Today I had a session with my therapist but it was different, because she pulled together a group of women who were in various stages of their divorce. One has been divorced for two-years but still has not moved on emotionally. She is still being an emotional support to the man who moved her and their daughter up from a different state and then "just didn't follow her." A second had just finalized her divorce the past week. She was already moving on and dating someone new, but she still hadn't fully let go either. She was trying to maintain a friendship, but admitted that it wasn't a healthy thing for her as it drug up a lot of old feelings. The third was still in the divorce process. She had recently gone through her deposition, but the divorce was not final yet. She was full of spunk and wasn't going to let this guy get off easy for leaving her and cheating on her. Then there was me, still trying to figure out the best moment to finally go to the attorney and get this started and then over with.

We are going to read and work through the Rebuilding book together. About 50 pages each session. I'm hoping that as I read it and process it with others, I'll be ready to finally take that last step.

We talked a bit about boundaries tonight, and I have written on it before, but the one thing I got out of tonight was that when we allow for that emotional contact to continue, we just drag out the pain further. Like our friend who has been divorced for two-years, the pain is as intense as when she got the call that he wasn't coming up to join her. He was still using her for his full emotional support. It seemed to be a common thread, that these men, who wanted this more then anything else to be divorced from us, were still using us like their mothers to be "taken care of."

I knew after my husband "re-dumped" me that I could not do that again. I have kept all verbal communication short and to the point. No more will I offer support or encouragement. If he is unwilling to commit to just attempting to heal the marriage, then there is nothing there to invest in. As we use to say about the definition of a boat being a hole in the water that you throw money into, my marriage was just that. A hole that I was dumping emotions into, only to not have any coming back to me. This isn't a healthy situation and if I am to finally make the separation, I need to make the break clean.

It is no longer my concern where he works or for how much so long as he is paying what he owes to keep a roof over his daughter's head until it can be sold and that he pays for the truck he drives all over creation.

So I'm looking forward to being with these women. I hope that we connect and perhaps be a source of local support for each other. Its not a step study, but an important study none the less.

I'm a successful professional. I am all but given on a silver platter a promising future and career even at my current age. My husband, had he had the foresight and the patience could be enjoying that fact with me right now. Even as he struggles with his own career satisfaction, my career is stable and soon I will be mobile. He chose the "easy way out." Now he is miserable and unable to find work that will pay more then he currently earns. He most likely will not get more pay from his current job, at least not as much as he would want.

I just smile when I think he is in fact getting what he wanted and better, what he deserved.

Now it is time for me to get what I deserve and finding how much I really want it after years of trying to help him achieve his goals.

It's finally my time to shine and be wonderful.

That is the question asked of me today by my mom in a phone call. I wish I had an answer. Honestly, I don't know because even though in my mind I'm ready to be done, there are things I don't want to rock the boat on. My son's bassoon purchase, making sure that he still pays what he owes without forcing him in a corner, you name it. Just fears I guess. Fears that could happen with or without filing. I know that I have to have the money first to retain the attorney and then to pay all the court costs.

Divorce is such a financial racket and the only winners are the lawyers.

So far, as long as he stays out of town and leaves me alone, I'm good. That is really what it comes down too.

I don't listen to him any more. He starts up about not having a job, and I shut it down. I don't want to know his problems. He doesn't care about me, so why invest any more emotion in him. I have been pretty successful at that, except for him still making plans with Catherine before speaking to me. I called him on that one as I'm sure he is afraid that I will file papers to assure proper custody papers. It angers me that he still works behind my back when I have been fair and open with him. I have never denied him access to his kids whenever and for however long he wanted. Yet he still treats me like I'm some obstacle to get around.

I do need to file. It is just dragging out the inevitable. My head knows this but my heart is still too undecided.

One last reason is the simple fact that HE WANTED THIS. So why should I pay the money to retain the lawyer and pay all the fees? He should be the one that files first! He is just dragging this on because he doesn't have the courage to end it on his own.

Truth be known is he probably can't file because he doesn't have the money himself. I imagine that once he can find a job that will increase his salary, or if he can get more from his current employer, he may finally finish things because he for sure won't need me any longer.

I will keep moving forward. I will do what is the right thing when it comes. Things are coming into place more and more. I passed my PRAXIS exam, and I should be getting tenure this year. That may be an even better time to file papers, once I have that bit of job security in place. That will be the most amazing thing going for me yet. So many doors have opened for me. I'm so grateful for the community here that have opened their hearts and lives to me and the kids.

When our tractor's tire went flat this week, a neighbor came and took it off, took it home and filled it with his home air compressor. He then put it back on and off my daughter went mowing the yard. That is the kind of friends I have now. People look out for one another here and I couldn't be happier about my choices now.

My husband may have left me, but the truth is, he left his life just as much if not more so. I have a good life here with my daughter and son, even though he will be leaving for college soon. I have much to be grateful for, and I thank God every night for those blessings.

Divorce sucks no doubt, but I'm not alone. I have help and plenty of it. I have a great job and bright future in this county. I am making friends in the community and in time, I hope to be as much a fixture here as those that were born here.

I'm going to close on that thought. I got to stay positive and dwell on that. It is so easy to sink into despair. I have to try and keep that from happening because when I do, he wins.

I have been silent again in my journal. Some of it because of other needs such as working in school and trying to keep up with two teens, but also because I have been reading my rebuilding book. I had put this off for a long time, because to read it, was to admit that my marriage was over. I wasn't ready to accept that until my husband pulled his "re-dump" act on me.

I don't think at this point there is any believing that he has ever been sincere about working out our problems. He just wanted out, has wanted out a very long time and now he has what he wanted. I actually kinda laugh at that now. He does have what he wanted and more. More as in, more dissatisfaction, more unhappiness, more "stuckness in the past." I could keep adding to the list. My son told me over dinner one night, that he was just as much a mess as he was when he was here visiting. He complained about everything from poor dinner service, bad food, costs, and of course nothing makes him happy about work. He wanted that job running the sister plant. He had been dropping hints for over a year about the possibly being sent out there, and now that he has it, he can't get away from it fast enough. Its hard to sort out the fact from the fiction with him, and I don't want to turn this into another "husband post."

I did though want to express my feelings about the book I'm reading. I know that I should be thrilled that what I have been experiencing has been experienced by so many people, but what is deflating is to read my experience as if were quoting my life for the past 7 months nearly word for word. Its disheartening, that it is so common, yet I walked right into it as if it was totally unexpected.

I know its a strange reaction, but I feel even more stupid because I let denial blind me to all the "captain obvious" statements.

I'm listening to an audiobook right now by Tyler Perry. "Don't make a black woman take off her earrings" has been not only a funny listen, especially since he reads the whole book as his character Madea, but its got some good old fashion wisdom in there based on all the real "madeas" in his life. Madea, I learned is a contraction for "Mother, dear" and referred to the matriarch of the block. Every one's grandma you might say. A vanishing species in today's culture, but it brought back a lot of memories of listening to my own grandma, not to mention all those older women in my life as I was growing up that threw advice around like they did their weight.

In one of the chapters, Madea talks about women that are in shock that after 20-years of marriage their husbands walk out on them. In her words, the signs were there, but the woman was too busy in her own world to see them. In other words, I like so many other women, was in denial a very long time and didn't see the signs nor was wiling to ask the right questions and check up on the truth.

That's a lot of wisdom to digest in one week. Its also wisdom I'm going to hang on to. I don't know when I will be able to fully afford an attorney to finish this mess, but I know now that my husband is not sincere. Until he is willing to accept the help he needs, there is no hope, no future. I don't even know if there will be if he DOES get help. I've been used and abused by him emotionally for so long now, I don't think I could ever fully trust him again.

Maybe in the long run its better to just cut the losses and move on. I think it is healthier at least for me. If I'm going to know what a true loving relationship where their is mutual respect is like, I may have to accept that it will have to be with a new person that I don't have so much bad history with.

I guess what I'm finally seeing is, that no matter what feelings I still have for my husband, and I do still have them, they aren't enough to cover over the years of hurt and continued emotional abuse.

He's not tried to contact me since I last saw him when he dropped off the kids from their visit with him. I have held firm to not contacting him either. I wasn't' very friendly, and I made it clear he wasn't going to touch me again. The denial hood is off my head now. I see him as he is. I pity him, but I pity myself more for ever thinking he was going to come home and work things out.

Here I am back journaling again.

It has been a while, mostly due to having to do other things this summer, but I'm back writing. I need to sort my feelings out again. My husband had done it too me again. He lifted my hopes, and I saw light at the end of a long tunnel, and then he caved in the tunnel on me again.

In short, in six months time, my husband dumped me, then re-dumped me.

I'm very angry at myself. I know that it was just the way we always did things. He would act like an ass, I would get hurt, then he would come back and look to me for comfort to get what he needed emotionally, it made me feel better to be needed and wanted and then off he would go again.

What a long vicious cycle that has been, and I walked right into it.

So, I am back in a kind of bunker again. Protecting myself from him. I'm not contacting him, and its killing me. I'm not letting myself willfully touch him even to hug, and that's killing me.

Tonight, I saw photos that my son had put up on his webpage that had my husband in them and I felt the withdrawal and loss. Our first vacation with the kids without me.

He's not contacting me now at all. I guess this is blessing. No lawyer papers either, though I still don't understand why he won't do it. After all the chest beating and ego smashing, he still holds on. He is forcing me to finish what he started.

My vindictive side thinks I should just live like this indefinitely until he acts like a man and finishes his own dirty work. That isn't healthy for me though. So I continue in therapy, and hopefully as part of a small group. I continue with Celebration Recovery and hope to soon enter a 12-step program to get at a lot of issues that keep me held back and making the wrong choices in my companionship.

I'm not keeping busy enough too, so that is playing on my mind. The less busy I am, the more I think about my husband. I got to teach last week for four days and I loved it. I was busy and useful again. I don't like sitting around, getting fat and feeling sorry for myself.

I'm about 1-month away from turning 51 and I will not go into this new decade of my life regretting and grieving this loss. I would love very much to date again. I would like to see if there was someone out there that would be good to me. I'm dubious though and still believe that perhaps at my age, dogs are better. My husband robbed me of my youth with his lying. I never knew him or what he was capable of.

So where do I go now? I guess I start by seeing him for the man he is. Someone who fathered my two kids yes, but someone that isn't my friend, and never was. I was just his security blanket to sleep with at night. I was never more important then that.

Maybe there was good things, I think whatever I thought was good was a lie. How will I ever trust myself again to know that someone is telling me the truth. Yeah, I'm just that trusting to believe that people wouldn't have reason to lie, just to lie.

I'm getting off on a tangent though.

He left me, he left his life. It wasn't just about me that he ran away, but he did and he made sure to try and destroy what was left of my self-esteem when he left.

It isn't going to work. Do you hear that faithless man? It isn't going to work. You beat me down, but I will pick myself back up and I am staying the course to keep my career moving forward and become the best secondary teacher I can.

I have a heart for the teens I serve, and I will be the best I can for them as well as my own kids. If a man that wants to be with me, can not understand how important that is to me, then he has no business around me. My husband has no interest in anything important to me. He has no business around me.

So why don't I file?

I know that when I do, it will be a step that I will not be able to turn back on. It will be final. When I do this, there can't be any anger. To do so now, with as angry as I am now is nothing more then vindictive.

I'm still saving up my money for it, and I am close to having what I need to pay for my end of it. So for now, I will bide my time, save my money and work to move past the anger and the shame of failing at the one thing that held the most importance to me.

Postscript: to date, my husband still has not found a new job. I'm sure he will in time, but I am almost happy that he is miserable. I DO need him working to pay his share of the major loans, but I find the contrast amazing. When I really needed a full time job, my teaching job fell in my lap and faster then I could even keep up with.

He panics and frets, yet God keeps him at the place he currently hates the most. God is good, and he has a great sense of humor. :)

So for tonight, I am sending this off into the ether and letting go of it as I start to read the next chapter of my rebuilding book.

Grant me the serenity to accept what I can not change, change what I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Today I made a choice.

I chose to be happy. To live in peace and in freedom. Freedom to worship in the church of my choice with out being made to feel guilty or being mocked. Freedom to make new friends and not feel like I was ignoring or not catering to the needs of a spoiled child. Freedom to love my kids and show it by setting limits and boundaries without being undercut or "gotten around."

Today I chose my happiness over the neediness of my husband, who reminded me again how I had no right to feel stressed or burdened with working full time and going to school full time because "other people have hard lives and lots to do too." I was reminded of this just three weeks after I had shown compassion and support to a man in panic with tears streaming down his face worried that he was going to be homeless.

Today I woke up from a dream where for the first time ever in a dream that concerned him, I told him NO and walked away.

God sent me my answer at a time when I was ready to hear it.

While my husband continues to play on my affections, pulling me in just close enough to keep me feeling like there is a chance, then pushes me away when I seek him to make a commitment to heal the marriage, I have finally hit my limit.

I am seeing the lack of importance, the lack of concern, the lack of desire to not lose me. He doesn't want me, but he needs me to continue to feed his ego when the other sources of his self-esteem aren't around. I have and continue to be his back door.

Today I said no more.

There is a timing issue now, as I wait for disbursement funds from my school loan. I requested all of it, though I won't use all of it to pay tuition. The rest will pay for the attorney and then help my son with his bassoon costs.

I'm done now. I'm calm and I'm at peace. He mocked me, belittled me and held me hostage to his past for the last time. He needs help. He refuses help. By refusing help and rejecting me one more time, he has closed the door for the last time.

He can talk all he wants to whom ever he wants. He can sleep with who and what he wants. He can work where ever he wants. He can do it all with out me as his back up support and surrogate mother.

Being single is about having the freedom to explore and be myself. I'm truly happy for the first time, and I enjoy every day that I am here. No regrets.

I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my strength come from? My strength comes from the Lord.

Tomorrow I will look up to the mountain that guards over my family. I will sing a song of joy that I am not alone, not abandoned. I have friends, family and a stable job. I am growing as a person and I am better now then I ever have been, and I look forward to a bright future.

God has been good and has blessed me and mine over this past 5 months.

Free at last..free at last, in my mind now, I'm free at last.

I am frustrated.

Today (Now June 3rd, though it still feels as June 2.) I was to hear from my husband if he is willing to commit to a healing separation, and use the time for self-growth and healing as we work to try and restore our marriage. Evidently, there were things that came up and he didn't leave for Memphis until later in the day, which meant that he never thought about or read the material I gave him. (Of course, he did have that time at the motel the evening before.)

So, having not read the material, or even thought of it on the road as he said he would, he has postponed his decision and further discussion with me till the evening of the 3rd. Assuming some other barrier does not come up.

So, I'm sitting here trying to "be still and know" that God is God, and he will work in his own time, and if it is his will that I move on alone, then I guess I will find out when he reveals it to me.

I said in a much earlier entry that I fully believe in angels now. That God does intercede when needed if we have a heart that is open to receive. I told of the young man's t-shirt that read on the back, "Lo I am with you always." (Matt. 28:20) It was that afternoon that I received a text by my husband to tell me a letter was left waiting for me.

Today, I walked out to the prayer garden on the college campus that I take course work at. A beautiful spot that overlooks the mountains. In the garden were three large rough stone that had passages inscribed upon them. I had never bothered in over a year to walk up and read the stones, but today I stood with my coffee and read the first one.

"Be still and know that I am God."

I stood and contemplated it a moment and moved to the second.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my strength come from? It comes from the Lord."

I looked up at a perfect view of the local mountain framed by the trees in the garden.

God interceded today to remind me that he is God and he is in control. So as I sit here frustrated I reflect back on my experience in that prayer garden and I put it back onto God to control. I will have my answer soon enough and no amount of frustration or worry will change that outcome, because I can't control this outcome.

So I say it again,

"God grant me the serenity to change the things I can, to accept the things I can not, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Time to sleep now. I have a presentation tomorrow and I must shine.

Dear God;

Tonight I'm turning an important outcome over to you. I'm putting it in writing, because I need to see the words as I say them in my heart.

I spoke to my husband today God, and I'm trying to show love and compassion as well as forgiveness, but his noncommittal attitudes are pulling me back and forth again off my path to be sober and sane. The kids and I had happiness and stability for five months God, and then he began to panic about losing his job, and not having a home. So he crawled back a bit. He wanted me and needed me God, but it only lasted a few weeks.

He agreed to get divorce off the table God, but it feels like he has put it back on. He wants it all in his time Father, but in so doing he pulls my heart and plays with my head.

I spoke to him today about making a commitment to a healing separation as a means to help rebuild and make a stronger, healthier marriage. He runs at the thought of commitment. He doesn't want that, but at the same time, he doesn't want to let go. He wants to stay in limbo where he doesn't have to make any decisions.

Today God, I told him he had to make a choice. That nothing we did to work through a healthy separation would be of any gain unless he had and held in his heart a willingness to see this through. He has to do the work Father, because I can't do it for him. He wants people to tell him what to do, but then resents when he gets what he asked for.

So I have told him only one thing, choose which side of the fence to be on, and then stay on that side. It's wasting our time and hurting us longer to not choose, or in another way of saying it, "to not decide, is to decide."

I should have my answer tomorrow Father. My heart is sick because it knows that deep down, he doesn't really want us. He'll write checks and support us, but he doesn't want to be with us. He doesn't know how to be with anyone.

So God, I pray for him that something I said today, or something in the reading that I gave him will help him make a well thought out decision. I watched him fidget and get up and move about and be distracted. He was highly uncomfortable with the idea that he would have to "do something."

I never thought that he would be so unable to make decisions for himself or be so disloyal to so many. I honestly do not think he has maintained any friendship once it out grew him. He shared with me that he had brought a girl home to visit when he was in boot camp. A girl that was very much in love with him but he was not in love with her. I guess when he brought her, he just dropped her off with family and then went off and did whatever he wanted to do. His sister had tried to tell him how wrong that was of him to do but he never "got it."

There are so many things he does that point to narcissism and I honestly don't know if he is going to be able to make changes in his life that will include me and his kids.

So tonight God, I don't have the strength to worry and I've pretty much run out of tears again. I cried for him this past weekend, because he more or less just blew me off after two positive weekends when I thought he may really be coming around. It was when I asked for that commitment in clear language when he started pulling away again. Running away, one more time. Breaking my heart, one more time.

So I get up and brush the dust off one more time. I remember that I'm healthier and stronger and much more independent then I ever was before. I do deserve better and if I have to finish this then I will. Before this year is out, I with either be on my own, bankrupt and most likely in foreclosure but I will have ended what he started on my own terms no longer dictated to by his whims OR I will be working on my own healing while he works on his.

God I want that later outcome more then anyone knows and probably more then my husband even knows. But it is no longer in my hands. It never was.

So I'm back to quoting the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me serenity to ACCEPT the things I CAN NOT CHANGE
CHANGE the things I CAN
and the WISDOM to know the DIFFERENCE!

Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is and not as I would have it.

Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will.

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next.

AMEN