alien invasion II

[hoosiermama]

Just thought I should probably update, and perhaps switch forums--don't know yet.

As of April 24, I am officially divorced. That, ummmmm, makes me twice divorced. I would never have thought I'd be here! But I'm okay.

We had mediation, worked it out with things pretty much as positive for me as I could have hoped. In fact, the only thing I wanted that I didn't get out of the whole legal hassle was for H to pay my attorney fees. But it was a negotiating point, and he gave up something else...anyway, that's how it worked out.

Custody--he has 6 nights out of every 2 weeks. Yes, that seems like a lot, and I wish it was less. However, D13 and I sat down and had a chat about it, and she is content with visitation the way it has been. After some prayerful consideration, I decided it would be best to do what she prefers.

At the end of mediation, both attorneys and the mediator commended us for our flexibility and our ability to put our daughter first. That just about made me hurl. But I kept my mouth shut and went with the flow. After they left the room, H hugged me, and actually kissed me, we both said "I'm sorry it didn't work out." I had a few tears, he told me "I'll always love you, you know." (Yeah, that kinda made me want to hurl too!) But at any rate, I walked out of the room feeling a thousand lbs lighter, just having the whole process behind me.

After a few days of feeling almost euphoric and wondering when the impact would hit me, I realized why I continued to feel lighter than air. Not simply that the process was behind me, but that by the grace of God, I seem to have forgiven H. That was something I really haven't given that much thought to; if I thought about it at all, I placed it off in the distant future because it's something I've always struggled with. But apparently I am being held up by others' prayers! So please don't compliment me--forgiveness did not come about through force of will or any virtue on my part. It was/is simply grace. And now I really understand what forgiveness is--it's not saying what he did was okay, or that I even understand how he can have left his family and become a complete hypocrite about his faith and values. It's not saying "hey, c'mon back whenever you're ready, and hit me with your best shot." It's not saying that his decisions haven't caused me more pain than I've ever had in my life. What it IS, is no longer holding him responsible for my feelings. I think I had been doing that for a very long time; he was always narcissistic, it's just that the mlc took all the brakes off. I no longer have the burden of hating him; I don't feel much of anything for him at this point. Not love, not pity, not anger. I am much more emotionally involved in looking toward my own future--whatever that turns out to be--than in wallowing in the past and its pain. And there's some real peace in that. Again, please don't ask me how I got here, because the only explanation I can give is that I prayed a lot throughout this whole ordeal, and I believe a lot of people were also praying (and even fasting) with and for me.

Yes, I still have waves of sorrow, but I'm managing to surf them fairly well; I hope the tsunamis have passed. Mostly the sorrow is related to grieving the loss of my nieces and nephews and a lot of friends, and the loss of my church community (which is a separate but coincidental issue).

I've been doing a frantic "nesting" thing--not really sure what that's about. But I have a feeling it reflects coming out of a depression that has been longer than I realized. Four years ago we built an addition on our house; until the past few weeks, I had not yet hung any pictures. Now I'm rearranging furniture, hanging pictures, cleaning, picking out paint colors. I have finally conquered the riding mower, and between mowing and other yardwork, my yard looks better than it has in years. The first effort at mowing wasn't pretty, wasn't efficient, and pretty much gave me whiplash--but I got it done. D13 asked to do part of the mowing (my yard is the size of a football field), so I let her. And we both came to the same conclusion, which she put into words--"Dad always made this seem like such hard work! He had to come in and rest and cool off and everything. I don't get it, Mom--mowing is kinda fun!" So we laughed about it, and speculated that dad really just wanted us to think it was hard so we wouldn't want to take away his fun (okay, I didn't really believe that, but she was having fun with it!)

So I'm job-hunting again. My school nurse position ends in May, picks up again in August--but I can't take the summer off. Besides, I need a job that pays more money. Most likely, I can stay within the same system I'm currently in and work in a clinic. But prayers would be appreciated!

So that's my sitch. I think it's a happy ending, altho not the one I would have hoped for last May when H left. I don't know if I'll continue to post. I haven't given much advice lately, mostly because I had a lot of irons in the fire myself--but also because I don't feel like I can really tell someone else how to DB. I never really had the opportunity to do that, because H simply never noticed that I still existed. As for "getting a life," still working on that one too, but I think I'm closer than I have been for a long, long time.