When It’s Over

Since the dawn of the hashtag, friends and family have been commenting on our photos and in my DMs claiming our marriage is #relationshipgoals. Happy couple, beautiful kids, matching Christmas pajamas, family movie nights, smiling faces all around. All this time, I thought they were right. Things had been harder the last few years with health issues, work stress, and living in a city we didn’t love, but we were plugging along. Three kids, fifteen years of marriage, eighteen years together, and we were still a team.

This fall it became clear we were not on the same page, just plugging along. No conscious uncoupling, but a messy rupture. As of today, we have been officially divorced for one week. I relocated with my children to be near family in Houston, and the abrupt change has been hard on us all. Kids are resilient, but they shouldn’t have to be. They are surrounded in loving family and friends and are already thriving in their new schools, but the stress of the situation is evident.

When people go through a divorce, they talk about dividing their lives between two people, two households, splitting furniture and keepsakes and time with their kids. How do you divide a life when it comes to time? A Before, a During, an After? In the Before we were kids. I was all of nineteen when we got engaged and still only twenty-two when we tied the knot. I barely remember the Before.

The During was full of change. We moved several times, I had serious health issues for a lot of those years, he went back to school and then changed careers, and we had three beautiful children. Miracles, truly, as I had been told having kids would be extremely difficult for me. The During was a significant portion of my life, almost all of my adult life, in fact, and it’s hard to recall memories that don’t involve us being together. The work lies in remembering without associating Then with Now.

The After will be about our children. Divorce isn’t uncommon, but it’s always difficult. We never fought, so the kids were blindsided. All we can do is reassure them that what happened has nothing to do with them and our love for them is without end. Perhaps a difficult pill to swallow when they have watched our love for each other end seemingly overnight, from their perspective. They are in a new city where they are starting to feel that anything is possible. Any activity they can imagine is available for them to try, and their more established schools have enough programs to keep them engaged every day of the week if that’s what they want.

As we wade through the muck of starting new routines and splitting time between Mom and Dad, there will be a lot of unpleasant plugging along. New lives are hard to build from scratch. The After is still hazy for now, but I’m hoping there’s a bright future ahead for us all.