made it through but in the process realized... another anniversary.

So I survived the week at the ex's, it really didn't turn out that bad... Well all up until the last night.  This was the first night I didn't collapse into bed exhausted I actually had some energy left at the end of the night, I may have had a Wicked Ale and my ex texted me about something to which I replied and then we just sort of texted back and forth for a while.  While we were texting I rolled up to bed as it was about time for me to cash in my chips.  I closed the door to my daughters room and noticed a poster.  It was a written note to my daughters from my ex in poster form and it was great.  I quickly ran to my younger daughter's room and sure enough she had one too.  They were just these little pieces of advice, but they were good.(minus the whole tearing our family apart instead of repairing the damage and reconnecting my ex is a great mom! Seriously!)  They both ended with something to the effect of don't let fear hold you back.  I am not sure what prompted me to do it, if it was that place , the nostalgia, the fun I was having with the girls, the fun banter we were having over text or what, but I sent a text to the effect of I wish I would have had the courage to not give up on our marriage. This sentiment is true. It was moment of vulnerability.  Which is okay for me to be, but maybe not with my ex so much... we have been winning this divorce thing and I don't want to be the reason we grow awkward or more distant.  

I got thinking about that moment and what might be behind that statement.  I think I just got tired of feeling like I was the only one refusing to walk away from our marriage, sick of being thought of and treated like yesterdays mistakes/trash, tired of being avoided and withdrawn from and so when she made another attempt to end it, I finally acquiesced.  If you have read this blog you know I am very much aware of my faults and mistakes; that I have owned, feel badly about and apologized for each of them.  Yet, where I know a marriage is made up of two faulty people, it is also kept together by two people refusing to quit.  My ex quit our marriage before I did.  I am not sure why she stuck around as long as she did, I think she was waiting for me to quit too?  One possibility that I pray is not true is she may have stuck it out if I would have done the same.  I don't think that's true given all the extenuating circumstances that surrounded our end, but it is something I will never have a complete answer too and will probably haunt me forever.  Was I just not strong enough....again?   

It has almost been a year since that fateful day when she told me we were done and I needed to figure out when I was going to move out. (Almost a year can it be that long...I can't believe it has only been one year...) So maybe I should put this down, how has this year been?    

Helpful:
Writing here, a few great friends who care, great family who love me all the time, running, good job that keeps me actively working- occupying my time, paying the bills and giving me something new to learn, beer at times, reading Bible, praying, up north, a church family that has given me space to transition and grieve yet allowed me to still employ the gifts and experience I have in the ministry world.

Not so helpful:
Down time for my brain to wander, my best friend moving away, seeing my daughters not nearly as much as I want to, other stuff probably the tangled mess this has made of me inside and out, too much beer, feeling sorry for myself, taking on other peoples judgments including if not most importantly my ex's. 

I wonder what a prison cell feels like?

So my ex is travelling for work and I agreed to stay at her house to hang out with my little ladies.  The idea was solid, and really it continues to be...but.  Yeah this whole journey has been full with yeah buts.  Life is messy. 

My girls board the bus here, their school clothes are here, their school routine begins and ends here, they are safe here... it was our home and it remains their home. 

On the way here they were telling me how they had a sleepover here this weekend.  With the Bf and his kids.  They all slept downstairs...all except mommy and BF.  Uggg!  I tucked my girls in, in our old bedroom and I had this sick feeling in my gut.  I couldn't help myself, I wonder what happened in here lately, what happened in here this weekend...two nights ago.  I don't want to think about it!  I try to block any route to this ugly scene in my imagination.  I have managed to do that for the most part, but going to sleep tonight... I dread that, because then I will lose control.  Night time tends to be bad at times.  Sometimes it's not, my guess is tonight will be one of the bad ones. 

I am here where many bad things went down, where I found out things about my wife, my marriage, my identity.... one of the last times I was here I left a note.  Something to the effect of, "I wish this didn't go this way."  I still wish that.  And tonight I can honestly say I am scared, scared of the ghosts that live in these walls for me.  I cannot bring myself to sleep in "that" room, so I will be sleeping in one of my daughters rooms or maybe the couch?  Or maybe I will just skip sleep...nah can't do that I have to work the rest of the week.   Tempting though.  

I guess I will just chalk this up as one more thing that I have done for my daughters, for whom I would travel to hell and back for.   If you are the praying sort...pray for me.  

first, first day of school

Tomorrow is the first day of school for my daughters.  Normally, I would have spent the weekend at Mackinaw Island as a last hurrah of the summer before with them. We would have eaten good food, played in the hotel hot tub, ridden around the island, and laughed.  On the way home we would have talked about what food they wanted to eat for lunch.  We would have picked out their outfits, I would have hugged them both, prayed with at least one of them, and sat in their room until they drifted off to sleep.  That is what my heart longs to do, that is what I know to be the right thing for me to have done tonight. 

Instead I am sitting on my couch typing this having called them on the phone and tried to pick up the few things they shared with me over speaker phone. About the weekend on the island and then the day spent not with me but with my ex and her BF's family.  Yet, they are excited about their first day and I am so happy for them.  And when I got off the phone with them I bawled like a baby. 

Blogging about all this is interesting.  Opening my soul to no one in particular, sharing the pain, the confusion, the frustration, the anger, the sadness, the betrayal, the loss.....I am not sure what good it is doing?  I know that at times it helps to put the tangled mess I feel inside down here, yet words rarely do justice to the feelings.  I believe this lack of being able to communicate my feelings in a way that is understandable is among the reasons that I find myself in this crappy situation in the first place.  Maybe I should be working on expressing myself verbally, instead of constantly writing everything down?  That may be true, yet this is what I have for now.  Since it is helping at least a bit I will continue for now. 

What's the point

So I have a curious question to pose or that I have been asking myself.  I wonder if I didn't have my daughters just how far down the rabbits hole I would slide?  I mean that as a broad term:  morally, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, etc.  I know that I have the Holy Spirit to guide me and I know He is active in my life, yet that voice is easy to drown out or ignore all together. 

I feel the icy cold fingers of depression grasping at my heart.  I cannot explain it better than that, it is a feeling of numbness and withdrawal.  I have a routine now that is pretty stable especially as I am about to enter back into the school year with my girls.  Get up, clean up, eat up, read up, work.  Come home if it is a girls night cook food, hang out, try to get them to talk and share( they seem so cautious to tell me about their days, which is weird as I don't pry or react strangely I just want to know about their lives.).  Then we either jump in car and scream to the south side of town to get home by the minute I mentioned to ex so she won't text me 5 times about where I am or we clean up and pretty much get ready for bed.  The school year night that I have them I also work at a church so I will rarely see my oldest before bedtime and my youngest will be in activities until it is time to scream home to get to bed.  If it is an off night, no girls, I run errands, sometimes real sometimes contrived to get out of house, I run, I eat, I watch TV, I go to sleep.  Repeat... Then weekend comes.  Here again Girls = fun.  Activities, up north, cousins, movies, games, etc.  If off, no girls, hopefully work on the am Sat, small project if I can find one around home, run, eat, drink, TV.  Sleep.  Church, parents, girls, eat, drive them home, TV or read and sleep.  REPEAT. 

The highlights of my week are the girls.  But especially during the school year its hard.  I get them what feels like so rarely, definitely not 50/50!, and when I am with them it is great but it is shadowed.  We are not the family we are supposed to be, we are missing someone, we are constantly rushed or meeting some deadline.  The shadow is hard.  Back to the icy fingers.

I have a hobby running and this time of the year hunting.  Which is great but both of these hobbies give me so much alone time and that is something I have a lot of right now.  I was talking to a friend who is a few steps behind me and he said that if his marriage falls apart as it looks like it is going to he would be perfectly content living up north alone somewhere.  I get this feeling, I am an introvert.  But we all need people in our lives.  There was a study done a while ago with babies in Russia.  I don't remember all the details but the results were that we need meaningful physical contact with other people a few times a day to stay sane for the most part.  It is good that I have a mom and a few daughters because besides them I haven't had a person in my life who was or is intentional about this in such a long time and now I wonder if that will ever change? 

I have had a few folks ask me when I am going to start dating.  I have told them this line about needing to be healthy by myself first.  What I wanted to say was I did that, I got married, I still love her and I always will.  When I said I do I meant forever., but I didn't say that.   Beyond that fact, I don't want to date.  I think about it and it makes me cringe.  I am so afraid of allowing someone to get to know me, the real me, and I am not even sure which version of me is real after all the wounds and scars of this travesty.  I know I am lonely, but it's not worth the risk of my or another's heart.  At least this hasn't made me selfish, I can still think of others.

To be very transparent I believe that divorce is a tool of Satan.  You don't have to believe in Satan or if that name drives you crazy, maybe if I said I believe divorce is evil.  It tore my family apart, my daughters are doomed to live this hop scotch life until they are old enough to get the F off the crazy train and even then they will have to choose how and when to see us both.  They get to feel guilt, shame, loss, sadness, anger, frustration, betrayal, confusion, etc.  My ex's and my union is destroyed, but you don't just divorce and that's it, sign the papers and you are good to go.  Nope!  We have entangled in the kind of permanent way that we will never be able to neatly pull apart.  Firstly we have kids together and that won't ever change.  But we also have shared so much life, survived trials, experienced joys, held each other in sadness, witnessed awkward, painful, embarrassing, horrible events.  Shared intimate moments not just the ones we were naked for, the ones where we bared our souls.  Even the pain we inflicted on each other has a way of bonding us.  Besides all that we stood in front of friends, family and most importantly God and promised in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer, til death end us.  All of those things and more make it impossible, no matter the success stories that exist.  So I say it is evil.  Like many evil things them seem "right", "good", "just", "feels right", etc.  in the beginning or maybe for a while.  But all along under the surface it is causing havoc.  I can't speak for my ex, but for me...I am broken.  My heart is shattered, I am lonely, I am ashamed, I have no self confidence left(for example I ran a race, my ex happened to run it too she passed me at the very end I could have kept up with her I even considered passing her, but then I thought of what's the point, I slowed way down and thought about walking of the course), I am sad, I am furious, I feel weighed and worthless, I feel wronged, I don't know how to trust anymore, I assume the worst. (I was running past a parking lot the other week and I watched a woman jump out of her car and into a guys truck and start making out, I assumed they were having an affair not that it was some happy couple.)  I am jealous.  Yeah.... I am broken.  Divorce worked it's evil on me, chewed me up and the version of me that is left is worthless. 

Yet, I will solider on, I will hope for better(though I doubt it's arrival), I will try to put on a smile(maybe someday it will form without me having to force it), I will pray for healing, I will strive to be a good dad no matter what. I will keep forgiving my ex and seeking peace, I will restrain all of the feelings I have to pound her new BF's face in, and to not judge the Brady Bunch life style they are moving towards. In a sentence I will try to hold onto the tiny piece of me that is left and hope to God that I don't lose my grip.          

Tearing apart one flesh in messy

I am about to go on my first vacation as a single person...single parent that is.  I am looking forward to it, I am looking forward to 4 days off in a row. I don't  a lot of vacation yet as I recently changed careers and had to start towards the bottom of the ladder, so I am making a weekend long to make the most of my few days of vacation.  I think it will be fun...yet   there is something that is just not right about it. 

I was talking with a friend the other day and the word I used is I am in mourning.  Mourning what should not have happened, mourning the loss of so many things in my everyday and long term life, mourning what my daughters have to go through, mourning the roll I played in all of this, mourning a lot I guess.  It feels like the right word.  A while ago I was chatting with a man who had lost his wife to cancer and he was trudging through his own mourning process and he said that he thought I had it worse because my wife was gone and she choose to leave me.... ouch!  But yeah that's true.  I was reminiscing with some friends who are moving soon a few nights ago and we pointed out a few red flags, but overall we concluded it was just sad that it had come to this. 

I believe in a healthy marriage your spouse is constantly on your mind, the way you make choices, the things you decide to do, the where and then when you go places, in a mysterious way they are always there.  I think this is what the Bible refers to as one flesh.  Some people think that only refers to sex or a physical union, which is of course part of it, but I believe it is so much more.  This is how I lived, or tried very hard to live, for 13 years.  I constantly had my ex on my heart and my mind, she influenced my whole being. (I think she saw this as weakness in me...at least that's what she said to me during our not so great months.  I didn't have my own personality or I was a non-person...something like that.  it was mostly angry talk, but there is always some raw truth in angry talk.) It is very difficult and messy to untangle myself from that existence.  I find I am constantly catching myself doing this.  I have heard a theory that it takes 1 year for every 4 years you were married to be healthy as a single entity.  That means this road is at least  3 years long... That also would mean that my ex is jumping into a relationship way too fast.  I pray that she is an anomaly.  Because she doesn't go alone she is bringing our two precious daughters along.  Eventually, maybe, I will have to cross that bridge too.  (Maybe not...)  Regardless, I pray that I continue to have the strength and the patience to get to a healthy place.  Healthy for me and my daughters. 

The next post perhaps I will talk about the small voice I am hearing in the back of my heart about ministry...perhaps not. 
Good night!

being left again

Sidebar from the divorce journey:
So one of the things that I basically gave up trying to appease and win approval from my ex was I distanced myself from my friends.  During the days leading up to the divorce I spent quite a bit of time rekindling some old relationships.  It has been great.  To be around people who love me and have known me for eons.  Two weeks ago I found out my best friend and one of these newly rekindled close relationships informed me that he was moving to Florida.  

On top of everything else going down this feels a little overwhelming.  I am happy for their family unit and this new adventure, but I am sad.  Honestly I am heartbroken.  The pieces of my heart that exist have been ground into smaller pieces. 
This sounds and feels like whining.  And I guess that is what it is....but still.  At least this time I'm not being rejected, just left.

What bothers me

So I got to meet the BF this past weekend...long story short had a little incident that required a quick visit to the emergency room for one of my daughters while they were with my ex and her BF.  So I was able to slap eyes on him and stand awkwardly in a waiting room while the ex changed the girls before I took them.  We proceeded to do what guys do in awkward situations we ignored each other.  It was weird. 
My ex told me she was set up by some friends with this guy..... It feels like to me that this may not indeed be true.  I don't know why this matters, I guess it just bugs me to be lied to again.  My guess is a dating site.  Not that it changes anything or should.  Mostly I just feel...I am not sure the right word- angry(maybe), disgusted(maybe), jealous(maybe), bothered...that's not a complete word but in lieu of a better one it will do. 
I am bothered, bothered by this whole situation.  Not just the fact that my ex is dating doing who knows what with this guy.  Of that I am certainly bothered.  But it is more than just this.  It is more than being betrayed, more than being lied too, more than being judged, more than being rejected, more than being erased from one half of my extended family, and ripped from my home and majority of the time with my daughters.  All of those things suck.... hard!
Maybe a little window into my soul, with help frame this.  I love people, I grew up an eternal optimist.  I get sucked in by love stories, I am a hopeless romantic.  I love to treat woman....well.  I actually enjoy watching rom-com's.  I love to laugh.  I have lived most of my life with joy in my soul.  This is my identity, it is how I was created and how I was nurtured to be.  I am bothered because I feel like this identity is destroyed.  It took a lot.  I am not sure how or even if I can ever recover it and if I do will I ever be close to the same again?  I don't have to guess.....I know the answer.  That is what bothers me.