Almost 4 months ago my husband came home from work and told me he wanted to separate from me, I was in shock and so was the rest of the world who knew us…
Yes.
Things are not always what they seem to be.
… I think 07 is treating me pretty good.
In all aspects of this divorce I’ve tried to remain sane. I keep telling myself that God has a way better plan for me. …
.
To remain sane during such a trying time is something to be proud of. And to thank God for the grace for. I am sure it is Him reassuring your heart that He has a better plan.
At least you and Mariam are fortunate not to have children yet, since unfortunately divorce is the destiny of the “marriages”. (The Church can decide if they ever were that). Because divorce is so much harder when you do have them. If your ex is poor husband and father material, you really regret that for your child.
So it really is a second chance you have. You picked wrong, got fooled the first time. Now you have learned something, and you have time to reflect on what you want in a husband and a father.
And as others have mentioned here that they have found too, you are finding an independance, which I think is important to possess. Because a marriage based on dependancy is not a healthy one. There is a place for dependancy in it, but you need to be two whole people, who can wholely love. (In a holy way!)
Having to split my child’s time is an unhappy reality. Getting sport or scout or school or vacation schedules, and having to consult my calender to see whether I am permitted to participate in his various life events or if I am excluded, is part of that. We are coming up on the second anniversary of the divorce finalization (which followed a prolonged nightmare of a divorce) and it is still hard (though not as hard as it was initially, thankfully), to divide up my life like that.
But, when I hear of mothers who have had to give up their very young babies or toddlers for entrie weekends, I grieve for them and for their children. I don’t know why the courts don’t put a stop to this. Its terrible. And I realize how lucky I was a be able to stay in my difficult marriage when my child was young, because I was with him 24/7 when he was little, and never excluded from his life. As he got a bit older, it was my choice when I wanted to be excluded from him - usually only brief times.
But therefore when the alternating-weekend thing started during the divorce, it was awful. I was deeply distressed, and immobilizingly depressed with the forced separations. And the first time he had to be away a week, I was grief-stricken.
[Probably the *worst was fear of the future, as this is not how I ever imagined rasing a child. It was paralyzing. God truly knows what he is saying when he tells us not to worry for tomorrow. The worries of the day suffice. I have since worked at letting go of worry of the future.]
These times the only thing that yanked me out of falling into a pit of despair was to remind myself that, “Some mothers are taking their children to chemotherapy today!” I still use that when I am in danger of falling.
There really is no way out of the pain of divorce - for the most part, you simply have to muck your way through what only time can heal.
What helped me on the way was prayer. I thank God, who had a plan, who knew my future, because he brought me out of the Protestant Church and into the fullness of what he wants all Christians to have - the Catholic Church, and gave me a year of pure grace, my “honeymoon”, before the first pre-divorce erruptions, and therefore I was strengthened with all the riches, the graces God pours out so abundantly through His Church. Elsewise I don’t know how I could have made it. I was too unprepared and taken unawares.
I prayed the rosary and chaplet daily. My life was in a horrible place, but at night I would walk, and pray my rosary and chaplet. They are great prayers for being with God when your heart is too breaking to pray extemporaneously. When you are speechless.
Because I was greiving, I counted on not praying them well, knowing God would understand. But I would feel peace from it, in spite of my poor efforts at prayer.
Also,
everyday I did a
morning offering. Don’t forget that! You have
so much suffering to offer - why waste it. I remember explaining that to my son once - that it won’t make the pain less, but at least your pain is used for something. To snatch souls out of purgatory! Then those souls will pray for you! It made sense to him because he never fails to remember to offer up now. He reminds me!
Continued on next post, with a special comment to Mariam.
