“How do I know?” is a question I get asked a lot. I even asked myself, “How will I know?” I even asked my lawyer. He told me to ask my husband at the time, which I thought was strange. We were not on speaking terms. How would I ask him? What would be his response?
I remember when he told me that he wanted a divorce: My body just crashed! I have never felt this kind of pain before. It felt as if I had learned that my best friend just died.
For a long time, I just walked around in a daze with issues and problems floating around in my head. I could be sitting drinking coffee and snap a solution to the problem was solved. I’m not sure whether it was really solved but another problem would come up.
The rotating questions in my head were: How am I going to pay for this divorce? How am I going to survive without an income? Where am I getting a job? Should I just suck it up and go back to him? What should I do next? How do I find help? Did he really treat me that badly?
The merry-go-round inner conversations I was having were amazing. They wouldn’t stop no matter how much I wanted them to stop.
Trying to sleep was a chore. I would just lie there. The noise wouldn’t stop. I felt like I was going crazy.
So, draining. So, exhausting. So, time consuming.
One day I was walking around town and stopped to rest. Out of the blue I felt like a light switch had turned on. This incredible relief flowed through my body. It was like a magic switch in the back of my head turning on.
I hopped off this merry-go-round and I knew at that moment that I was ready. No more bullying. No more waiting. No more intimidation. No more harassment.
I walked off that bench that day realizing I left my old self behind. A new me was born.