Divorce...Through the Looking Glass

So your relationship is over?

For how long have you known this...5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days/months/years?

The reality of divorce is that it is just that...a "reality check". 

I speak from experience as 10 + years ago I went through a divorce.  I was the instigator and the "bad guy", but I also think that I was the realist.  We had grown up and apart and I was done.

My kids were 4 and 2 years old and I was 30.  It was hard, stressful, scary and sickening, but in the end it was a HUGE character mirror for me.  I really saw what I had done up until that point as a blur, and I was moving forward for the first time with a sense of clarity that I hadn't ever felt I had experienced.  It was enlightening.

Since my experience I have talked to many other women and families about relationship breakdowns and I have found a common thread...Many of us plod through life, on the daily grind, forgetting to really stop and think.

As Melissa Carr of the Thirties Grind blog puts it..."Get up, go to work, raise kids, pay bills, sleep. Repeat".

This process can work for some people that have a solid relationship with a person who is like minded and can share in the daily duties, but if you live in a one-sided world, you may have considered, or are currently thinking about, the idea of getting out.

In the end, here is the reality check that I talked about.

Your life will change in the following ways:

1. Friends will disappear.
2. Money will become tighter more than ever before.
3. Kids will go through a multitude of emotions.
4. Parents will either help or hinder you (but there will be a strong reaction from your family one way or another).
5. You will see less of your kids (this may mean every other weekend or every other week).
6. You will have to share in the raising of your kids (new girlfriends or boyfriends will enter the picture)
7. You will have to deal with people who look at you differently because you are divorced (some bad reactions and some sympathetic)
8. You will have to advocate for yourself
9. You will have to learn how to: clear a plugged toilet, re-light the furnace, deal with auto mechanics and pay household bills.
10. You will have to put lots of "work" into things that may have been neglected (ie. your appearance, your job, moving out of your comfort zone)

In the end, the BIG lesson that I came away with is that life is really a wall of mirrors that you are forced to look at from time to time.  The good, the bad and the ugly are shown and your perception of who you are is everything.  Forget about what other people say and get to know yourself!

One final word of advice for parents going through a divorce: It is over for you, but your kids will live it forever, so don't talk badly of your ex-partner and learn how to get along.

Healthy kids are possible, but it is the early on lessons of who their parents are and how they treat each other that is everything!

Do you know of a positive divorce experience?  Please share...