Move

You probably know by now that it wasn't my idea.  I had everything for our lives all planned out.  Midsummer, first came  the pronouncement.  Never, ever, ever in my wildest dreams did I even come close to thinking that divorce could happen.  What about our family?  What about the kids?  You don't know what you're DOING!  I've BEEN through this and you haven't, and it changed my life forever; ripped my safe home to shreds and things were never ever the same.  (When you're 15, that really matters).

I just couldn't fathom it for weeks.  Three weeks after the pronouncement I had a high school church mission trip to Indiana to chaperon with my two oldest kids.  I begged him not to go to a lawyer until we went to our counselor upon my return; the one we just couldn't make time to go to years before.  

Everything was surreal.  I told no one except my sister, and ironically his 'closest' friend - a desperate move to indirectly influence him I suppose, because telling others would have made it real.  During the mission trip I called my closest 'mom' friend - we'd raised our kids together.  I had been her lean-to when she and her husband had gone through a very rough patch several years before, so I figured she could understand.  

After the mission trip I attended a week long intensive group counseling event as recommended by the counselor.  My purpose had been to figure out exactly, in black and white, what to do to turn this thing around, to make him see.  Turns out it wasn't like that at all; it was all about me.  It forced me to begin facing reality.  When I came back I insisted that he move out of our bed at the urging of the director of the group event.

Of course the pronouncement meant his eventual move from our home.  As summer ended and school began I was frantically reading books about how to save your marriage from divorce and they all said the same thing.  There were even acronyms - Get a Life (GAL), OW, OM (other Wo/Man).  Get a life.  Ok, I'll just do that.  I'll get a life so that he will come to his senses and then I'll be even better off and ready, because if I act desperate or clingy it just reinforces everything and pushes him away more..  

Besides, he never follows through with anything.  I wanted to believe that.  Each morning he would come upstairs from his bed in the basement to get ready for work as I was getting the kids out the door.  I began a daily morning walk so I wouldn't have to face him as he left for work.  I could hardly bear to be in the house when he was there, especially if the kids were not there.  Those walks saved me.

I began the 'Divorce Diet' in earnest, losing 23 pounds in about six weeks.  My thoughts were manic and the only way I could calm them was by letting hymns roll through, or by reciting the Lord's Prayer.  I prayed unceasingly.  I read books, I searched the internet, I wrote emails to my family and I wrote in a prayer journal a dear friend had given me after I told her what was going on.  

I didn't sign up for courses that semester, even though I was half way through with my master's.   In September the news came that he had found a place; he was moving.  I panicked.  M and S came over as I sobbed; M rubbed my forearm just like Mama used to when I was sick.  After they left I flat out told God that I just wasn't ready for this.  I just couldn't handle it.  I screamed and sobbed, I stomped my feet, my first tantrum in decades, a foreshadowing of times to come.

After that my feelings weren't at a fever pitch, but it calmed me enough to function.  Just a few days after my tantrum, the news came that it fell through!  No move just yet.  I believe to this day that God answered my terrified prayer.  It helped me to see even more clearly that I was not alone.  My friends encouraged me to face reality when I explained the results of my prayer.  I knew it would come eventually, sooner rather than later.  I still made dinner every night; we sat together as if.  I kept thinking, maybe, just maybe, if I do everything like the books suggest.

October.  Another pronouncement.  The move was happening, no doubt.  In fact it was someone from church who was helping him out.  New house, never lived in, unexpectedly renting.  In my totally freaked out state it felt like a betrayal.  The girls' fall birthdays, "couldn't you wait until early November, until AFTER I give them their parties?"  The move occurred exactly one week before the first party.

He took the furniture I thought he would take; he did discuss it with me and I agreed.  I still knew him so well, predicted how he thought, what his decisions would be.  He did so many things 'wrong' - eliciting help from the kids to disassemble the larger furniture pieces and move things as I watched in a numb state of semi-consciousness.  

When it was all said and done, I just told the kids, "Dad loves you very much; we're just going to pretend like he's gone on a business trip.  You'll still get to see him."