Part One: So Many Divorces, So Many Break Ups??

Break ups and divorces are so common.  It’s like you want to ask “What the hell is going on, why are there so many break ups out there? Does anyone stay together anymore?”  When you really believe in love it can be so disheartening to hear of people not making it in their relationships.  Anytime I see someone post that they’re in a relationship on Facebook, or that they’ve become engaged or married, my heart leaps inside of me, it excites me!  When I see they’ve broken apart, my heart breaks, I want to hold them, tell them everything is going to be okay and assure them that they are worthy of love.

Coming from a home where my parents have been married all my life, it was always reassuring that no matter what happened in life, mom and dad would always be together.  I took great comfort in that.  So when I went through a divorce after being married for 7 years, needless to say my parents were crushed, almost devastated.  It created a huge wedge between us and it took us years to get past.  There was so much shame to walk out as I had not only married too young, but growing up in a Christian family, the last thing you did was divorce.

What was the problem, apart from being too young?  Well it was just that, I was too young and with being too young, I was clueless.  I didn’t know myself, I wasn’t in tune with my desires, my heart had yet to find it’s voice in my life and I went with what made sense for my life based on a very limited perspective.  Over time it took its toll as my ex husband and I were polar opposites.  We had a different vision for what we wanted out of life, it just took me years growing up to realize that that was the case.  After I became more in touch with what I wanted, it was very clear the relationship I was in would never allow me to embrace that journey.

It wouldn’t have been fair to him to go on the ride I was awaiting as it wasn’t how he was built, it wasn’t fair to me to settle for a life that I knew would never bring me fulfillment.  Choosing to walk out a divorce was one of the most difficult decisions I had ever made, but I looked at my life and the hurt I knew I would have to endure for the time it would take to walk it out and compared it to a lifetime of misery, it wasn’t worth it.  I was a walking zombie, meaning I felt dead on the inside.  I smiled for everyone, we looked like the perfect couple, but I was incredibly depressed and felt hopeless.

I did my best to talk with counselors and share my disposition, but they didn’t get it.  Perhaps I got really good at showing everyone what they wanted to see, because I practically felt unknown by most of the people around me.  After my decision there were some who said I would come crawling back, but the truth was I never did.  I committed to my decision and it was painful.

(Because this is such a close topic to home, I have decided to make this 3 parts, tune in tomorrow to read Part 2.)