Don't Mean Dallas (Part 3 of 3)

If you do not know country music, you are confused right now, so please go look it up before continuing. 

I have been writing this post for months. Because it is sensitive and emotional. Because timing is everything, and the privacy and experiences of the other people involved matter. Because I will not be the same after saying it out loud, to many people at once. Because I had to understand it, and then I had to find my voice.

Inhale.  I am getting un-married.  Exhale.

Knowing someone like they are an extension of yourself is a wonderful thing when it benefits you, and an incredibly unfortunate thing when it does not work to your advantage. This whole experience has led to me really wonder whether people can change, or whether we just grow and learn and decide to do things differently, to evolve in the way we present ourselves to the world. Or don't. He and I are now who we have always been. The truth is that the reasons it did not work out when we were teenagers have turned out to be the same reasons it will not work in our thirties.

Not every man is meant to be a husband. Not every couple who love each other like idiots are meant to be together. Being drawn like a magnet to someone does not a functional relationship make. In fact, a history of poor choices concerning one person can almost guarantee your relationship will be fraught with dysfunction and misfortune. I am his favorite person in the world, and he is mine. But no amount of adoration can make a partnership healthy.

The only people who truly know the full extent of what happens in a relationship are the two individuals in it. We agree on how this should happen and what the end terms should be. We have eighteen years of history behind us. We share children and have future grandchildren in front of us. Though we are not to be married, we do have to remain connected to our family, and our relationship will change many times in our lives. Right now, that relationship is as tense as it is comforting, and as amicable as it is tumultuous.

There is blame, rage, pain, and fear, but I will not discuss any of that here. I will address the two questions I am hearing most, and not post about them again. Nobody left anyone for anyone else and no physical abuse was involved. I will talk about the adjustments we are making, how the boys are coping, and how I am feeling, but this is all I will say about what happened.
 

"Family" means different things to different groups of people. We will define what that means for us. I have told Jake and Landen many times in these months that if the worst happens, we will be sad, but we will not be scared, because we have done hard things. If we are going to get un-broken, every day's goal is to laugh and smile much more than we yell or cry.

So, welcome to my reinvention. I am changing who I am as a mother. I am changing the partnership I have with the father. I have started a new job with a new schedule. I will be leaving my home to build a nest somewhere else.  There are additional levels of this reinvention, but Rome was not built in a day.

When it became clear that I would need to change the blog to reflect what has changed about me, I found that quote that is now in the header. I have ample misery, but I surround myself with the things that bring me bliss - my boys, my home (wherever my boys and I are), cooking, writing, working hard, DIY projects, my animals, my family, and eventually, myself. And, I love dots. Those are the things that make me the most "me", the places where I am all, not nothing.

For you - this section of the "picture perfect portrait" tour is closed to visitors indefinitely.