What if you had the opportunity to choose anything to be a master of. I wish you could see the way I am tapping my fingers together right now and the flashes of inspiration that are leaping from my brain. Music! Yes, music! I’d write songs that would bring the world to it’s knees or make you all shake your money maker. Or perhaps I would revert to my old artistic ways and paint or draw. Or sculpt. Oh I love me a good sculpture. Or move like Michael Jackson. There are a myriad of things I would love to be an expert at. I’m not sure I would choose the one I was dealt though. For good or bad I’m kind of an expert in divorce. DANGIT!! My parents and both of their parents are divorced and now I have gone through the big D myself (maybe it’s biological......). That was an extremely challenging experience to go through, but in the end I am at complete peace with my decision.

I recently passed 2 significant dates in my life. The first was the 5-year anniversary of the day I put my children in a car and drove away from a destructive marriage. A few days after that was what would have been my 11th wedding anniversary had I stayed in said destructive relationship. Thanksgiving is always an interesting trigger for me because it’s both the time of year I got married and the time of year that I exited my marriage. Each year while ruminating on all that I have to be grateful for I always find myself pensive about how pivotal divorce has been in my life and how things have changed since that event.

I didn’t want to get divorced. Who wants to go through that? Who wants to put their kids through that?! That was easily the most agonizing decision I’ve ever made. It took months, almost a year from the time I started to consider it until I was finally divorced. Though in the end I left because of some uber non-marriage-conducive behavior on his part, I’m now grateful the relationship ended because of the subtle every day things that gnawed at my soul a nanometer at a time, things that were almost imperceptible, but their accumulation took a giant bite out of my psyche. Our culture doesn’t look kindly upon divorce and frankly unkindness and disrespect are not always socially acceptable reasons to end a marriage. We are not quick to condone divorce unless it was wrought from a heinous indiscretion or obvious abuse. In the end I did have the “big” reasons to leave the marriage, but if I hadn’t I imagine I probably would have put up with the “little” things forever because they lie in shades of grey in a relationship. I realized after I had been gone for a while and started to regain my mental and emotional health just how much of a canker those “little” things had been on my soul. I believe they were infinitely more damaging than the “big” things.

Even having all the excuses to bail on the marriage, it was a hard decision to arrive at. There were a handful of things that transpired over a month or two that finally shoved me out the door. Random things that would each take a while to explain...reading The Davinci Code, watching the arraignment of Scott Peterson, this talk (http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-479-26,00.html), a college football game, but in the end the tipping point was my children. I could put up with piss-poor behavior forever. When I saw the effect that behavior was having on my children, however, I was gone. They started to display some troubling behavior and were expressing things to me that were of grave concern to me. As the child of divorced parents I knew all too well what struggles divorce would place on my children and I certainly didn’t want to impose those on my kids. In the end, however, I decided the ripple effects of staying in the marriage were more destructive than the ripple effects of leaving it. So I got in my car and drove away.

It hasn’t been easy. I wouldn’t wish single parenting on anyone (well, I can think of a few people.....). I have felt like I could barely keep my head above water for much of the past 5 years, but I have never, ever -not even for a second- regretted my decision. There have been moments when I have second guessed it (usually when my kids say they miss their dad), but then I think through the whole thing logically and I feel at peace with where we are at. Someone told me that going through a divorce would be the worst and best thing that ever happened to me. That has been the absolute truth for me. I know every situation is different, but in my situation I am actually pretty grateful for the growth and wisdom that has been afforded me during this journey. I am stronger, more confident, more understanding and waaaaaay cooler than I ever would have been without this experience (please know that my tongue is a little bit in my cheek right now), and I find I have unique opportunities to help others in similar situations as mine - at times even sensing their problems without any indications that there are any.

Eventually every one of us will experience heartache. I guess that’s the reason this website exists. The only way I know to deal with it is to embrace the struggle and allow it to stretch and shape me into an improved version of myself. What other choice do we have, really? The alternative is that which scares me more than anything. Who has time in their life to be rotten or bitter or dozens of other negative qualities?! I left so I could offer better situation to my cihldren. Being angry or depressed do not lend themselves to a better situation.

Well, thank you for allowing me a soapbox. This single mother has spent way too much time typing that should have been spent catching up on domestic duties, snuggling kids, pretending to have a social life, etc. Please - if you would like to know more about my journey I’m happy to share it in the event that it will help you or someone else. I am on a mission to save the world one relationship at a time. Email Molly. She can get you in touch with me. Here’s hoping your days are merry and bright. Life is too short for anything else.