This is No Flesh Wound

Oh single life they say is so much better.  You can do what you want when you want and stay in your underwear all day!!!! Oh shut up, this single life sucks, it is not what I wanted.  I loved being married and taking care of my family.  I loved going to work knowing that what I am earning is helping to provide my children and my wife a life.  Maybe I am weird but I cherished it, I cherished providing my kids with a nice home in a nice part of town.  I cherished allowing my wife the opportunity to stay at home with the kids if she wanted to or going to work if she wanted to.  Was life perfect? Hell no, but everyday I was trying to make it better then the last.

So many people try different things to try to make the divorcee feel better.  Little do they know none of it works, all we want is to scream at the top of our lungs that this sucks and we do not want it.  Just someone to listen to, let us scream and then cry like a little baby.  I do not know how many times I would cry until I could not cry anymore, then cry some more.  Then anger would take over, I would walk up and down the hallway in my house screaming at her ghost, calling her every bad name I knew and then stringing them together.  Anything to try to just ease the pain a little.

I also tried to do things that was against my nature.  One being going to the bar, I have never been someone to go to the bar, but I wanted to be apart of something.  Anything to get me out of the house and feel oppressed by her ghost.  Let me say none of this worked, I felt better for an hour or so but then it all came back.

Just hoping to help you realize that this pain is real and it is going to stick around for awhile.  When you think it is over it will come back again.  Yes it is a bleak picture, but the pain does make you stronger and allow you to cherish the good moments. Then some good moments string together to become days of good moments and you will find your smile again.  Soon you realize that this is not all bad, there is some diamonds in this rough.  Even through these good times do not be disheartened when you have a rough day again, those will come.  Eight months from the beginning of this I still have moments that my heart races and my mind will go into overload, but instead of being a full day like that I have had enough good moments to calm myself down and move forward.

Some advise as you go through this.  First, get into counseling.  Counseling is not for the weak, and what you are about to embark takes out the strongest of men.  It is going to hurt like hell and your inner voice is going to start spreading some lies to you.  If you do not get that under control you will start to believe those lies and the wheels start to fall off.  Second, if you are like me and go to church find someone from church to talk to about your spiritual life. In another post I will talk about how I almost lost my way completely because of the anger I had with God.  The counselor I have is God fearing and helps complement the pastor I am working with.  DO NOT try to do this on your own, you are not an island and there are many people who are willing to help. 

Please share with anyone you know who might need to hear this.  Also, please follow if you like what you are reading.  There will be more posts of this journey I am on and hoping to help someone walk through divorce.

Take Care of Your Children

"When are you and mom getting back together again?" "I want the old family back." "Why did mom leave us?" These questions and statements haunted me and still do.  How do I answer them? Should I tell them the truth?.......

Not only did I have these questions but with three children each one was acting differently. The oldest (who is a step child but choose to stay with me and the other two) is a teenager and would hide in her room.  I know this is natural for any teenager but I wanted to make sure she was alright.  My son who is the middle child and just like me held everything in and not say much.  I would question a little but would not pry.  The youngest was a totally different story, she is the one that would ask the questions, I knew the other two were looking to see how I would answer and they had the same questions too. 

So how did I handle it?  First I would tell my youngest to pray, pray that God would heal our family and mommy would come back to us.  After awhile and when my ex decided to see the kids more regularly (we have 50/50 custody) I would tell the youngest that our family is not going back to the way it was and that we are going to learn together our new normal.  It broke my heart every time the questions would come up and I would see the heartache in their eyes. 

Some of the other actions my children took was sleeping in the bed with me (not the teenager of course but the younger two).  Again the youngest would be the honest one, she said one night she wants to sleep in my bed to make sure I did not leave like mommy did. That tore me apart, I assured her I would never leave her and also told her mommy loved her.  One last statement that was made that broke me in two was when my youngest was mad at me she said "I know why mommy left you were not loyal to her!!!!!!"  Luckily I walked away from her before shouting back "you have it all wrong, mommy was not loyal twice." Instead I took a breather from the situation and walked in letting her know that mommy was the one that wanted to leave and that as a child she needs to worry about kid stuff. 

Men here is my advise.  Purpose in your heart not to speak badly about your ex in front of the children.  Do whatever you can to help your children to love their mommy  It will be extremely hard with all the arrows that will be flying your way from your ex and her lawyer, but remember the kids have half her blood in them and will always love their mom.  No matter how rough things become and the lies that may be said, know that after everything is over the kids will be there and you do not want to be trying to explain your actions away. 

In another post I will go over some ways to run a household as a single dad.  Luckily for me I already did a lot of the chores around the house and knew how to cook, but there are still challenges of getting everything done.  First though make sure you are plugged into a church and have people around you that can help you to walk through the first couple of months, the emotional roller coaster takes a toll, and trying to raise kids just ads to the stress.  I did not ask for help enough, the church I attend asked if they could cook for me for the first couple weeks and because of my pride I said "no."  I wish I would have taken them up on it, as the meals we had were not very good. 

I want to end this post with a glimpse of how Jesus treated the children while he walked the earth:


Let the Children Come to Me
13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.


The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Mk 10:13–16). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

I love how Jesus took them in his arms and blessed them.  I tell my kids all the time no matter what is happening Jesus is there with open arms willing to listen. 

Danger Ahead

Throughout this blog I will go over different aspects of my divorce that I have learned from.  Be it from feelings to actions I have taken.  Right now I want to address one huge danger that I walked into and luckily walked out of before becoming burned.

The danger I am talking of is the rebound relationship.  Let me be clear DO NOT GET INTO A RELATIONSHIP RIGHT AWAY!!!!! I cannot say it enough DO NOT GET INTO A RELATIONSHIP RIGHT AWAY!!!!! Yes I know your lonely and it hurts just to look at the bed.  If your like me you have slept on the couch, the floor, in a chair, anywhere to get some sleep.  I was on Xanex, Ambien, and would take Nyquil. If I was lucky the first two months I would get three hours of sleep.  It sucked, I just wanted the pain to go away and become manageable, so I took the advise of those around me and worked hard to get a date.  Believing the lie that in order to get over a relationship you need to get into one. 

The first date should have been my clue to never call her again.  She had different beliefs then me, a different political view, and a different way to raise her kids.  For some reason instead of walking away I would text her daily and we had more dates, including an evening with all the kids together.  What I liked about it was the pain I was feeling was replaced with infatuation.  The butterflies and puppy love came back.  Even though the warning signs were there I ignored them and went full forward with this relationship.  All of the sudden one morning I woke up understanding that I needed to stop this relationship from going further then where it was going.

Men, I know what its like, you miss wrapping your arms around the woman you loved.  You miss waking up to her next to you and giving her the soft kiss before going to work then coming home to her.  You would give anything to get that back.  But I believe Solomon said it right in Ecclesiastes 3....."there is a time for everything."  The time right now is for healing and spending time reflecting on who you are.  Also, if you have children like I do the time right now is to take care of them (there will be more on children in a future post).  They have had the same trauma we have had and need to have stability, and getting into a relationship will not help that.  

I hope this helps someone to avoid the pitfall I walked into.  I know how much it hurts, my situation may not be the same as yours, but the pain is there.  I am not totally out of it yet, and have moments I go backwards in my healing.  Please reach out with any questions you may have on how to deal with the pain, know there are others out there who have or are walking this path you are on. Just please do not turn to another woman to take away the pain.    

How did I get here

Nine months into this hell called divorce and some long nights and weeks it is time to lay down my thoughts and feelings to help others who may be going through the same thing.  Let me start with the back story and will go from there:

Back in February of 2016 I noticed that my lovely wife of 12 years had changed, things had become distant, this same thing happened less then two years ago when I found out she had stepped outside of the marriage.  So naturally I started to question what was going on and try to bring us closer again, like I did the last time she became distant.  This time the lies became even more extravagant, going so far as to start claiming abuse that was not there, anything to keep me from looking more into what was going on.  It was to the point that I actually believed some of these lies and was wondering who I was and if I was this monster she claimed me to be.  It took a toll on me and when I finally found the truth that she was planning on moving into another place with her new girlfriend I lost my mind. 

On the day I looked on the computer and saw the email that she was looking at a place with her girlfriend I confronted her.  She claimed she was trying to figure out if she could make it on her own to get away from me if I did not change (another deflection to keep me guessing), told her right then that she needed to decide if she was going to be in or out with the marriage that I am not going to beg her to stay with me anymore (first step into becoming less codependent).  She choose out, which meant walking out of the family for two months to "find herself." 

So here we are eight months later and my mind is starting to clear a little.  Let me say one thing first I AM AGAINST DIVORCE!!!! There is a reason God says he hates divorce, it not only hurts the parties involved but those around said parties.  Also, like in my case, if children are involved they go through pains that no child should ever experience.

Over the next weeks and months I will add posts about some of the feelings and experiences I have had over the last few months.  When I googled divorce and recovery almost everything is geared towards woman and their pain, I know there are a lot of men out there who have been blindsided and in a ton of pain right now like I have been.  My goal is to first hopefully stop divorce (if just one family is saved from the brink I feel this has been a success) and if there is divorce to know the feelings are real, to feel them and let the process work.