Divorce and a Daughter

Being told those four words was truly the hardest thing anyone has to go through, especially with a child. You fight between want your heart wants and what would benefit yourself and this precious little baby looking up to you for answer. How can anyone choose between fight to save your marriage or fight to find who are you? You’re lost, you’re confused, you’re heart is aching, all the while you have this beautiful one-year-old looking at you for answers and is concerned.

You tell yourself everynight, God has a plan. Everything happens for a reason. But what was the reason for my marriage ending in the way that it did? You start beating yourself up, blaming the things you didn’t do and the things you should’ve done differently. You fight and fight and FIGHT for the man who was in love with someone else.. Finding yourself angry, sad, confused, wanting answers that you weren’t quite sure where to begin to look for. You want to look at the man who just broke your heart and ask him “why?” but how was he supposed to know? Sure he wanted the divorce but would it really have been worth hearing what you already knew..?

You wake up, get ready for work, kiss that sweet baby of yours goodbye for the day, fighting back tears at work while you act as if you were strong—when I’m reality, you were crumbling inside—you go home say hello to that baby, get her ready for bed—still fighting back the tears as you look at her and see nothing but the man who helped create her—you get her in her cute PJs, read her a story, love on her for a few more seconds as you pray that you’ll have the answers when she gets at that age to ask questions. Then you go to sleep, wearing the ring he gave you as he promised his life to you and soaking the pillow in tears but trying not to be loud so the baby won’t wake up.

Then it happens.. you see them.. the man who broke you, with her. As your stomach ties into knots, wanting to vomit but at the same time wanting to run out of the store screaming. You hold yourself together, the baby needs diapers and food, as you think to yourself, 'Just go and get what you came to get,' along with questioning 'Why do I have to see them?' You fight the tears so no one thinks you're a crazy women randomly crying. Standing in the checkout line you lock eyes with her; the women that broke up my marriage, the women who destroyed my family. As you two lock eyes, for what seems like an eternity, she turns to him and he looks at you big-eyed and shocked. You shake your head as eyes become to fill with tears and continue to check-out.

All my assumptions, suspensions, rumors, were true.. when am I going to wake up from this bad dream? As you yell, headed home and sitting at a red-light. As you begin to pray to take the pain away. To let this end however this is going to end. Begging to give you peace to stop hurting and stop crying because you have a daughter looking up to you. As you get home, a two-legged little angel runs up to you, excited to see you, and your face is swollen from the tears and your chest hurts from the screaming on the ride home, but as she wraps her tiny little arms around your neck all the pain seems to go away.

You read every divorce book you can find, knowing they won’t help the pain but there’s got to be something that can help.. you find nothing. Until it’s three in the morning, you’re about to give up, and then there it is; “Divorce is not about finding what’s wrong with you, it’s about finding what’s right.”