New Beginnings

[Dawn70]

I don't know much about your sitch and frankly, don't have time to go back and play catch up now, but something in your recent post made me feel compelled to comment. Listen, I GET IT more than you will possibly know. That big ole D word SUX and it was so very hard for me to say because I felt like I was somehow being judged as a failure when I dared to utter it. I couldn't even say it to my parents and my siblings at first, despite the fact that my parents are divorced from each other and my brother is divorced. Just not a word I ever thought I would use in reference to myself. And, you say at the end that you want to say your not together, things have changed and let people figure it out and you add it is not what you wanted.

Girl, let me just tell you, that very last phrase rang SO loudly true in my head that it was almost as if I had typed it myself. I didn't want a D either. I just came home from work one day and my XH dropped the big atom bomb on me and I had NO idea it was coming. I was devastated and lost, confused. It didn't take many tears or much conversation to realize that he was dead set and I pretty quickly came to the realization that I was not going to beg or plead with a so-called man who didn't want to be with me to stay. He wanted us to tell everyone the D was mutual and that we had grown apart. I didn't want to say anything at all because it was too painful. We settled on he could tell what he wanted and I wouldn't contradict him, but the fact that he was "finding the love of his life" just 2 short weeks after our D was final was pretty telling to our friends and family and they all put 2 and 2 together, just like I did, and now he looks like the bad guy. For me, it still took a few months to say "D" but counseling helped. I urge you to not lag too long in learning to be open about it and putting it out there because it isn't going to change or go away. As far as your D4, you should be honest with her, but on the level that she understands. She may not understand divorce per se at her age. She'll follow your lead though. I don't have any great advice for you here because our kids were adults when we D'ed.

I think skirting the issue or just kind of downplaying it is not healthy for you or D4. Again, she's little so she might not understand divorce so it is good that you don't necessarily go into a lot of detail when people ask in front of her, but a quick, simple aside out of her ear shot will be more freeing than you can imagine. I swear when I finally brought myself to say it, it was like this weight had been lifted off my shoulders and I didn't feel like I had an albatross around my neck anymore.

I still don't like the word and I'm married to someone else now, who also knows the pain of D, but I just know that there are so many who have lived through it in this day and age that people are more understanding and accepting of it now.

Hang in there!