
7. Living with different family members
8. Heartbreak from a relationship
MATTERS AFTER MARRIAGE:
1. Complications from first pregnancy (3 months on bed rest)
2. 4 miscarriages
3. Pulmonary Embolism (Blood clot in my lungs)
4. Finding out what happened to my mother and sister after 21 years.
5. Deaths of my grandmothers
6. Death of my uncle from cancer
7. Diagnosed with Lupus, Sjogrens & Fibromyalgia
8. Adultery & Divorce (The final straw)
These are just some of the personal tragedies I’d experienced. The compiled stress from these events led me to Mesa Springs and was directly linked to some of my negative behaviors which ultimately led to the demise of my marriage. The weight of all of this was very confusing. I did not understand my feelings.
CONFUSION: You see I was confused because before we got to the point of divorce, I tried to share with my husband. One day in 2011 I went to him and said “I feel like something is missing in our marriage. I don’t feel like we are connecting. I think I have been in love before. I need to talk to you about it.” Having that feeling was totally baffling to me. He, of course, didn’t understand how I got to that point after 11 years of marriage. I’d not given any indication that anything was wrong with our relationship to THAT degree. We didn’t talk about my “8 MATTERS BEFORE MARRIAGE”, in depth, except for the loss of my mom and sister. I could’ve tried to be more open and pushed to disclose these things before we were married. However, I think I was waiting for him to ask me. We were young and had not yet mastered the tools for proper communication. His answer to my request to talk with him about my previous relationship was surprising. After I presented my desire to talk to him about the previous relationship 3 different times, I decided to take matters into my own hands, albeit in the wrong way. Realizing we could never find a way to discuss it without tension, I reached out to the person who I felt I’d loved before. I have NO IDEA why I believed that person would bring healing, But I was desperately searching for answers. In short, that text in December 2011 was the first step to my marital indiscretion. I wanted to take a shortcut to feeling better, (SIDE NOTE: Feeling better IS NOT healing). It was a temporary, faux fix. I wanted to quench that part of my emotions and thought this was the easiest way. At that time, I did not feel as if I had an outlet in our marriage. I made the decision. I made the choice to reach out to another man for answers. I chose to create a false sense of hope, health and healing. I was a foolish woman. I was tearing my house down brick by brick. Proverbs 14:1 “A wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands.”
ADULTERY: When I say Adultery (The Final Straw)…that was my fault. That was my choice. That was the final straw for my prior-husband. After that, we went through Hades for the next seven years trying to find healing together. April 16, 2018 was our last intense fellowship (argument). He’d had enough. He packed up and moved out of our home. That’s when I felt like I’d lost everything and I really needed help.
DIVORCE: He filed for Divorce on February 28, 2019. It was final on July 30, 2019. The aftermath was not pretty for either of us. But I am and we are walking through it day by day. Trying to find balance, peace, emotional health and healing. There’s more in the aftermath, this is just part 1 of the divorce narrative. This is…#MyTransparency
(Note: I will only write about him as my prior-husband, as anything else truly sounds like a death. Neither he nor I want anything bad for the other. Therefore, I will only refer to him in writing this way.)