Divorce really just fucking sucks
It’s been a year since I cut off contact with my (now) ex-husband. August 9th of 2019 he told me he wanted a divorce. I spent the next 3 weeks crying, panicking, and not eating, as he’d told me I’d let myself go and he was no longer in love with me. I couldn’t breathe steadily. Friends came over and held me as I shook and cried. I would wake up face-down on the floor, no recollection of having gotten there, with my dog on top of me nuzzled in my neck. Panic attacks were a new thing, and they came in waves like a hurricane’s bands (of course there’s a Floridian metaphor. Of course.).
I watched him come and go, packing his stuff into his car, begging him to tell me what was really going on. “I thought you didn't love me anymore,” he said easily. “You just seemed like you were over me.” We’d just celebrated our 8 year anniversary on the beach with our dog. He was very tired that day. Looking at receipts I see that he was out late fucking his girlfriend, taking out his sleepiness on me the following morning. Yelling at our dog for being too hyper. Grumping at me that he wanted to go home. Happy 8 years, babe.
He wanted to be friends after the split. I said maybe. We agreed this was a separation and we’d meet up to talk about it. Five minutes later I caught him on the phone with his girlfriend. “What the fuck?” I yelled at him. “I missed her,” he shrugged. See, they’d been together for a couple months at that point.
He broke up with me on the 9th of August, and went out with his girlfriend on the 10th while I clutched my stomach in the fetal position and my dog licked my face. Called his parents and told them on the 11th (yes, they were very confused). We were all confused. The pain comes in aftershocks as I find out more about the man I thought he was. The liar and disloyal child to whom I was married. That lack of clairvoyance is on me; I didn’t see him for who he was. I just loved him.
It took me another week after he moved out to sleep with someone else. It felt like cheating. Someone else’s hands on my body, in my hair. Some other man’s lips on mine. It felt so wrong! It was a friend; someone I’d always vibed with and was happy this was the person who brought me back to reality. But being single sucked. I dated a few more guys before finding my current boyfriend, but there were many nights that I just cried and cried, waking up at 4am in a panic, going for a run or a yoga class, and zoning the fuck out all day long. It was truly awful.
In this year I have moved out, started dating, gave up my precious dog to someone who could care for him better, frozen my eggs, met my true match and fallen in love, moved in with him, caught COVID-19, had hip surgery, started an OnlyFans, finalized my divorce, and now I’m moving to the beach. That’s a big year.
Oh, and I got off the anxiety pills. I don’t have panic attacks anymore.
But holy shit, trying to trust anyone anymore has gotten really, really hard.
This is me at divorce court in November of 2019…barely holding it together.