Team has no "I"
Today was a wonderful day spent with my granddaughter. Her parents are on vacation and her other grandparents and I are splitting the time we get to spend with her.
The joy was tempered just a bit with sadness because her poppy and I should have been doing this together. That got me to thinking: Lyla will never know her grammy and poppy as a team. How sad that is.
Divorce steals so much from everyone involved. Even little Lyla has been robbed of knowing her momma's parents as a couple. She is too young and will not remember her first year of life, when we doted over her equally and together.
Today, I pulled a book from her shelf and we settled into a chair to read. The inscription said "To Lyla. I used to read a book similar to this, to your momma when she was little. Love, Poppy." It was a book he had recently given her, apart from me. Truthfully, that made me angry as well as sad.
To give up and throw the towel in on a 32 year relationship for a little bit of "sparkle" as he called it, is absolutely and completely wasteful. It is an insult to me, to his girls and to his granddaughter. To say "I am not happy and you deserve more" is such a cop-out to the sanctity of marriage. You're not happy? Then figure it out. Go get counseling to see what it is you could be doing to bring life back to your marriage. (For the record, I thought we were happy and I thought we had everything.)
Apparently everything wasn't enough and perhaps, reader, you are wondering "am I happy in my marriage?" I would say to you: Don't give up. Find a counselor and go back to the center of your marriage, God. Pray daily that your love and devotion and loyalty be strengthened and restored. Realize that there are seasons in a marriage and not every season is summer. It's during the winters of a relationship that marriages are tested and it's through those tests that the smooth times are even sweeter.
Don't give in to the temptation of wondering what's on the other side of that fence. Because here's the thing - what's on the other side of that fence is a stranger who: doesn't know your life's story; who hasn't grown older alongside you, witnessing your successes and your failings and helping you through both; who will never have the same love and devotion to your children and their children; who you will not build a future with from the ground up; who you will not have those precious memories of raising your children with, through all of the trials and wonderful events of their young lives; who will never be able to celebrate the blood, sweat and tears that make up a long term marriage. You will be giving up your past, part of your present for an unknown and probably lonely future.
When you have it all and let it go for some unknown quantity that may not even exist, that is a sad thing. And lives are ruined in the process. And most importantly, God is not honored. That is the ultimate injustice.
Little Lyla and her siblings and cousins will definitely know the love of all of their grandparents, but one set will not be together. And that bruises me way down deep.
The joy was tempered just a bit with sadness because her poppy and I should have been doing this together. That got me to thinking: Lyla will never know her grammy and poppy as a team. How sad that is.
Divorce steals so much from everyone involved. Even little Lyla has been robbed of knowing her momma's parents as a couple. She is too young and will not remember her first year of life, when we doted over her equally and together.
Today, I pulled a book from her shelf and we settled into a chair to read. The inscription said "To Lyla. I used to read a book similar to this, to your momma when she was little. Love, Poppy." It was a book he had recently given her, apart from me. Truthfully, that made me angry as well as sad.
To give up and throw the towel in on a 32 year relationship for a little bit of "sparkle" as he called it, is absolutely and completely wasteful. It is an insult to me, to his girls and to his granddaughter. To say "I am not happy and you deserve more" is such a cop-out to the sanctity of marriage. You're not happy? Then figure it out. Go get counseling to see what it is you could be doing to bring life back to your marriage. (For the record, I thought we were happy and I thought we had everything.)
Apparently everything wasn't enough and perhaps, reader, you are wondering "am I happy in my marriage?" I would say to you: Don't give up. Find a counselor and go back to the center of your marriage, God. Pray daily that your love and devotion and loyalty be strengthened and restored. Realize that there are seasons in a marriage and not every season is summer. It's during the winters of a relationship that marriages are tested and it's through those tests that the smooth times are even sweeter.
Don't give in to the temptation of wondering what's on the other side of that fence. Because here's the thing - what's on the other side of that fence is a stranger who: doesn't know your life's story; who hasn't grown older alongside you, witnessing your successes and your failings and helping you through both; who will never have the same love and devotion to your children and their children; who you will not build a future with from the ground up; who you will not have those precious memories of raising your children with, through all of the trials and wonderful events of their young lives; who will never be able to celebrate the blood, sweat and tears that make up a long term marriage. You will be giving up your past, part of your present for an unknown and probably lonely future.
When you have it all and let it go for some unknown quantity that may not even exist, that is a sad thing. And lives are ruined in the process. And most importantly, God is not honored. That is the ultimate injustice.
Little Lyla and her siblings and cousins will definitely know the love of all of their grandparents, but one set will not be together. And that bruises me way down deep.
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