Well, so I just got off of my nightly phone call with Monica. We are so silly! Since we can't be together in the evenings, after my kids go to bed, we stay on the phone for hours just "being together". She is starting to feel the pressure of all of this.....her husband is starting to spell out to her his vision for how this divorce should go down, and she is feeling the need to tell her kids the truth about us. She has always been their rock, their only parent really, since her husband travels for weeks at a time and always has. Even when he is home, he is so unaccustomed to being there that it was always too hard to reinsert himself into their world and routine and so he simply remained unplugged. Still this is what her kids know, this is their world, and it is about to come crashing down.
Wow! As I write those words, I can hardly breathe, thinking that what we have done and that our desire to be together has and will cause so much pain to so many people. Why does this perfect beautiful love have to hurt people? Her kids know that their parents are probably going to get a divorce.....if I had to guess, they probaby suspect that their mom is having an affair, but they have not asked any questions. Last January, when she first spoke to her husband and explained everything that was going on, he was understandably devastated. Out of respect for his pain, she offered to leave the house and went to stay in a cheap motel for a few days. This was completely shocking for her boys, of course, because they are accustomed to their mom being the one who is always home, not their dad being there and she being gone! When asked where she was, too shaken to completely hide all of the crisis, he simply told them that some very bad things were happening in their marriage. She started getting texts from them, not phone calls, saying "Mom, what is going on? Come hom!" The fact that they simply wouldn't call shows their fear of really getting the information they seek. She did have a talk with her kids the next day and explained to them that sometimes people just fall out of love and that she simply wasn't in love with him anymore. They were confused, obviously, hurt, and I would imagine very scared.
To teenage boys, I would imagine, their initial thought is, "If they get a divorce, what will my life look like?" And seven months later, they still have no andwer to that question. They can see obviously that things have not been mended between their parents--when dad is in town, they don't sleep together, and mom often times goes out. They probably are terrified and yet do not ask because the answer might be scarier than the unknown. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of how they are going to take this. I can't even imagine how Monica must feel! With my kids, they are so young so it was much easier.
She has always been so close with both of them, and honest with them. She describes now this distance in their relationships, and she knows that the root of it is that she is living a part of life that is kept secret from them, that she is having to almost decieve the two people she loves most in this world. For this reason, it pulls at her to come clean, to make some sense out of all of this to them. They will have a lot of emotions initially, and they are not gonna be pretty! I try to imagine how I would feel if I was one of them, and I can't really, but the one word that really keeps coming into my mind is......PISSED!!!!!!!!!!
I almost wish that I could undo this......now that we are where we are, I can't even contemplate living a life without her in it, and I would never be able to initiate a breakup, even if it was in her best interest. Maybe I am selfish, or maybe that's just survival instinct. I think it would be close to impossible to navigate a world that didn't include her. Still, I tell her quite often......I would understand and completely respect her decision in this is too much for her to go through. I would hope and pray that it all works out for her and her family if she tries to make a go of it. But God willing, if it comes to that, I have asked her to inform me of this at a time when my kids are with their dad, because I would not be able to take care of them for a while.......I would be irrepairably CRUSHED!
On that note, I am starting to get very heavy in my chest writing this--big emotions washing over me again and again like a persistant tide coming in and bringing in a crop of thick murky seaweed ..... feeling sad, guilty, scared, and very panicky as I know that this "talk" with her kids is simply days or weeks away. The therapist we consulted gave her some good advice on how to handle this...and the rest is in God's hands.
Heavy heart, heavy eyelids.....Ima go find some great solace in my slumber.....I actually love going to sleep because the minute I drift off, there she is waiting for me and we spend the whole night together in my dreams, in some very bizarre adventures indeed! Man, dreams are so weird!
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