Blogging About Divorce – The Legal Gamble

Understandably, my attorney is concerned blogging about my journey may hurt me or my divorce case.  Blogging may pose a risk to my divorce case. She’s right. Can I be careful and authentic at the same time? YES! I am committed to keeping my accounts in my blog – about the journey; my feelings, experiences and enlightenment throughout the way. This journey is beyond painful….but I must take each step each day.  I must breathe and I must share.  Reaching out is cathartic and necessary.  I COULD NOT DO THIS ALONE!

Everyone thinks I am so successful and strong – I can handle anything.  I built a strong image, a fačade and this is a side of me I’ve never revealed.  It’s okay to be emotional, vulnerable, raw.  The world accepts me and my flaws.  My friends SHOWED UP, support and love me.  I am AMAZED and open every day to the newness of this journey.  Thank you for reading…this is my response to my dear attorney’s concerns. BTW I’m blessed to have her represent me. 🙂

To Blog or Not To Blog…

Thank you for your concern and counsel. As a public relations professional, I have considered your concerns carefully and completely agree with the risks associated with putting myself and my journey out there.  I’ve been journaling for the last two months and know I need to do this…for me and for others in my shoes.

The Tangible Pain of Separation

Sometimes when my topic is so fiercely agonizing, I write in third person.  I think psychologically, it helps me to think of a person I’m helping – outside or inside myself….but not really me.

The Crushing Pain of Separation – is Biologically Real

Her words were wrapped around her throat – forming coarse lumps that made her gag and panic.

She was in flight or flight mode…. Cortisol raced through her like a freight train. The inability to speak, be heard, be loved BY HIM – impacted every part of her biology.

Her heart burned and struggled to beat as the letters of her feelings took inventory of the vascular wreckage. Her heart was in spasms and shattered.  LITERALLY BROKEN.

Her lungs gasped for air – every syllable felt like an embolism, like asthma, her breath was shallow and insufficient. CRACKLING. DROWNING.

Vowels and consonants scratched the lining of her stomach like ulcers, bleeding to be heard.

Her paragraphs cramped the muscles around her intestines – squeezing tighter and tighter…. Longing to be released.

There was no medicine to take, no remedy in sight.  She had to live with the strangling, suffocating, dark feeling of panic knowing her screams and pleas would go unheard:

THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT!

This is not ok with me!

WE DIDNT TRY EVERYTHING!!!!

I’m not done!

Don’t give up!!!!

Please stay.

Could I possibly cry any harder?

Dear Kids – Dad and I are Separating

These are the notes I prepared for our conversation with our teenaged children – thinking we had a chance. Perhaps this can help others on the verge of divorce.  Tend to each others SOULS!  Be SOUL-TENDERS!  

To our precious children – Dad and I are separating.

He got an apartment with a three-month lease.We are going to live apart for while in an effort to rebuild some important and broken parts of our marriage. We want to be healthier, loving people – and some time apart will help us put our marriage and our needs in better perspective.

We’ve been hurting as a couple for a long time. We take great trips, have a great house, comfortable lifestyle and all the THINGS we could ever want.  What we don’t have is an intentional connection on the heart/soul level. We don’t take good care of each other emotionally.  That’s more important than everything you see around you.

We’ve let life get in the way and time pass us by.  We don’t take the needed effort deep relationships deserve and require. As a result, we’ve grown apart. No one is guilty – no on is to blame – it just IS.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, to-do-list of LIFE and activities.  We are marking time.

Relationships are about CONNECTION and GRATITUDE.

It’s about looking into someones eyes and feeling them….seeing them….accepting them….and loving them.  This cannot be done during a commercial break, in between games or in between business trips. Relationships deserve a daily dose of INTENTIONAL SOUL TENDING.

Emotional Rollercoaster – That’s an Understatement – I’m leaving you.

And so the journey begins…

I was bare naked, walking on a tight rope made of sharp glass, whipped and beaten by gale force arctic winds, completely exposed and struggling to breathe from the rope around my neck and the end nowhere in sight.

That was my daily visualization.

That’s what it felt like when my husband left me.

Raw. Alone. Afraid. Vulnerable. Panicked. Dumbfounded. De-bowled.

My guts were ripped from my insides, my heart literally prickled in my chest as it dismantled with every beat. My throat was dry and oxygen scarce. All of my vital organs were in shock. Cortisol raced through my bloodstream, my heart pulsed in my neck and temples, my eyes swelled from the steady flow of tears – I looked like a different, older, beaten version of me. My voice was mute – there were no words. I screamed and cried but no one heard. I was completely alone. I raged to the four walls of my 1/2 empty closet.

The tectonic plates on which I built my secure life collided and buckled – I was in an emotional earthquake surrounded by instability and chaos. Safety, trust and truth were nowhere to be found. Everything was jagged, cold, dark and cutting.

I was rejected, unloved, discarded and my husband whom I called ‘the man of my dreams’ moved on. JUST LIKE THAT.

Or was it?