Life After Divorce | The New Me Mom

Have you ever felt so broken you didn’t feel like you deserved anything good? Almost like self-sabotage…

When I was married, the laughter, joy and happiness was completely sucked out of my relationship. Having a life partner, it shouldn’t have been so hard to smile and have fun. But with us it was almost impossible to be fun and silly unless it was done at my expense. The sense of worth I walked away with from that relationship was very small. I saw myself as not being attractive because I was told so. I saw myself not as a wife but treated like a child. I saw myself not as an equal but like a doormat. I saw myself not as someone to confide in but as an emotional punching bag. All the things no one deserves. A life of walking on eggshells and having endless anxiety. Not the marriage I imagined living for myself.

After almost 2 years of being divorced with much time praying, the laughter and the joy and happiness has been slowly filling back in. Finding myself through therapy, soul searching, and through good friends from church and work, and dating someone new, I’m finally seeing the real me that everyone else see’s. The smiling from ear to ear, happy me. The way my husband of almost 10 years should have been looking at me or making me feel about myself. The things I thought weren’t possible or I didn’t deserve are very possible. Yes, I still have insecurities to work through because the years of being torn down takes time to build back up that sense of security in myself. The insecurities I now know won’t let me fully move forward. I found someone that thinks the world of me but anytime he gets serious or talks serious I pull back so far that those walls that took months to break down go right back up. This man I’ve spent the last 7 months with asked if I’m capable of even getting to the point of being serious and I told him “I don’t know. I don’t know how to reverse the years of what the wrong relationship did to me.” I just know I’m not in a hurry. I have so much on my plate already with being a single mom and making a life for myself and my kids, going back to school and trying to figure out how I’m going to live. Can people just date post divorce and not have expectations of getting married? So, the fun and happiness is getting sucked out of my life again. All because of what? Me not being able to “do serious?”

I don’t cry at all the things but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel. I’m not all mushy over things cause that isn’t my personality. I’m not going to say I love you when I don’t mean it. Maybe I’m just incapable or don’t know how to be in a relationship. Maybe I just am emotionally unavailable. Or maybe it just isn’t right. I’m gonna go with it probably just isn’t right. This last week I just had that gut wrenching feeling I couldn’t get over and was impossible for it to pass. Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves for things to work out? I found some happiness in someone but I’m not ready to be married again. I’m not ready to blend families. I’m just not. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I’m 40, almost 41 and I no longer think of my life as a ticking clock. I have two wonderful children and couldn’t be anymore blessed. Am I sad things didn’t work out with “said guy?” Sure in some ways but I just know it truly wasn’t meant to be. If it was with this “guy” or any other guy or even in my marriage that didn’t work out, God isn’t going to let anyone keep pursuing something if he has something better in store for them. And when it is right, truly right, I won’t feel the need to “pump the brakes” on the relationship. It’ll happen the way God intended.

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. God truly has great things in store for you His beloved. 1 Corinthians 2:9