In this blog post, I open up about the emotional roller coaster of my healing journey and the pain of a prolonged divorce process. I've realized that I've been avoiding my feelings by metaphorically boxing them away, but recent events have forced me to confront the reality of my situation. Despite my attempts to move on, the finality of my divorce has hit hard, bringing unexpected despair and regret. I share my raw emotions and struggles, acknowledging the work I still need to do to heal. As I prepare to face the painful steps ahead, I remind myself—and you—that we are exactly where we’re meant to be, trusting the universe to guide us.
This blog is going to read a lot differently than my previous posts. But I’m hoping this vulnerability proves the emotional roller coaster, a healing journey and a Dark Night of The Soul really is.
As we all know from Part 1, my divorce process has been long and somewhat painful. I buffered at times but recently, I’ve realized I'm very good at putting something in a theoretical box and shoving it in a dark corner for me to forget about. When everything is in that box, I just live my life and forget about it, much like the half of my personal belongings that are still at our house. It’s almost like mentally, I pretend that I’m not actually dealing with the things that I still somewhat have to sort out. For example, I have lived many days in the past couple of years where my ex-husband hasn’t even crossed my mind. I pay him no thoughts and for the most part, no attention. I get easily irritated when he calls me and wants to talk about “us”, most of the time I keep myself so busy that I forget to respond to any of his texts, and I’ve just been waiting for the day that our divorce is actually finalized. And that’s made the pain easily tolerable for me, which I’m pretty sure is avoidance by definition.
Since Part 1, my divorce is still not finalized. There have been many days where all of my metaphorical keepsakes have been collecting dust in that corner and I just wanted to send him a text saying, “when the f**k will I be receiving our finalized divorce papers?”. My bitterness mainly stems from the feeling of him prolonging this. As I’ve mentioned, he has made it abundantly clear that this is not what he wants and I’ve limited contact because of that. For a while I connected all of these feelings to guilt and lack of clarity. I’ve been so scared that I’ll regret this decision and so I avoid the thought of it at all. Refer back to the band-aid from the last blog post. I wish I could sit here and tell you all that after writing that post and the epiphany that I said I had, that I’d actually started to put in the work and heal those wounds that I know are open. Although, to be fair- I thought that signing the dissolution was going to be the hardest part and it was just a waiting game from then on. The reality is, I put all of those things back in the same box and shoved it into the same corner after I sent off that email. Sure, I started focusing on my mental health and bringing my energy back inwards but, I haven’t put in enough work to actually start to heal those wounds at all. And I know that I have to. Logically, I can tell you exactly what I should have done and what I should keep doing. However, that didn’t happen. Instead, I let myself creep back down into that hole. Except for this time, I didn’t even realize that I was crawling back in and I used that box as a step stool to assist me.
Today I received an unprompted call from my ex, one that I truly didn’t want to answer but knew that it was the right thing to do. This call was different. He was calling to let me know that he met with his lawyer again and that she had to resend the papers for my signature because some small adjustments needed to be made. Then he went into detail about what the process will look like, that she will be filing for us next week, it will be finalized by the end of the month and that I didn’t even have to show up to court if I didn’t want to. This time, there was no pleading or desperation in his voice. The pit in my stomach that I felt when I initially read the dissolution of marriage didn’t even compare to the absolute despair that I felt after hearing him talk me through the finality of this process- so straight and to the point. All I could muster was an “okay”. He laid it all out, he asked when I could come get the rest of my things, he explained how he called all of the companies that we had joint accounts with to ask how we separate ourselves in their systems and I just sat on the other end silently crying. My band-aid was unexpectedly ripped off and my regret wounds were BLEEDING. And I honestly couldn’t tell you all of the reasons why this made me cry, but one I know for sure is because I truly never thought this day would come and he just sounded so okay with everything and because I’m definitely unhealed. I can’t explain it but at that moment I wanted all of this to go away, I wanted to wake up and for it to be 2 years ago and I was laying in my bed with him by my side. Even writing this is making me sick to my stomach and rereading all my past posts has proven almost impossible. I am uncomfortable and quite frankly, not okay.
Getting off the phone, I sat and ugly cried for an hour. I am talking loud moans and sobs, debating whether I needed to run to the bathroom to throw up. It felt like all my hard work in the healing that I have done up until this point was gone. I even texted him and for the first time in a really long time, the next time my phone went off- I wished it was him. It wasn’t. And I know it wasn’t fair for me to send a text in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, I truly do wish the absolute best for him, he really hasn’t deserved all that I’ve put him through no matter how many times I’ve pleaded with him to end it to stop his own suffering, but I am just as confused as you are.
I feel like this is the point where you might be thinking, “girl, what did you expect- you knew this was happening, YOU WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN?!” I know, but at the same time- I don’t know. Every time I think that I’ve dealt with something, I get triggered and I end up here. Currently, I am sobbing and mourning the future that he and I were supposed to spend together. A future that I’ve thought about and was okay with giving up and suddenly it’s making me sad again. It’s like this [nonexisting] marriage that we still have is the final string that attaches us together- the last string that connects me to my past life, my home, somewhere I was comfortable for a very long time. Now it’s time to cut the string and my ego is freaking out, it’s throwing its last Hail Mary to get me to return to my comfortability or the place that IT feels the most comfortable. I don’t know what to do but I can tell you what I’m going to do. First of all, I’m just going to prepare for the tears because I know that every single car load that it will take for me to clear the rest of my things from the house is going to get harder and harder- most likely even worse than how I feel right now. I’m also pretty sure I’m going to cry on the phone with Verizon when I call to separate our cell phone plan. I think it might take several bottles of wine to get me to open my divorce decree when that eventually comes in the mail. And quite frankly, I am not ready to even cross the bridge of what it will be like to go back to my maiden name. But it’s just one step at a time from here on out and I’m throwing away the mental box that has housed this situation for all of those things to sit exposed in my mind for me to actually deal with. I’ll sit with the discomfort, I’ll cry myself to sleep but at the end of the day I just keep reminding myself to stay faithful because what is meant to be, will be. If he and I are meant to end up with each other for eternity, then this is just how our story will be written. I’m trusting the universe with this one. And here is your reminder that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Love,
The Wounded Lover
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