For those of you who have kept up with the personal side of my blog...
I just wanted to say thank you for your support the past few months.
As of this morning, a judge granted my husband the divorce he requested.
All of my friends keep calling and texting asking how I am doing or feeling...
How do you respond to something like that? Dead. Hurt. Numb. Broken.
When it was all said and done, I cried...
and cried...
and cried...
until I felt like I had nothing left.
And then I was numb.
It didn't really hit me that it was over until after midnight tonight, but then it did, (hit that is- like a ton of bricks). This is really happening.
Today, my world slipped away. I have fought tooth and nail for my marriage for 8 long, exhausting months, with everything I had in me.
When Dan left, he didn't just take the money in the bank accounts, he took all of my hopes and dreams, all of the plans we had made.
Any feeling of self-worth that I ever possessed.
Gone.
Everything is gone.
How can anyone do that to someone they claim to love and care so much for? Someone you vowed to be faithful and honor for the rest of your life...how is that okay?
So what now?
Since the beginning of this ordeal nightmare, I have told everyone who would listen, that I planned on fighting til the end, and that's exactly what I did. I put so much faith and hope and prayer into believing that before it ended, he would snap out of this as easily as he made the decision to walk out. I tried to be patient, as hard as it was.
And here we are...divorce granted.
What started as an amazingly close-knit family of 5 just months ago, is now Daniel...and the devastation left behind, 4 broken people left to pick up the pieces, 3 sweet, innocent children, suffering, confused, hurt.
Why?? Why do bad things happen to good people?
What did we do to deserve this?
I was raised in a broken home. I put so much into my marriage so that my children would not have to go through what I did growing up.
And I failed. Miserably.
Everything I have ever tried to protect my children from, all of the heartache and the pain...and here we are.
Why can't people keep their promises? Why is it that when someone uses the words "lifetime commitment" it really means "until I'm tired of you?"
How can you choose to hurt such innocent children that want nothing more than to have a dad in their life to love? How can their feelings not matter? What kind of monster can look into their eyes and just walk away?
And who on earth could support someone like that?
All of my life, even into adulthood, I longed to have a close extended family. I come from a family of 5 children, but I only speak to one sibling on a regular basis. I haven't spoken to my father in years. I can count on my hands how many times I have seen him my entire life. My mom and I speak a couple of times a year, usually on holidays, and mostly by text. None of my kids know my father and if they saw my mom walking through the grocery store, they probably wouldn't recognize her.
I didn't want my kids to grow up that way.
When I met Dan and saw how close his family was with one another, it was amazing. They had a big extended family, they got together on all the holidays, they had family dinners.
They would sit around the living room singing Christmas carols, playing the piano, guitar etc. I used to joke with him that they were the real-life Partridge family, they had it all together.
This is what I had always dreamed of having for my kids.
When I became part of Dan's family, I was thrilled that my kids would get to grow up in that environment, feeling like they actually mattered.
And now we're back to square one...
I always thought by this time, if it really came down to divorce, I would have some idea of what to do next.
I don't.
Maybe I was in denial, maybe it was wishful thinking.
I'm a good person, I work at a church for crying out loud, God was supposed to save me from this, right? He was supposed to make Dan do the right thing and honor his marriage vows and his commitment to his family.
At least in a perfect world.
That isn't the case though.
Here I am, left to pick up the pieces. I have no idea where to start. I'm afraid of the future, I hurt more than I thought one person was supposed to be capable of, I am weak.
This is where the healing begins, doesn't it?
I wish I could believe it.
I don't think I can ever recover from the hurt I have experienced the past 8-9 months. If the one person who I trusted more than anything, leaned on, opened up to about every aspect of my life, could do this to me, and not turn back, then I have no hope for the rest of humanity. Is there really such thing as a "good person?"
I'll believe it when I see it.
Unfortunately, even if I thought it were possible, healing isn't even attainable at this point.
There is still much more heartache, confusion and fear to come.
Sometime in the near future, I will have to pack up my home and leave all of the memories behind.
The first night we slept in this house, we had no furniture with us and the kids were in Texas.
It was just Dan, myself, a few blankets and fire going in the fireplace, three days before he deployed to Iraq. It remains one of the most memorable nights of my life.
I brought Kaylee home from the hospital to this house. I watched as she learned to crawl, sign, and take her first steps.
This home holds more memories than most photo albums.
I'm scared to leave. I am scared to forget.
I don't want to go.
We were supposed to be moving out of here as a family, making new memories as we went, not leaving my marriage and all of the memories we created in our home.
I can't do this.
Where do I go? How do I find a place to live, big enough for all 4 of us and cheap enough for my budget of...essentially nothing? How do we get around after I am made to surrender my sole source of transportation to Dan because I can't afford the payments?
How is any of this okay??
I will never understand how somebody can do such awful things. I've gone over this in my head thousands of times and I just can't comprehend what it would take for somebody to think they are justified in destroying a family and leaving them to pick up the pieces.
I am so tired of hurting.
I don't know how I have survived since October 27th...only by prayer, hope, and faith that everything would be okay.
But it's not.
And I am not.
I used to think I was strong. I'm not.
I want to be a coward, I want to hide in a corner. I want to take my kids and run away and start a new life in a place where nobody knows us.
I just want to be okay, is that really so much to ask? Haven't I gone through enough?
This kind of thing only happens in movies, so where is my happy ending?
I want my life back. I want to wake up from this nightmare. Please...
In 5 days, June 13th, we would be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary.
For those of you who pray, please do. It's going to be a very difficult day to get through.