My soon to be ex-husband, God that sounds so foreign yet familiar because it's the one thing I feared when I was in my 20s, called me today to let me know he's finally printed off the pages that is going to end our 21 year marriage. I had a job interview today but all I could think about were the words he said over the phone. I've felt like I got this great big brick lodged between my chest and my throat. It's choking me to death and the threads I was hanging on to are getting fewer and fewer. I want to know why and I want to know how everyone else can work through much worse problems than we have/had and make it through? I know you can't make someone feel something they don't feel. I can't make him love me anymore than I can stop myself from loving him, but why is it so easy for him? Why? Didn't he want a family? Didn't he want us to work? Didn't he see everything that I did and how it affected me over 21 years? Why didn't he?       ...

    I'm more at peace with the end of my marriage than I was at the beginning of all of this. It doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, it still is very much painful. I have a few job prospects which is better than what I had a week ago. I've had some people reach out to me; single parents who have been either in my shoes or close to it. The support has been great from everyone. I have to say that when something like this happens, there really is a grief process. I have gone through each stage at least twice now. I no longer try to question, "Why did this happen to me?" or "How could he do this to me?" It is what it is. We're hurting each other by going back and forth. I'm never going to get the answers I need and it's only going to cause more problems with us being able to help our children get through this because let's face it, this isn't just about me and my broken heart; their hearts have to matter and take priority. I do not wan...

    Saturday I crawled out of bed while my son was still asleep. I went to the bathroom and went through the routine of holding one of my husband's shirts and crying, covering my mouth so that my son could still sleep undisturbed. This has become the routine. After I got myself together, I turned on my phone and my husband had texted me that he wanted to see our boy today. Since my husband's truck is not running well, I offered to bring our son to him and pick him up when he was ready for him to come home. Home, it sounds so funny to still call this house that but it is what it is; a house.      I found myself excited because I knew how much our son really needed to spend time with his dad. The past four days had been really hard for him. Our boy had been overly agitated, aggressive, mad, sad, and let's face it, he's missed his dad. So when my husband was ready for him to come over, I got our son up and got him dressed in a new short outfit I had purchased l...

  The past seven days have been the hardest and worst in my life. I thought the hardest thing I would ever deal with was the deaths of both my grandparents, my grandmother being the hardest to face, but this has trumped that, well next to when my son laid for 6 days in a near coma state at Riley. I've laid all my cards out. I've begged, cried, prayed, and tried to find some way to convince him to stay, and now I have to stop. It doesn't mean I give up. It doesn't mean that I agree with his decision. It doesn't mean that I have lost hope for a reconciliation. It just means that I have to face this and find a way for me and my son to be happy with the situation, and I want my husband to be happy too. We still have to be parents to our son and misery isn't going to help anyone, least of all our boy. I still am going to need counseling for this. There is no way I'm going to be able to get through what is to come if I don't have someone to help me through i...

     I have had so many thoughts. It's like I've been trying to hold a speeding train. I've dug in my heels and I've tried to hold on but it's useless. So here I am walking down the tracks looking at all the pieces. Every course word, every snip, all the accusations, all the times I took him for granted, the times when I lied about money (I bounced our checking account over food) because I was afraid, the times when the house wasn't clean, and all the selfish moments  all are there lying in front of me and in the coldness of his gaze.     He doesn't want to talk. This time, he's got one foot out the door and the other isn't too far behind. I want to fight, but how do  you  fight for something, when the other person just doesn't love you anymore? How do you make them see that your both worth fighting for, that the family you've shared for over twenty years is worth it, and a little 12 year old little boy is worth it...

Twenty-one years ago I married my high school sweetheart. He was everything I wanted, and I believe we were both in love but we were young. We had all these plans of being the cool couple at college, but a week after we were married, I got pregnant with the first of two children. I know I am to blame for the bulk of our marital woes. I haven't worked; just little jobs here and there, I wasn't the best at keeping the house (no I wasn't filthy or trashy), and I am not good at money.  I never thought though, that after 21 years of marriage, two kids, and a house we owe nothing on, that it would end like this.       In between trying to be a mother and stay active in our children's school and things plus take care of an ailing grandmother, I had to put a lot of things I probably should not have on the back burner. He's had to shoulder the responsibility of our family on his own shoulders for 21 years. I understand his resentment. I understand his stress. I have aspira...