Love-and-Hate-Dennis-SkleyHate:
The shame.
The judgment.
When one of my babies is sick but not at home.
Being alone every other weekend.
Sitting at basketball games alone when it’s his time and my daughter must sit with him.
Every household task and decision falls to me.
The loneliness that sweeps over me sometimes.
No hand-holding.
No guy hugs.
No intimacy.  (Yes, I mean what you think I mean.)
The emotional limp that sometimes feels like will never go away.
The games that sometimes still go on when all I want is to be left alone.
Most meat at the grocery store comes with four cuts. (I delight in the times I find a three-pork-chop package.)
That feeling of less-than that I feel as a woman and sometimes even as a small family of three.  (Saying “three” at restaurants is still hard for me.)
I’m the good cop and the bad cop all the time with both of my kids.  It all rests on my shoulders to parent them well during these next couple years.

Love: (though love is a pretty strong word for this..…I’m not sure I truly love anything about being divorced)
The peace.
The quiet.
The no yelling/no arguing.
The lack of crazy-making.
There is no one here to temper my joy.
I can dance in my kitchen and play the music as loudly as I want without feeling embarrassed.
I make all the decisions.
I can buy whatever I want at the grocery store.
I don’t have to cook as often.
I can take really long, really hot showers.
My home looks and feels the way I want it to.
Jesus is real to me in a different and deeper way now.
I can be a friend to hurting women in a much more free, authentic, empathetic way.
I don’t live in my head all the time anymore.
I don’t cry myself to sleep anymore.
I’m not angry all the time anymore.
I’m not sad all the time anymore.
I get to figure out who I am and then actually be her.  The hiding and pretending have stopped.

I’m sure there’s more on both of these lists but it’s a start..…this is all just part of the grieving and the healing.  What would be on your list?

 

 

If this post encouraged you, you would benefit from “Unraveling: Hanging onto Faith through the End of a Christian Marriage”, found here.

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