D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D

I have to keep saying it to myself because it has yet to sink in. This has been 'in the works' for 8 months, 8 agonizing, long months, yet it still hurts like hell. Yesterday morning I was married, last night I wasn't - that fast. I got a message from my attorney on my lunch, she had received papers and was going to file. A few hours later there was another message "Congratulations! You're divorced!" Ton.of.bricks. That's what hit me last night.

Many a tear were shed last night, visions are running through my mind like old fashioned home movies. Things I remember like they were yesterday - the day we met, the day we touched hands and sparks surprised the both of us. I remember the first "I love you" - I told him, I remember getting engaged - I asked him. The first time we made love.

Now those visions are tainted with doubt. Was the love really ever there, can you fake chemistry, can you force yourself to love a person because you think it's the right thing to do. My ex-husband (wow, that's hard to say) has a list of mental illnesses a mile long. None were shared, with the exception of minor depression (which should have been MAJOR depression), prior to the birth of our son. In the past 3 1/2 years I have gone from the perfect stay-at-home-housewife to the woman married to the sociopath. I literally had everything but the white picket fence (and that was only because our yard was on a slope and it would have looked weird) until one day the bottom dropped out - it dropped so far that I have yet to see where it landed, if it landed at all.

It's a very cold day in hell when you find out that the man you love, more than life itself, wants to take yours away. Worse yet - he wants to also take the life of your only child. I have seen hell on earth, I have been hours away from losing my son to foster care because the state feared that I was not grasping the gravity of his fathers disease. I married "till death do us part" and "in sickness and in health" - I have now seen that there are limitations to those terms, and no where did it say "through threats of homicide". In the eyes of the law, I am the victim of domestic violence, my son is a victim of child abuse. I was that woman that goes to her home, crams as much crap in to her car as she can, and flees.

I am not the same woman and mother that I was 8 months ago. I hope I am better, I hope that each day I can make the best decisions possible for my son and I, I hope that I will do right by him from here on out. I am strong and I am courageous, I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders some days. I am divorced, but thankfully - I am not broken.