The life I use to live....and what it's really like now.

The truth is...divorce is hard.

Not just on the kids.

You see....I never wanted this. I prayed with everything in me AGAINST the divorce....and yet....I am the one that filed FOR the divorce. It is all so complicated and frustrating. 

I still think divorce is terrible. I think it should be the VERY LAST THING someone does and ONLY when there is a refusal from the other person to give up adultery and abuse.

But no matter the why....it still hurts.

The life I use to live was double sided....one side was beautiful. A handsome husband, a house out in the country, a family of six daughters...sewing, dancing in the kitchen, piano playing, gardening and working on our little country home....involved in our church and our community through dance and foster care and adoption and special needs events....I loved that part of the life I use to live....

But then the other side...angry outburst, gambling the paychecks away, holes punched in walls, fear, lying, tears, wondering where your loved one was or who they were with, covering for them became the normal....I still grieve over that part of the life I use to live.

Adultery had become a "normal" in my world....adultery with porn, massage parlors, and other women....but when I made a covenant to love my husband, I meant it. I made a vow before God to walk through fire for my husband and I meant every word. And it was put to the test....over and over. I use to cry many times at night because I didn't know where my husband was or who he was with this time and I never could stay a step ahead of him! I would try....how I would try!...but it didn't matter. When someone has determined to do wrong, nothing you can do will matter. They just become sneaker and more creative in how to deceive you. 

But I NEVER wanted a divorce. I wanted my marriage. I wanted my husband. I wanted to honor and respect him even through terrible heartache. I wanted my daughters to see their parents grow old together and watch them push through hard times.

So I prayed. I begged God to change my husbands heart!! I had friends praying for God to move on his heart....and nothing happened except he got farther away. I cried until there were no tears left and I broke into so many pieces that there was nothing left of me. I can still remember sitting in our marriage counselors office,( who had become a good friend by this point) and he asked my husband,"will you stop having this relationship with this other woman so that your marriage can try and survive?"....and my husband....the one that I had given myself to completely and the one that I had determined to stand by NO MATTER WHAT....was walking away from me. And the life I use to live was about to be destroyed forever....

I left that counselors office crying so hard I could not see to drive. I parked my car and lost it. I screamed. I cried. I begged God to move on my husbands heart. I could not think....I could only pulse pain....

I drove home and talked with my parents and they reminded me that God hasn't given up and neither should I! I needed to set up some firm boundaries but keep praying for redemption. I called our recovery Pastor and recovery Counselor and I got many, many people praying on behalf of my husband. Every Sunday, my daughters and I would throw ourselves on the altar at our church and weep....begging God to DO SOMETHING! Every evening my girls and I would grab each others hands and ask God to move on their daddy's heart....

He left.

He moved states away to be with his girlfriend. A married woman who was getting a divorce in part to my husbands role in her life. It devastated me. It ruined me. It changed me. And it changed my daughters.

We had always taught the girls that marriage is a beautiful covenant between God and a man and woman. We had always taught our girls that God redeems and restores. Up to the day my husband drove off, we prayed for a miracle....but the day he left...our world crashed. My daughters faith was shaken and turned upside down and we all began to fall....desperately crying out to God to catch us! I thought I would die....in fact....I would lay in my bed at night and cry and cry and ask God to take me home because I just couldn't do it. The pain was to much and I didn't want to survive it! I TRULY believed that God wanted my marriage to make it! I TRULY believed that God was going to wake my husband up and bring him home to his family....but that did not happen. And my faith was shaking....because God IS GOOD! He is ALWAYS FOR HIS CHILDRENS GOOD.....and IF THIS was His good....did I want that? 

I couldn't bring myself to file for divorce so I filed for legal separation...secretly hoping that one day I would open the door and there would be my husband....coming home to the family who desperately loved him and STILL believed in him....but that didn't happen...and I had to make choices that I wanted nothing to do with. 

I prayed and wrestled with what to do. I was still grieving in IMMENSE ways and was also having to learn how to become a working single mother. I felt so very lost. Even now when I write about it, I can feel the pain of those moments....they were so dark and lonely and I was so unsure of everything. I felt rejection in ways that I cannot explain. I felt ugly. I felt unwanted. I felt unloved. I felt like all the 16 years of praying and supporting and loving my husband through all his addictions and junk he put our family through....meant nothing. Sometimes I still feel that way. But I also pressed into the Word of God like never before! I woke up and instantly grabbed my Bible or I could not make myself get out of bed. I read it throughout the entire day because I couldn't make it through without it...sometimes at my job, I would lock myself in the bathroom and literally would fall to my knees and cry because I longed to be a stay at home mom and I missed the life I use to live and my heart ached. I went to bed reading the Word and I kept the Word on audio throughout the entire  night.....I knew if I didn't, I wouldn't make it through this. 

As I sought out wisdom and prayed....and the heart of my husband was not coming home....I knew I was going to have to file for a divorce. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. When your spouse commits adultery, that spouse doesn't know what love is...but the faithful spouse....they don't just "fall out of love". I FOUGHT for my marriage because I WANTED my marriage. I didn't just stop loving the man that I had committed to love for the rest of my life....what I was having to do though is realize that the man I loved had never loved me like that....because when you truly love someone in a covenant way....you put their needs ahead of your own. You selflessly lay down your desires for supporting them....and when you walk through rehab, recovery groups, sober living homes....and all the pain that caused them to go INTO those things to begin with.....just to have them walk away from you when they decide they want something "different".....your love doesn't just stop. All the shattered pieces inside of you just swirl around cutting everything inside of you....and you bleed raw. 

My love for my husband didn't just "go away". I have had to surrender it to Jesus every day. I have had to lay down my love for my husband....the covenant love that I made a vow to God and him....I just had to lay it down at the feet of my King and ask Him to take it away. 

I can't say that my love for my husband is completely gone although I don't ever want to go back to the pain and fear that I lived in. I grieve for my husband and the way he has " normalized" his behavior.  I grieve the life I once lived many times over....but I am learning to love the life I AM LIVING.

Adultery destroys families. Lies destroy families. There is never a time that adultery is ok. There is never a time that abuse is ok. For way to long, I lived in a secret place of pain afraid of speaking the truth because I was so worried about what people would think of me....so I stayed. And I was wrong to tolerate abuse. I was wrong to stay silent. There are far to many women just like me, that stay silent when they should speak out....and there are far to many people who believe the lies of someone who has along history of lying over the cries of a broken woman. I want that stopped. I NEVER want my girls to be afraid to speak the truth about what is going on in their lives! I NEVER want my girls to tolerate adultery, emotional, physical, or substance abuse, lies and deception.....it is NOT ok. We can't be afraid of the word repentance and we can't be afraid to hold people accountable to live out truth. None of us are perfect. We all struggle....but we need to make sure our children know the difference between struggling with sin and walking hand in hand with sin.  

I am now a single working mom of six beautiful daughters. I have a job that I am learning more about each day and am grateful to serve at. I have a King who provides. Protects. Guards. and Speak life over us. I am still adjusting to life as a single mom. Most days it feels like it will be an adjustment forever....but maybe it will get easier one day. Being a single mom is hard. Sometimes I just wonder how I can do it all....and I am so thankful for the grace my children give me every day as I figure out how to do this.

The Word of God is alive. The very Scriptures I read every day are lived out before me and I see the hand of God in each moment of my life and my daughters lives....and I am breathing again.

Our family is so very different than the one I dreamed of....and the girls and I are still learning what that looks like but God continues to put new dreams in our hearts. 

I wish there was  a book that told me how to walk each day of this out....and I wish there was a "one fits all" kind of manual....but there's not. Each of us process things differently and I am doing my best to process all of this through the Word of God as my foundation.

God's plan for my life has not changed. God's plan for my daughters lives has not changed. He is ALWAYS for our good. He still has beautiful moments ahead for us....moments of joy and love and adventure....and we are looking forward each day to those moments! When we need a good cry...we simply have one. We stay grounded in truth and do not allow ourselves to get pulled into chaos that does not belong to us. We do not enable but we do love. We encourage each other and we give each other grace. We are dreaming again....and they are beautiful dreams.

So the life I use to live is gone....and a new life is here. A life I am still figuring out....but a life I am learning to love.