The OG subscribers to my blog will have heard me talk about this time and time again, but to anyone who’s newish, leaving my marriage was definitely the hardest decision of my life.
Hopefully it will forever remain so. The thought of going through anything more gut-wrenching and stressful than that makes my head hurt.
Can I say I had no choice but to leave? I don’t know. I felt like I had no choice. It was suffocating me. The tension, the disappointment and the emotional pain.
Yet I knew leaving wasn’t going to be easy either. Mainly because of what my kids might have to endure. And they endured worse than I could have ever imagined. I fared okay, I knew I wanted out.
I knew I had married the wrong person. I didn’t want to spend eternity with an alcoholic, it was embarrassing. But my kids did have it rough. It was almost like part of him wanted the kids to sink a little bit, so he could show me what my leaving had done.
I’m not going to say I was a saint or I was perfect but I did everything in my power to try and keep their lives exactly the same, minus having one household with both parents. Financially it was a struggle but I worked overtime whenever I could to try and compensate. So that the kids could still have everything they had before.
The last thing I wanted to be known for was a struggling single mom. I ran night and day, around and around the circular structure that was our family unit, patching holes in the walls. Just constantly patching holes.
Anyway we all survived. It was more than eleven years ago. I’ve almost gotten past the guilt. The kids are okay, or better than okay.
Kind of a depressing post for my American friends to have to read on their Thanksgiving holiday. I hope you are all enjoying your magnificent meals and time with family, if that’s what you choose. For those who won’t have that, McDonald’s, a TV dinner or a bowl of cereal in solitude can be just as fulfilling. Maybe more so.
bloom.planted.north 
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