The Nitty Gritty....

I had decided that I would keep personal details out of my blog about what happened in my marriage. I am still on the fence about if I really want to share it all or not. I assume that most everyone has the basic idea of what happened. I wrote a blog a while back about the issues that I faced in my 10 years of marriage.
If you would like a refresher on it, here ya go

So, I've always written as if I were talking to someone. If you were sitting in front of me right now, I would tell you this to your face. So why not write it?

Fine, twist my arm.

Soon after I gave birth to Joshua, I found out my husband had cheated on me. This was 2006, almost 6 years into our marriage. He had been dealing with some of his own personal issues, and I chose to stay with him, work it out and forgive. Years later, we finally went in to counseling and I forgave him. Or so I thought. When I forgave him, I let go of the anger and hateful feelings I had toward the situation and him. I forgave him under the pretences that it happened because of the issues he was dealing with after going to war.
I later found out that he had cheated on me before war, while we lived in Hawaii. He openly told me what he had done and I didn't know what to do with that information. Having a sick baby, a preschooler and being unemployed, that new information got brushed aside and put on the back burner.
As some time went by, that information began to take its toll. I never dealt with it properly and I couldn't handle what it was doing to me. Our relationship started to really suffer. It had been a bad marriage from the beginning, and knowing that the cheating had started way back in the beginning was not helping.

In the beginning of 2010, we were at a bad place in our marriage. There was no trust, love, affection, friendship or partnership. There hadn't been for a very, very long time. I was turning 30 and I started feeling a sense of reflection. I had spent 10 years married to man that I no longer loved. A man that never treated me right. A man that had cheated on me, more than I believed he had told me. Did I really want to spend another 10 years living that same way?

He moved out and for once, I felt peace. A sense of peace took over my house, myself and my kids. I knew at that point, it was right. He on the other had did not. He begged for me back, told me he had changed, made excuses, told lies and pretended to be someone he was not. When I came back to NY to get some clarity, it had come out that he was seeing someone. Then it came out that it was more that just someONE. When this happened, it was more than clear that this marriage was over. I say this: when I left WA I was about 97% sure I was done with the marriage. When this came out, there was no doubt that I was done 100%. The clarity was perfect.

The rest is pretty simple really. I went back to WA, hired a lawyer, packed my things and my children and left. It was stressful, but thankfully and quite bittersweet actually, he didn't fight for us to stay in WA. I say that only because it would have been a good gesture for him to put up some fight for his kids. But thankfully, he let us all go. I do not look back and wonder if I did the right thing. I know I did. We are all better off this way, even him.

I am ready to move on. I really don't feel surprised by the end of my marriage. Its more of a relief. I have hope to love again. I have hope that the right man is still there for me. I have hope that I will trust a man, give him my whole heart and truly be happy. I never wanted to be single. I wanted to be a wife and mom more than anything, ever since I can remember. I want to love whole heartedly with someone who is deserving of my love. Someone who will love me back, be my partner in everything. Someone who wants to be with me, and my children, and no one else. Someone who is happy with our life and is smart enough to not throw it away for something worthless.

I don't look back anymore and feel like I wasted my life. For quite a while I did. But I am strong because of him. He taught me to be independent and stable. I have my 2 amazing boys because of him. Yes, I wouldn't know of them without him, but my kids have helped form who I am . They as individuals have taught me more things in this life than anyone. And I couldn't have done that without him. If I had stayed gone the first time, I wouldn't have Lucas-- and the world would be a sad, sad place without that amazing little boy. So I don't regret being with him, or staying with him. I don't regret giving him my entire heart. I don't regret loving and giving him my everything. I don't regret staying or trying to make it work time and time again. I don't regret any of it. I am thankful for who I am because of these last 10 years. I am thankful for the amazing people that were brought into my life over this time. I am thankful that I know now exactly what I want and need out of a husband.