This is your introductory article by Managing Attorney and Founder Ronique Bastine Robinson. Ronique has learned that divorce doesnt have to mean devastation. Take the journey with her here or find her full book From Divorce to Deliverance ISBN 978-0-692-27680-8. If you would like to consult with Ronique, you may do so here: https://bastinelaw.com/contact-us/
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Not Me, God! Not Now!
If people were to observe you from across the room as you read this article, at this very moment, they might look at you and think that everything was perfect.
After all, you look pleasant and normal enough.
What they would not know just by looking at you is that you’ve masterfully managed to hide the confusion, grief, heartbreak, despair, and gut-wrenching pain that only someone who has experienced the failure of a significant relationship can relate to.
God, please! This can’t be happening to me. Not to me! Not now!
If you could really act out the way that you feel at the moment you would just fall to the ground, curl up and cry that is, if you have any tears left.
You’ve shed more tears since you realized that you were on the brink of this situation than you’ve probably ever shed in your life. Sometimes you cry without even thinking about it; you’re just walking around handling your business, and then all of a sudden, you feel hot tears falling from your eyes.
They remind you that while your mind was focused on other things at the moment, your heart has not forgotten the current devastation of your life. It reacts out of the truth of your circumstances, even when you manage to distract your mind with other things.
What’s the truth?
You are in the midst of a season of all-out, full-on, bona fide grief and despair, and although you are not an extremist, you wonder if there will ever come a day when you feel normal again. Yes, you put up a good front because you have to, but the truth is that you are in the midst of dealing with what is perhaps the biggest disappointment of your life.
You feel like a total failure to yourself and your family, and you feel like a disappointment to those around you.
After all of your initial talk about being in love, this being the one for you, and “until death do us part”, after all of the wedding gifts, anniversary celebrations, the “my spouse is a true gift from God”, and the public displays of affection that made you seem like you were the perfect couple with the happy life, everything has come crashing down around you.
If it was not your choice to initiate the divorce, take all of these feelings and multiply them by 100.
Yes, I know. It feels just that bad. It’s a wonder you can even function.
Quite possibly, the pain you feel is so intense that even though you know emotions are not tangible, you would swear they are moving around inside causing the type of physical pain that makes you double over and cry out in anguish. It’s hard to manage this way.
If your situation is really fresh, you’re almost certainly in tears at this point as you read; but keep reading, because hope is ahead. The good news is that though these feelings flood your soul every day, you do at least manage to get up and pull yourself together even if it is only on the outside.
I know, your mind is in a fog, and though you’re walking around and interacting with people, it takes an enormous amount of energy just to focus.
I know, even though it appears that you are listening and paying attention to your boss, your co-workers, and even your children if you have any, you can barely manage to connect two plus two.
Heck, you can barely convince your brain to help you get up, dress and feed yourself; that is, if you are eating anything at all these days.
I know, you drive from point A to point B and yet remember nothing about the trip or how you got there.
I know your mind is so off that you’re likely to put salt in your coffee instead of sugar and lose the remote control, only to discover days later you placed it in the freezer.
You forget what you were looking for when you went into the bedroom, and you can’t remember the point you were making mid-sentence.
I know all about the fog that takes over the brain when you go through periods of extreme grief like this the kind that causes you to walk around like a zombie in a daze.
You try to cope by having a drink, but it just makes you sadder and the tears flow more freely.
You try to watch your favorite comedy to get a laugh, but nothing is funny. You try to distract yourself with a crime drama or reality TV but realize that your life is an even bigger train wreck than the semi-fictitious drama unfolding before you on the screen.
You try to socialize and hang out with your friends at their request, because they are worried about your constant isolation but they soon grow tired of hearing you ask “Why” questions about your soon-to-be ex-spouse that cannot be answered by anyone but your soon-to-be ex-spouse and are becoming impatient when all you want to do is talk about your relationship.
They ask, “Can’t we talk about something else?” You try to pray and talk to God, but you feel no connection. All you feel is empty and spent.
No one from the outside would guess that you spend the vast majority of your days preoccupied with trying to figure out how you ended up where you are, asking yourself question after question.
- Why did this have to happen?
- Why didn’t I see this coming?
- Why couldn’t we make it work?
- How did we get here?
- Is it really too late to turn things around?
- Is there anything else I could have done to prevent this?
- What is the real reason my spouse wants to leave?
- Is my spouse in love with someone else?
- Am I really that undesirable?
- When did we fall out of love?
- Did my spouse ever really love me?
If you’re beyond the point of asking these types of questions, it is likely that you’ve moved on to a whole different set of questions.
- Where am I going to live?
- Is my spouse going to try to take everything from me?
- Should I try to take all I can first?
- Is this divorce going to be ugly?
- Who will get to keep the kids?
- How am I going to afford the legal fees?
- Will my friends still want to associate with me?
- What will the people at my job and church members think?
- Will anyone want me after this?
- Will I be alone for the rest of my life?
And these are the just the questions you ask during the day.
When night comes, and you are in the dark safe privacy of your own room, you take off the mask, let your defenses down, and allow the floodgate to open, giving way to a roaring rapid of more questions, tears, screams into the pillow and feelings of anger, rejection, resentment, rage, fury, sorrow, desperation, and sadness oh God, the sadness that you’ve been holding in all day.
The memories of your spouse that you once held as dear recollections of a love story that would go on forever now haunt you; you shake your head as they come to mind, wondering if it was all a lie. If this was one of the nights that you had to take a sleeping pill to get a few hours of rest before facing the world the next day, you gaze at the ceiling, praying that it would take effect and put you out of your misery for the night.
If you listened to your friend who told you not to start taking those pills “because you could get hooked on them, and you don’t want to have to deal with that,” sleep may take a little longer. You don’t even know at what point you fell asleep; you are just grateful that you were actually able to sleep on this night.