A young friend asked me this week “What is the hardest thing about being a divorced person?” as she had spent a day with our blended family (and on a smooth flowing, we’re a happy family day no less) It was a hard question to answer, but I have spent a good amount of time contemplating the answer.
It wasn’t on my “to do” list to be the only one in my family who bears a real life experience equal to a degree in marriage dissolvement, in fact, as far and as wide as my childhood family goes, there are no divorces. I apparently had an aptitude for dissolution of marriage, for by the time I was 22, I not only had a Master’s in Gifted Education, but I had divorce papers very unexpectedly, I thought we were living happily ever after. It was a time of shame, embarassment and certainly a self defacing period. I had been the achiever, certainly never expected by anyone to be divorced, or left for someone else….I was a youth director and teacher for crying out loud! We were the church sweethearts. For six years I survived the devestation of what that divorce did to my heart. At twenty eight I reentered marriage and married a childhood sweetheart…but after ten years and two chidren, and he was living a part from us for most of them, my second marriage was history.
The world I am from, the Christian family I was raised in, would in no way, shape, or form accept divorce as something acceptable for their only daughter to do. In our family that also included no matter what was done to you. My mother was so embarassed by me that she simply whispered “no, she divorced” and looked at the floor when someone she knew asked if I was visiting. My mother who long struggled in many difficult situations with my father, certainly never gave up on him, nor did she leave, and when he left her for nine months once, she took him back not only in marriage, but as the love of her life in heart as well….and before their live was through together, they had shared over 45 years together. My grandparents over sixty five together It was not easy for me to face a second divorce particularly knowing that you had tried everything you knew to try for over ten years and nothing worked to make our home a stable, safe, or supportive place for children or myself.
To be continued
