Musings from the Trenches: Feeling, Dealing and Healing from the Pain of Divorce

Today I decided to watch church from home. I almost never miss church. I love church. I love to be there in the presence of my church family and to feel the Holy Spirit working.  While flipping through channels waiting for my service to start, I happened upon Joel Olsteen’s church service. He was talking about a woman he had met whose husband of 20 years left her because he didn’t want to be married anymore. Here are just some of the things he said that spoke to my soul.  Quit mourning. Don’t feed the history.  Don’t miss the new things God has in store.  God closed the door on that. God put an end to things I cannot understand.  The person that left was a weed. Quit watering the weed. Quit feeding the weed.   Don’t put a question mark on something God put a period on.   A new season of joy and fulfillment is coming.   God will bring someone to feed you integrity, faith, hope and excellence.  Sometimes you n...

If you were to look down at the ring finger of my left hand you would barely see an indentation - barely any evidence that a ring was on that finger for 34 years. Today I found myself bereft. I was wrapping presents and listening to Christmas music and everything about what I was doing felt normal yet so wrong. I know I'm divorced but sometimes for seconds at a time it feels like it can't possibly be real. Even though that line is fading away on the finger symbolic of the most important covenant I ever made, the reality of this failed marriage remains imprinted forever on my heart and soul. It is a sadness I can't explain or describe. It feels like my heart is being squeezed. It is a grief that will probably never ever go away completely. During this Christmas season I have tried really hard to focus on Jesus' birth and the new life He breathed into all the earth. It has helped so I don't let my sadness carry me away. For the most part and with constant concen...

Today would have been our 32nd wedding anniversary. It's been a difficult day for me. So much reflection and remembering. On the day we were married, I put a ring on his finger and inside I had engraved the words: Bombs Away! SSM, I love you, SAM. (Pearl Harbor Day). We sang a song to each other at our wedding entitled "A Love Until the End of Time". We looked deeply into each others eyes and hearts and made a sacred promise to keep our marriage covenant forever. I remember celebrating our very first anniversary so clearly. We dressed up kind of fancy and went to a restaurant on the river in Mequon, WI and felt completely out of place and over-dressed when we got there. Since then, we have celebrated in so many different places and ways. Some years, especially the early ones, we didn't have much money to celebrate. One year, we went to NYC for the weekend. We ate at a fancy steak place, stayed at The Pierre and took a carriage ride in Central Park. We saw Les Mis ...

Just as I was starting to feel like I might be getting better and moving on, this wall of anger has risen up inside of me.  I’m angry that my spouse did not try to save our marriage. I am angry that my rejection was made public by the act of divorce. I am angry because I didn’t know what was going on and that makes me feel stupid. I am angry that it seems as if all of the good things in our marriage were disregarded by his decision to leave.   I  feel like I have to defend the fact that there was happiness on both of our parts. It feels like 34 years of everything that was good, all of our fun times, all of the parts of our lives we built together from nothing, all of our meaningful conversations, fun family times, shared memories and great adventures have boiled down to one failed relationship.   I’m angry that there is nobody waiting for me when I get home. Instead, there is a dark, lonely apartment.  I’m angry that my mom and Dad, brother, si...

My ex broke up with his girlfriend of 6 weeks because it was causing my girls so much pain and further distancing him from them. They did not want to see him and weren't sure when they would be ready to. He decided that he would do anything to get his girls back so he ended that relationship. Because of that, I agreed to meet him that week and my stomach was in knots leading up to the evening of the "meet." I didn't know how I would react to seeing him. I wasn't sure I could keep my emotions in check. I was about to meet the man I had been with for 34 years but hadn't seen since the middle of May. The absence of this man in my life over the past six months has been excruciating. It felt like a deep, dark chasm that was opening up larger and larger and swallowing me whole. Many times I couldn't believe we were really "done." I kept thinking something would happen to bring him back to me, but it didn't happen. Even when I found out he was d...

I haven't written a post in a couple of weeks. It's because my ex-husband found out about my blog and has read my posts. And that makes me a little sick. I feel spied upon now and I feel like I can't write about my journey. But, I have more to say so I'm going to keep writing. Yesterday in church, we wrapped up a stewardship sermon series about the nature of the heart; both physically and spiritually. For the past 6 months, I have been praying about and asking others to pray for my heart. This past week I have experienced a huge heart breakthrough. The week started with my heart being wrenched apart again upon finding out that my ex already has a girlfriend. Apparently and already, he had dated enough to know that there was one person he was ready to call a girlfriend. It was as if I was way back to May 2nd and it was happening anew. My pain was palpable and I even did some out loud wailing (fortunately only my car heard it) for the injustice of this an...