There has been nothing easy about this, even though I entered it thinking “this can’t possibly be as hard as they make it out to be”. It wasn’t. It was harder. The support of my friends and family through this has made it bearable, but no less painful. And honestly, from where I stand, it need not have been so, and I don't accept blame for that. I tried my hardest to make this easy on everybody including her.
I received the final court documents. I've tried to stop posting about it because as I look back at these, it's a bit embarrassing and repetitive. I can't say I'll never write another word about this experience, that's not going to happen. But I do need to step away and regroup, and heal too. So I'll get this last bit of expression out and leave the wound alone for a while.
I feel like I'm in a dream. In Shock. In limbo, even, although this is technically the opposite of "limbo". I want to cry and do at times, yet I also want to spew and gnash my teeth too. And I do at times, as my posts will attest to.
This was never what I wanted for her, myself or my kids. Neither was the marriage we had. And honestly, had things been slightly better in just a few critical ways, I'd likely have never left. But what I sincerely felt was best for her, myself and the kids, was to come to terms with what was not functional or healthy. I didn't want them growing up thinking our marriage was what they should seek out in their own lives.
Accepting how this has played out remains one of my greatest struggles. I feel remorse and guilt and an overwhelming sense of failure when I look at this from the 'traditional' sense of making and sticking to a promise or a commitment. Yet when I step back and recall the historical and recent indications that all that matters to her about me as a person and a human being is the fact that she's consciously and apathetically depending on me being the person who takes care of her instead of her having any motivation to be a responsible adult, well… I struggle greatly with that too.I have pages and pages of unpublished writings spanning this 5+ year period. I don't know what to do with them. I won't delete them but I do need to put them away for a while. It's too overwhelming. She likely has the same, all from her perspective, and likely very differently positioned than my own. My kids may, someday, as we both age and pass away, have a field day sifting through each of our respective journals and writings, trying to make sense of the conflict they witnessed and the people they consider us to be.
This is likely the last that I will be writing about the divorce, for some time. I need to look ahead, not back. I still feel a compulsion to dwell on this, as if I'm somehow trying to still reconcile all the emotions and feelings I've experienced over the years. But as I head out of this chapter, and into the next, I need some time to recover before revisiting and over-analyzing a closed chapter whose outcome I have no ability to change.