Through the Fire....

Well my divorce is done. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Why you ask? Well, I guess it is kind of hard to explain. On the one hand I didn't want to be married to this man anymore, but on the other I went into it very sad. Sad I guess to see all of the years we had together compiled into binders full of papers, speeches from our lawyers, and dissection of the judges. Sad to see lies and deceit at a time that I was feeling reflective and a bit humbled I guess. Oh don't get me wrong, there was anger on my part as well, but mostly sadness.

They say divorce is like a death, that you go through all of the same stages that you would if a loved one was taken from your life by illness or accident. The first stage is denial. We both went through this to a certain degree I think. Even though I was the one to leave him, there was a part of me that wouldn't let go for some time. I had to struggle within myself to let him go and sever contact, or keep it as minimal as possible. He was in denial briefly but flew fairly straight into anger with all the force of a hurricane. I just couldn't get fully out of the denial stage. I knew our marriage was over. We had years and years of irreparable damage. But my mind and heart kept lingering on the times that weren't awful. The times when there was laughter and smiling. I guess my head knew it was over, but my heart was having a difficult time truly letting go.

Then the whole thing exploded. His anger started coming at me from every angle. Through mutual acquaintances and friends, through emails, through screaming phone calls, through threats, and manipulations of myself, and my children. That was when I began to move into the anger stage with both feet firmly planted on the line he was crossing.

Up until this point I was still naive enough to believe that he was able to admit the things he had done that destroyed our marriage with me doing the same. Like they say there is your side, their side, and somewhere in the middle is the whole truth. But that wasn't what was actually happening. He was talking to anyone that he felt might give him information, or have a bad word to say about me. He was making phone calls to people he hadn't spoken to in years, some he completely disliked, but that didn't matter, he wanted to dig anything up that could be used against me. The sad thing is I am not sure that it was just to use against me in court. I believe it was more so just to make himself feel better about the things he had done, and to sway more people to believe I really was this monstrous creature he was portraying me as. It was as if anything bad he could hear about me comforted him and reassured him that he was not to blame in any part for the "death" we were dealing with. He really seemed to feed on it.

Then it had to get down to the nitty gritty. Money. He has since said that he never tried/planned to get out of paying me anything. Now this is the part that may divide you readers. There are the people that believe that spousal support is fair and necessary in many cases to get the party that was making lesser, or no income during the marriage, back on their feet. In my case, I was a stay at home mother for most of our 20+ year marriage. His job, and true love, was the sea. He told me once that he joined the Navy to be out to sea not to sit on a beach. I understood and accepted that fact. I wanted him to be happy and work made him very happy. Happier than the children and I could ever seem to make him. I liked to see him smile and I think work was the only thing that he felt true pride from. As well he should have because he was amazing at his job. So many people praised him for his work, or envied him for his expertise, and flat out talent for his work. I do believe it was the perfect job for him. I was happy for him. I only wished that we could have make him as happy. So I accepted the times that he passed up opportunities to spend 2 years at shore and opted to do back to back sea tours. For his career and happiness I knew it was what was best.

After the split it was all turned around and he began to make me out as a lazy woman that didn't want to work. That he had tried to get me to work but I had refused. When in fact we had had multiple discussions about the fact that we agreed we wanted our children raised at home, not by a daycare provider. He especially, coming from a family where his parents both had to work and he was left on his own quite a bit, wanted a more traditional upbringing for our children. I had always had one dream, and some will agree with it and others will scoff, but I wanted to be a Mother, a good mother. So this was something that we easily agreed upon. Until court, then all of that was a lie that he never supported or wanted.

See the thing is, the state we live in is a "No Fault" state. So they don't care what reasons you have for divorcing. The only thing they decide is child custody, support, and spousal support, that is all. So his statement that he never tried to get out of paying me anything just didn't wash. He withheld information to keep the court from knowing what he was making, which in turn kept the court from assigning any child support or spousal support and painting me as a lazy, flaky, less than successful mother could only serve one purpose. To hopefully get the court to say that our daughter, who was the only child we had left at home, should be with him, and/or that there is no reason he should have to pay any spousal support to me. So like I said it all boiled down to money.

So now you enter the arena of court, and that is seriously what it felt like. Both sides, jousting for control, and jabbing at each other trying to find that soft spot that will weaken the other parties defenses and kill their case. My lawyer told me to be short and to the point. To tell the truth but don't go on and on unless he asked me for more clarification. So I did that. I felt like everytime his lawyer spoke to me he was circling me, waiting for me to make that mistake that would leave him the opening to say "AHA see your honor she is an awful excuse for a human being" This went on and on all day long. Very draining! Also, very difficult to sit next to the person you spent 20+ years with and feel the hatred and anger coming of his body. It was disturbing to say the least.

I was very happy when the judge said we were done and could be dismissed. I wanted to get as far away from that room and that experience as I could. I wanted to get back home to my comfort zone, with the people that loved me and believe in me. I was tired of being looked at and spoken about/to like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.

I came home to my family and soaked up as much love as they could give. I felt like I could breath again! I posted to my Daily Booth account about the experience, speaking about how I sat there and listened to what a rotten, lazy, worthless, flaky mother/person I supposedly am and adding that at lunch I fell and scraped my knee, and that after it was all over I came out to a parking ticket. The topper to an awful day. My daughter posted a comment about how angry she was that anything was said about my abilities as a mother. She was very angry. I honestly had just vented to my friends on line, not thinking that my daughter would read it as well, but, as I later told her father, I never posted anything that wasn't true. I am not sure how that became my fault, but it did.

I received an email from him a few days later that was filled with anger and fury. Every word in it was like a punch to the face or a kick to the gut. It was obvious he wanted to hurt me in anyway he possibly could. He was angered by my post saying that I was trying to turn our daughter against him and that I had been trying to turn both of our children against him for years. I was confused by this statement because up until 6 months ago I was pushing our daughter to try to develop a relationship with him that she was refusing to have. She would not answer his calls and even wanted me to tell him to stop calling her. I told her she needed to learn how to talk to him about her feelings. As for our son, I had no idea what he was talking about.

He viciously attacked me as a person quoting information that he had gotten from sources that had been twisted to fit the needs of its use, either by him, or the source. He accused me of many many things, a few were true, as I said I made my mistakes, but none the least of was that I was a horrible mother.

You see when he is angry, I mean this angry, he goes for the jugular. I have seen it in action and it is vicious and precise. Being on the receiving end of it was none to pleasant, but I knew what he was doing. He knew the most important thing to me was being a good mother. Many times through the years he told me what a wonderful mother I was, my children tell me that I am a good mother, but now, on this day, to suit his purpose of trying to inflict as much pain as possible, he attacked that.

He continued his assault spewing vulgar language every other word. I had an image of him standing before me, face, red, eyes bulging, exploding like a volcano. His accusations and name calling just kept getting worse and worse. Now not only attacking me, but the man I am with. The email built with a crescendo that made it seem as if the words would leap off of the screen and slap me in the face. I felt like his anger was begining to spin out of control and take on a life of it's own!

Then he slipped into almost a child like rage. I had an image of a red faced 3 yr old stomping his feet and yelling and screaming. Demanding things go his way OR ELSE!!!

I responded to his aggression very matter of factually. Addressing a few of the topics from the onslaught. I was short and to the point and left it at that. I pray this will be the end but I know it won't be. If not with words, he will find some other way to try and make my life difficult. What I don't understand is that if he is truly happy it is all over, why would he continue to do things that require a connection or communication in any form? This puzzles me and is a bit disturbing. I too would like to move on. It is very obvious by now that the idea of any type of civil relationship between us is impossible. I wish we could just get on with our lives in peace.

I guess in a way his playing games and making me angry helps. I still get those sad feelings. The question of why it had to go down this road plays in my head a lot. I hurt him, he hurt me, but why, looking back on all of this devastation, friends, family all lay in the wake of, why did it have to go this way?

So, I guess the final thought on this whole event is. I came through it. I walked through the fire. I can hold my head up and stop beating myself up for the things I did wrong. We all make mistakes, none of us are perfect, but mistakes are what teach us and from that learning we change and become a better person or we stagnate. I am not the person I was 2 years ago, or even 1 year ago. I feel I am stronger, and believe in myself in a way I have never done in the past.