You embraced me into your family at 16
and at 22 I married your son and you called me your daughter
He was unfaithful before and after we married, many details you will never know
But you knew I loved him still
when he left me right after selling the first home we renovated together
I did not give up. I found my own place and roomed with my best friend while I wrote letters
letters of encouragement and sincere love for our marriage
I told him I would wait. I told him to come back.
and He did. But he did not want to talk about why he left. Or who he left me for...(It wasn't Maggie the first time he left.)
He just wanted to move on. And I wanted to talk...I wanted to know what happened...I wanted to learn from what broke us apart...
But he won and we did not talk and then I got pregnant with Sky, and we really did move on,
in so many ways.
Then 2 years later I was pregnant with Hayden and I went to call Grandma Howard and he had a password for the first time and after he unlocked it I saw the name I had never seen in his phone.
I knew in that instant...But I couldn't let myself really take hold of the truth....
I can still remember the interior of the car and I can see him sitting in the drivers seat making up excuses and dismissing my concern. It is like the world was in slo-mo then....frozen with terror.
My world seemed to start crumbling then, but I went to this very hidden place in my heart to survive, so I could deliver my baby boy without falling to pieces.
I was so grateful to have God.
I clung to Him.
In the delivery room Brian was checked out. Texting her on his phone while tears ran down my cheeks while in labor. I felt so abandoned....but he was sitting right there. It was the worst kind of contrast.
He left me in the hospital after Hayden was born and came back drunk and told me to scoot over in my hospital bed and fell asleep on his side. He never left me when we had Sky.
I cannot even remember going home after that. I only remember his anger and after 2 months of telling me he hated me and wanted a divorce and wanted to leave...While I healed and juggled 2 little ones while he stayed out and came home late all the time. He asked me in the pool if I was willing to give him 6 months to see if this affair was going anywhere and if not He would come back to me. I was dumbfounded. (Later on He would claim that he cannot even recall saying that.)
I finally said "why don't we find you a place." Because I just wanted a little peace and couldn't be hated anymore in my own home. And there was peace then. He would come over and play house, You guys would come to visit and we would all play house...play family. I did that for 2 years. I pleaded and I went to counseling and I went to marriage retreats and poured my heart out. The whole time you both said that you were praying for us. For Him to come back to me and take his rightful place at my side.
He was playing both sides and telling me one thing and her another.
I just got to a point where I could not do it anymore. He started giving me less and less money. I put food and gas on a credit card until I had to force the divorce to keep my head above water. He threatened divorce but never followed through...I felt forced into doing something I did not believe in...but I had to.
I signed the papers and gave him back his ring and he actually held me while I sobbing cried.
And somehow I still was willing to pretend and do holidays together with you guys and him and the kids. All the while still loving him and having my guts ripped out...to be in the same room but not being able to reach out and hug him or love him in the way that I had for 18 years.
I did those holidays and get togethers until I couldn't anymore.
But I still told him I loved him every single time I hung up the phone.
You went from saying you were praying and that God could do great things....to saying I needed to forgive and move on. I cannot remember when the shift in your perspective happened because it was gradual over many years. You feel more comfortable challenging me to do great and impossible things than you do your own son. I guess I should feel honored but I just feel sad about that. Eve once said that she just wanted everyone to be happy...I asked her at what point did she want that...Would she have said that when Hayden was still in my belly and Brian was sneaking around sleeping with Maggie? She said no. Of course not.
See Divorce is an individual journey for each person it effects.
Each persons loss is different. I feel that you both have adapted to what happened in the only way you can because Brian is your son. I understand that. I also would like you to acknowledge that after my mom died you both became even more significant to my life in a parental role. You are my childrens only steady grandparents, and there were times over the years where Brian did not talk to each of you and shut you out. But I was a constant.
I don't need a shiny gold star sticker for that. It is who I am. I don't know how to be anyone else.
I guess I just thought we could navigate our way together through divorce better than we have as a family. I somehow imagined it not getting uncomfortable or weird. I feel like your focus shifted and you are now more concerned with my forgiveness of what happened and my moving on than you are of having a relationship with me. I ultimately feel that that would be better for you and in preaching to me, you are not considering the anguish I have felt, nor are you honoring how very far I have come. You aren't acknowledging the years I devoted to making everyone else in the room comfortable while I suffered inside and smiled and did what I could to make it best for my children.
I could have taken 50 different paths down some pretty terrible roads....but I didn't. I clung to God and I kept the faith and I sought counseling and I played all day with my beautiful children and after I put them to bed I would run in the dark in the work out room and sobbing cry. I found a way to compartmentalize my grief so I wouldn't infect others with it, I found a way with God to dig deeper and deeper for strength and peace while my world literally crumbled around me....my marriage, my very first love that I left for college with Montana with, the father of my children...my home, everything in life that I knew as my norm....gone, and eventually, you with it and all the Milby's too....Imagine that for a second...losing EVERYTHING you knew.
You were still physically in my life at that time but you had changed and your eyes were distracted by the future of your son, which no longer included me. You started mentioning people and events that wounded me and left me on the outside, and eventually I shrunk away to protect myself. It is what I do now. But only around the circumstances and people that remind me of that hardest time in my life next to losing my mom. I limit my time around you because you cannot help but talk about and mention Brians new life....(It is the exact opposite reason I go to Long Island all the time because that is where my Mom is mentioned and remembered and honored the most. It makes me feel understood in my loss.) When you mention the things you do it magnifies my loss of Brian. It conjures up feelings I do not struggle with anymore on a daily basis and I devote a ton of energy into staying positive and emotionally healthy.
So please do not preach at me. Do not tell me what to do and do not plead with me to do the things that would make you more comfortable. Do not tell me of generational curses...I have been on the receiving end of them and have prayed over my son to break them and made sure He is influenced in a powerful moral way and surrounded by men that are gentle and loyal and good to the women in their lives. I am focused on being the best mom I can be and I cannot make choices for your son. Gone too are the days and countless hours I have pleaded with him to do the right thing, I now choose to put that energy towards creating a loving environment for my babes. I am a loving person who has made so many sacrifices in the past and present to create a safe and nurturing environment for the kids. I overcompensate financially and emotionally to adjust to Brians absence and inconsistency in their lives but I will not accept your pressure to take responsibility for any more that I personally have control over. I will pray of course, but I will not interfere.
Try having a real raw and honest conversation with your own son. Risk making him mad with your truth and challenging questions. Risk making him uncomfortable by suggesting he do the right thing and fighting for his relationship with his children by never giving up on them and showing them that He loves them more than anything else in his life. I am not your enemy. I am also no longer your daughter.
and at 22 I married your son and you called me your daughter
He was unfaithful before and after we married, many details you will never know
But you knew I loved him still
when he left me right after selling the first home we renovated together
I did not give up. I found my own place and roomed with my best friend while I wrote letters
letters of encouragement and sincere love for our marriage
I told him I would wait. I told him to come back.
and He did. But he did not want to talk about why he left. Or who he left me for...(It wasn't Maggie the first time he left.)
He just wanted to move on. And I wanted to talk...I wanted to know what happened...I wanted to learn from what broke us apart...
But he won and we did not talk and then I got pregnant with Sky, and we really did move on,
in so many ways.
Then 2 years later I was pregnant with Hayden and I went to call Grandma Howard and he had a password for the first time and after he unlocked it I saw the name I had never seen in his phone.
I knew in that instant...But I couldn't let myself really take hold of the truth....
I can still remember the interior of the car and I can see him sitting in the drivers seat making up excuses and dismissing my concern. It is like the world was in slo-mo then....frozen with terror.
My world seemed to start crumbling then, but I went to this very hidden place in my heart to survive, so I could deliver my baby boy without falling to pieces.
I was so grateful to have God.
I clung to Him.
In the delivery room Brian was checked out. Texting her on his phone while tears ran down my cheeks while in labor. I felt so abandoned....but he was sitting right there. It was the worst kind of contrast.
He left me in the hospital after Hayden was born and came back drunk and told me to scoot over in my hospital bed and fell asleep on his side. He never left me when we had Sky.
I cannot even remember going home after that. I only remember his anger and after 2 months of telling me he hated me and wanted a divorce and wanted to leave...While I healed and juggled 2 little ones while he stayed out and came home late all the time. He asked me in the pool if I was willing to give him 6 months to see if this affair was going anywhere and if not He would come back to me. I was dumbfounded. (Later on He would claim that he cannot even recall saying that.)
I finally said "why don't we find you a place." Because I just wanted a little peace and couldn't be hated anymore in my own home. And there was peace then. He would come over and play house, You guys would come to visit and we would all play house...play family. I did that for 2 years. I pleaded and I went to counseling and I went to marriage retreats and poured my heart out. The whole time you both said that you were praying for us. For Him to come back to me and take his rightful place at my side.
He was playing both sides and telling me one thing and her another.
I just got to a point where I could not do it anymore. He started giving me less and less money. I put food and gas on a credit card until I had to force the divorce to keep my head above water. He threatened divorce but never followed through...I felt forced into doing something I did not believe in...but I had to.
I signed the papers and gave him back his ring and he actually held me while I sobbing cried.
And somehow I still was willing to pretend and do holidays together with you guys and him and the kids. All the while still loving him and having my guts ripped out...to be in the same room but not being able to reach out and hug him or love him in the way that I had for 18 years.
I did those holidays and get togethers until I couldn't anymore.
But I still told him I loved him every single time I hung up the phone.
You went from saying you were praying and that God could do great things....to saying I needed to forgive and move on. I cannot remember when the shift in your perspective happened because it was gradual over many years. You feel more comfortable challenging me to do great and impossible things than you do your own son. I guess I should feel honored but I just feel sad about that. Eve once said that she just wanted everyone to be happy...I asked her at what point did she want that...Would she have said that when Hayden was still in my belly and Brian was sneaking around sleeping with Maggie? She said no. Of course not.
See Divorce is an individual journey for each person it effects.
Each persons loss is different. I feel that you both have adapted to what happened in the only way you can because Brian is your son. I understand that. I also would like you to acknowledge that after my mom died you both became even more significant to my life in a parental role. You are my childrens only steady grandparents, and there were times over the years where Brian did not talk to each of you and shut you out. But I was a constant.
I don't need a shiny gold star sticker for that. It is who I am. I don't know how to be anyone else.
I guess I just thought we could navigate our way together through divorce better than we have as a family. I somehow imagined it not getting uncomfortable or weird. I feel like your focus shifted and you are now more concerned with my forgiveness of what happened and my moving on than you are of having a relationship with me. I ultimately feel that that would be better for you and in preaching to me, you are not considering the anguish I have felt, nor are you honoring how very far I have come. You aren't acknowledging the years I devoted to making everyone else in the room comfortable while I suffered inside and smiled and did what I could to make it best for my children.
I could have taken 50 different paths down some pretty terrible roads....but I didn't. I clung to God and I kept the faith and I sought counseling and I played all day with my beautiful children and after I put them to bed I would run in the dark in the work out room and sobbing cry. I found a way to compartmentalize my grief so I wouldn't infect others with it, I found a way with God to dig deeper and deeper for strength and peace while my world literally crumbled around me....my marriage, my very first love that I left for college with Montana with, the father of my children...my home, everything in life that I knew as my norm....gone, and eventually, you with it and all the Milby's too....Imagine that for a second...losing EVERYTHING you knew.
You were still physically in my life at that time but you had changed and your eyes were distracted by the future of your son, which no longer included me. You started mentioning people and events that wounded me and left me on the outside, and eventually I shrunk away to protect myself. It is what I do now. But only around the circumstances and people that remind me of that hardest time in my life next to losing my mom. I limit my time around you because you cannot help but talk about and mention Brians new life....(It is the exact opposite reason I go to Long Island all the time because that is where my Mom is mentioned and remembered and honored the most. It makes me feel understood in my loss.) When you mention the things you do it magnifies my loss of Brian. It conjures up feelings I do not struggle with anymore on a daily basis and I devote a ton of energy into staying positive and emotionally healthy.
So please do not preach at me. Do not tell me what to do and do not plead with me to do the things that would make you more comfortable. Do not tell me of generational curses...I have been on the receiving end of them and have prayed over my son to break them and made sure He is influenced in a powerful moral way and surrounded by men that are gentle and loyal and good to the women in their lives. I am focused on being the best mom I can be and I cannot make choices for your son. Gone too are the days and countless hours I have pleaded with him to do the right thing, I now choose to put that energy towards creating a loving environment for my babes. I am a loving person who has made so many sacrifices in the past and present to create a safe and nurturing environment for the kids. I overcompensate financially and emotionally to adjust to Brians absence and inconsistency in their lives but I will not accept your pressure to take responsibility for any more that I personally have control over. I will pray of course, but I will not interfere.
Try having a real raw and honest conversation with your own son. Risk making him mad with your truth and challenging questions. Risk making him uncomfortable by suggesting he do the right thing and fighting for his relationship with his children by never giving up on them and showing them that He loves them more than anything else in his life. I am not your enemy. I am also no longer your daughter.
-C
Written on 6/13/18 12:16 AM
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