Divorce Diaries, Log #2 - The Back Story

To understand my journey through divorce, I think it's important to get the back story. In 1999, I thought that I was marrying my soulmate. He was smart, handsome, funny, and seemed to love me completely. I thought I had found my beshert, and I would live the fairytale life. We were both young, 29 and 32, successful, and ready for a family. And on our first wedding anniversary, we were pregnant with our first child, Eleanor Ava Dansicker. My life felt like a dream. But just six months later, our baby girl was born and never took her first breath. It was an unimaginable sorrow that began a series of realities that took a toll on my marriage.

Year two my father died. In years, two, three, and four, we got pregnant again and again and again, with our miracle babies, Henry, then 15 months later, Audrey, and 11 months later, baby Stanley. Three babies under three, all in diapers, all with rough starts that eventually were treated and corrected. I was working part-time at home, raising my instant family, and trying to be a good wife. Year five. My mother and older brother died. Year six, my husband open up his own business and we took a considerable salary decrease. Year seven, my husband's mother died. Years eight, nine, and 10, I had three little ones in preschool and was working full time. And, in year 11, just when we thought the hard part was behind us, we took in a family member struggling with addiction.

During the 13 years I was married, we experienced a lot of loss. We struggled like all working couples with multiple children to balance it all. The money. The decisions. The parenting choices. Intimacy. Career moves. We had great days, and we had bad days. To everyone looking at us on the outside, we had made it through and looked happy and stronger for having been through it. And even in the hardest times, I thought we WOULD make it. Divorce was never a thought in my mind. I always thought, despite the challenges, if I loved my husband as much as I did, we could work it out. I didn't realize as it was happening, that my husband didn't feel the same way. Looking back on it now, I can see how the stress of life changed us and changed how we treated each other. But I was too busy being a mom, a wife, a daughter, a friend, and a colleague to slow down and invest more time in myself and my marriage. I would have never believed that my husband would quit the marriage and walk away from our life. But in year 12, he did just that.

2011-Our 12th year, a year that would change these smiling faces forever

That 12th year was the most difficult of all the proceeding years, and that is where my divorce journey really begins.