Divorce sucks. and keeps on sucking.

I realized a long time ago that my marriage had problems.  At this point, the separation began three years ago, and the divorce was final almost a year ago now. But my realization came four years ago, when my father died.  The realization had to do with feeling, amidst the grief, that my partner never ever made me feel safe.  I was never in a stable spot where I could function in the world.

My partner was not a good husband, but I would love to never talk specifically about him, again, if I could help it. So I deal with my parts, and how not to play them out again, in my next thing…

My part in this is here:

I made him more important than me.   The amount of time I spent moving around him, ‘accepting’ his actions as inevitable, or ‘his story’, took up all the energy I had.

I made him more important than me.  In a competitive sense, he was always winning, more important, more necessary to our survival than I was.

When we split, and he had a new ‘love of his life’ within a month, or sooner, perhaps, but I just let that one lie, lie uninvestigated… my biggest terror was that my kids would replace me too. He told my littlest that she was her second mom.

It took me a great deal of time and a lot of therapy, to settle into my skin as mother and realize the foundational bedrock that I am in this family.

And I am mostly unshakeable now.  And its a tidal change… and I don’t get swept away in worrying about another woman anymore. and its such a relief.

But i still very much struggle with him, and allowing him to become more important than me seems to be my default.  and i lose my badass self again and again.

Its a pattern in me that I can’t seem to fully break, even three years away from that experience. And I’m working on it, and I do a little bit of crying sometimes when I watch my struggle.

So, there is work to do.