O Dear God, What Do I Do?

Ok, I know you are in shock.  You will go through those well known stages of grief, over and over again, like waves.  But what about right now, what to do?  It's terrifying; it is a pain and fear and sadness so deep that it's inexplicable to anyone who hasn't personally gone through it; even more so if it is unexpected.

First, breathe.  Just make yourself breathe.  

Do this for each and every trauma that you face, always.  Say this, "This too shall pass."

Next, resurrect or reinforce your relationship with God and pray; pray for God to give you faith, then believe, let go and believe.  Repeat as often as necessary, giving more stock to the believe part.  

If you're like I was, praying will be a constant staccato, mostly one way conversation.  That's ok, God can handle it.  God is, and always will be in charge anyway, and God always, always wants what is best for us, wants us to find our way to the best 'us' we can be, always.  Force yourself to believe that.  Remind yourself every minute if you must.  This is happening FOR you.

Get very very real, as real as you possibly can.  The truth lies in that realness.  Your gut will tell you the truth if you can make yourself breathe and be still enough.  It's near to impossible, but it's there, I promise.  Now ask yourself, 'Is it really over?'

Don't ask it from the fearful position of wanting it not to be over, or the angry position of 'hell yeah!', and I know you know the difference.  

Be still long enough to know.  If you think in your heart of hearts there is a chance, then get a counselor yesterday and get to work; go alone if you have to.  It's almost always best to save the marriage; you've got history, commitment, probably children whose lives will be forever changed, and years of getting to know each other that are worth preserving.  If nothing else, maybe you can work yourselves into one of those couples who can end things in an atmosphere of peace, on a level field.

I've been told that regardless, it will take as much emotional work to repair a marriage as it will to dissolve one.  That said, in my opinion, as long as there is not abuse or addiction, and maybe even if there is addiction, working it out and saving the marriage is the best possible outcome.  Caveat:  It takes two.  There are books at the end of this article that may help.  God bless you.  Even if you do decide to rebuild your marriage, keep reading, because you should do these things for yourself even if you ARE married.

If it's definitely over, you must, I say you must make a plan for your future because you're really the only one who will take care of yourself.  You cannot rely on anyone else to take care of you.  You can certainly ask people to help you with some things, and to a degree you can do a little leaning on those who let you, but nobody will take care of you in the way you need to be taken care of, besides you.  That's why you need a plan for you.  Your plan must include addressing your financial future, your work/career, and your home life, especially with children.

My attorney advised me that divorce is a series of bridges that you must cross.  When it first happens it feels like you have to do all of this work and make all of these decisions immediately,  because there are so many 'what ifs,' but I am here to tell you that you don't.  Don't let your mind even take you there.  It's crazy-making.  Just breathe and be still and pray, and make your plan and follow it through, one day at a time or one minute at a time if you need that. Change your plan if your life makes it clear that it isn't working.

Remember this:  Whatever you tell yourself is what you will live.  I mean it, look it up, study it, it's true, so be careful what you tell yourself.  It may take years to change your tune, but do it!

While you're breathing, and being still, and letting all of that noise, and terror and craziness in your head just continue to float around instead of drown out the 'you' inside there, I strongly suggest that do these things for yourself:

Learn everything you can about your current (both of you) financial situation as soon as possible; you should know that anyway.  EVERYTHING.  Get a dated snapshot of everything, as quickly as possible.  People do crazy, shocking, borderline evil things when facing the dissolution of a marriage.  Do your best not to let yourself do that; it's not worth it.  Write it down and burn the paper.  

Be respectfully distrustful of the other.  Make copies of recent bank and investment account numbers and balances, credit cards, pay stubs, research retirement funds and put it all in a safe place.  You're not hurting anyone by getting that information.  You may never need it, but if you do, you've got it.

Ask around about a competent attorney.  It will be expensive, but a good one will let you pay as you go, and may even be willing to charge you less based on your financial situation.  It will be worth it, worth the peace of mind and your future may depend on it.  Go in there with the thought that you just want things to be fair; don't let yourself get greedy and don't just give up in despair!  More on that later.  

The very first thing a good attorney will do is ask for a financial snapshot from the day of separation, or the day that the announcement was made.  Use that information that you just gathered for that.  You'll need it, I promise.

Ask around and get a good counselor - for yourself if you must, for both of you, separately at first then together if you are able to do that; whatever works best.  It will be worth every penny you invest - yes invest, you are investing in your sanity, and a good one will stand by your side and encourage you as you face the music.  If you also know someone who can give you spiritual advice on keeping your faith during trauma, all the better.

If you are having an affair, you must stop.  Get the help you need to stop.  If it's true love, it can wait; right now you need this time for yourself and your children.  If it can't wait then it's not true love and it's not meant to be.  

Are there children under 18 involved?  Whatever you do, do NOT let yourself speak ill of the other one!  Do everything you can to avoid that.  A class called 'Kids First' required for divorcing parents in Pennsylvania  teaches that children see themselves as being made up of each parent.  When you disrespect the other, you are disrespecting that part of your children, and it hurts them deeply and quite possibly can result in their turning against you someday.

Allow them to love both of you unconditionally, encourage that.  If they start to disparage the other, as tempting as it may be to agree, just reinforce that the other loves them very much and the divorce has nothing to do with them.  It's so hard if you're in a position of being 'wronged' by the other.  Regardless of the outrage you feel towards the other's behavior, you must find a safe and completely separate outlet for those emotions, away from the children.  That's where a good counselor comes in handy.

Do what you can to be there for your children, it's really hard for them, even if they act as if it's not.  Help them to verbalize.

You will make mistakes, and when you do, make amends, apologize, talk through it, ask for forgiveness.

If you have been at home with the children for years, there is a good chance your state may help you in the interim; consider what your attorney advises, talk to others who have been there, and pray.  While you are breathing and being still, listen for God to tell you what to do next, for which bridge you should cross.  It will feel like intuition, like your gut, like a nudge.  It won't be like passion, like if you don't do it you'll not survive, but it will be like peace.  It will never involve hurting yourself or another person, ever.

Filing for support and custody through your local Domestic Relations office may provide you and your children the financial security and stability you need for the early weeks and months to come, especially if you are unemployed.  Depending on the state you live in, it will force a  mathematical financial declaration from both parties so you can know where to start the next phase of your plan.  

You cannot make or delay decisions out of fear of the impact those decisions will have - like the other being angry; you must think of yourself and your children first.  Remember what those flight attendants say, "When traveling with small children, be sure to apply the oxygen mask to yourself first, before assisting your child."  You are not being selfish by taking care of your needs first.  That doesn't mean running out and spending extravagantly, quite the contrary.  Now is the time to buckle down and get serious about your spending plans.

Listen to your attorney, learn as much as you can, but usually if it's in your possession, you must pay for it.  You may need to take that new car and give it and its payments back to your spouse.  If you're in the house, you'll need to make those mortgage payments, can you afford it?  If you can't, yes, you will need to move.  Do what you need to do to survive.  If you do stay in the house, as awkward as it may be, you may need to change the locks.  Pray about it, check with your attorney, be safe.  Divorce is often crazy-making.

Write if you can, journal, email friends or family who love you.  Did I mention prayer?  Most importantly, talk to others who have crossed more bridges than you, and even more importantly, help anyone who hasn't yet crossed the bridges you have.  Keep in mind that your friends who haven't been through this may not be able to hear you without discomfort.  That's about them, not about you.  It may generate deep seated fears that they have, and it may just be too uncomfortable or frightening for them to hear.  They might say things that hurt deeply and feel like rejection; try to be forgiving and find someone else who is able to listen.  

Walk every day, rain, snow or shine if you can, or do some form of exercise.  Be out in nature as much as you can; it's an excellent time to pray.  

Do everything in your power to find something good about your life, each and every day.  Write these things down, post them on your mirror.  

Learn how to meditate and do it, try for a few minutes as many days as you are able.  If you are Christian, learn about Centering Prayer.  If you are Jewish, learn about Jewish forms of meditation, likewise Muslim meditation.  Meditation is a form of centering yourself and allowing your unceasing thoughts to settle just a little so you can open yourself up to hear God's whispers.  

Do everything in your power not to act out when you freak out.  You will freak out about something.  Force yourself to stop, breathe, be still and pray, and wait a few days before acting.

Use your strength to stop yourself from reacting to negative with negative.  Write that nasty-gram in response if you must, but send it to yourself only.  Usually ignoring the negative will result in less negative over time, tho things will probably get worse for a short while.  Protect yourself if you feel you are in danger, always.  Go stay with a friend or loved one if you need to.  

You will probably need to cry, and maybe even cry hard, maybe even have two-year-old temper tantrums with God (make sure you are alone!).  Sometimes the pain just has to come out and when it does talk to God as you cry.  It's ok to get mad at God, God can take it.  Almost always I would hear a loving reply in my thoughts as I wailed my despair.  I found that after a really big cry I was very apologetic to God, humbled and grateful, and it would bring me peace for awhile.  Sitting in the car in the garage (with the doors closed) is a good place to let loose.

Look for signs of God's loving touch through human hands.  Once I was at the grocery store and working hard to focus on what I needed, but feeling so very alone and vulnerable, and the mom of one of my daughter's friends bumped into me and gave me the perfect, and perfectly timed hug.  Another time before I had filed for support, and the money was down to $11 just a few days before Christmas I found a fifty dollar bill in my backpack.  Little things, but enormous enough to grow my faith even stronger. 

Do nice things for yourself and others, in equal amounts.  As emotionally spent as you are, just doing a little something for another, even anonymously will re energize you.  Just remember to breathe and pray.  

One day at a time.  

This too shall pass.

It gets better.  

Time to get to work!  How did you cope with your divorce in those early terrifying days?

Crazy Time

Class of '77

A few short years after Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the battle of the sexes.  Small town Alabama girl, daughter of a homemaker and first generation college graduate, chemical engineer.   

Many of our mothers secretly wanted us to do what they did not, could not:  to free ourselves from the limits that those Women's Libbers were fighting against - to free us to get our education, to have that career.  Our fathers struggled with wanting us to make those college degrees worth the investment, yet wanting us to marry to be safe from having to make it on our own.

Most of us who had the wherewithal, the backing or the drive did pursue those opportunities.  We got our degrees, took those first jobs, started those careers.   Once I got that under my belt, all I really wanted was to be a mom, to stay home and raise my kids, to feel taken care of, protected, financially and emotionally.  I did what Mother told me to do and got my degree and career to protect myself, to have something to fall back on, but I was done, ready to marry, ready to have a family!  I think I always knew it, but kept that little tidbit tucked away; I wouldn't want my degree to be a waste, that just wouldn't be right.

Seven years, two promotions and three jobs into that career, and only a short four months past the ideal time to start a family (two full years of marriage), I knew the moment I held my firstborn in my arms that I had found my true PURPOSE!  I did the cursory return to work after three months, and I did it as perfectly as Dr. T. Barry Brazelton said we moms should - continued breastfeeding (pumping twice daily at work), made homemade baby food, blended a babysitter at home with a church 'Mother's Morning Out' program to expose my son to other children.  

As I was returning to work, Carly Simon's Coming Around Again album is what I cried to.  I was miserable back in my 'opportunity' job, the one that I had had to fight to get, the one that projected those golden boys on to big fat careers in the Pharma industry.  I wanted to prove that I could get that opportunity; I fought for it even though no one with my degree had been given the chance.  It was what I was raised for - management!  Right?  I mean young women of this age had degrees, had careers.  We were supposed to be the super-moms, have it all.  But then my baby started to walk, and I was exhausted and I was aching for him every day.  

Thank God I was able to resign just after my son's  first birthday.  I honestly never looked back.  I could tell that my husband was not thrilled even though he refused to express his wishes, but I was pretty strong willed; it was our second biggest fight (the first centered around my unwillingness to change my name upon marriage).  Maybe that should have been my first sign.  Hindsight being what it is.  Finally, I had my purpose, my calling, and I threw myself into it with fervor and passion, unlike anything I had ever done before.  I was going to be the perfect stay-at-home mom, and raise the best kids possible.

Flash forward 17 years and guess what?  That life I had all perfectly planned out - the one where I finish a master's for a new, more interesting career, go back to work when my youngest is approaching high school - part time, mind you, earning just enough to pay for that college tuition so my husband wouldn't worry about money (never-mind that we were in one of the nicest neighborhoods in town with all the associated accouterments), we get the kids through college, continue with those occasional European vacations, retire comfortably to travel more and begin to enjoy the grandkids... 

Real life happened while I was busy making those other plans.

My story is pretty common and almost textbook - married for twenty years, we had our problems - depending too much on the other, or depending too much on stuff or on outside friendships for our own happiness, you can make the list.  

Then husband's father dies, the outside friendship turned into a little more for him, and next thing I know my world has turned on a dime.  My plans go up in smoke.  Degree to fall back on or no, the terror sets in.

Remember when you were pregnant and all of a sudden you saw pregnant women everywhere?  Thankfully, or rather sadly, I began to see I was not alone.  Even in my small community there were several of us, and it happened to two others I knew at almost the exact time I found myself in that situation.  The story lines are different, yet so much the same, and each comes with so much pain.

It's the kind of pain that you can't really explain, and can't really understand until you've gone through it.  Like labor pain I guess.  But that's another story.

This story, the one that fits the mold, has to do with us, we women (and sometimes men) who had our lives all planned out and then...

So come to find out, and when I say find out, I mean truly find out, I've finally begun to remember more often than not, that life happens FOR us, as my counselor drilled into me.  The biggest struggle is not facing what we have to face - a life where we are solely responsible for our well being.  That struggle is tough enough, and I hope by building this community we can help each other enjoy that.

The biggest struggle is letting go of those plans we had.  

The longer I continued to force my unpredictable life into that plan and saw that there was no longer a fit, the more miserable I was.  Believe me, it can slowly kill us if we lose our focus and continue to cling to smoke and mirrors.  It's a lesson I must continue to learn each day.  I forget all the time.

How about you?  Did your life turn out different than you had planned for it to?  I used to be jealous of all of those women living the life I was SUPPOSED to live.  Well, I still get jealous sometimes.  But now?  Now I get to make choices!  How great is that?  Well, that's the problem sometimes, and my new purpose.  I hope you will join me in this unpredictable journey towards opening the windows to our souls and growing our purpose.  I believe our collective purpose began a long time ago.  For me, that purpose, way back when,  might even include using that skill that Miss Mosely in third grade told me I used - 'nice adjectives!'

What about you?  What unexpected direction has your life taken you in?  Let's get to work!  Isn't life beautiful?