Divorce Stories: Your Life, Your Choice

Here is a 2-part inspiring story of Fran Watson, a career and employment counselor or coach. Her life during a marriage she was not happy in and what pulled the final string.

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The pain in my chest was so intense I wondered if I would survive. It seemed like my heart was puffing up, expanding at a tremendous rate and I thought it would explode right through my chest. It was almost unbearable. The tears fell in torrents as I gasped for breath.

My marriage had ended.

I had asked him to leave. I finally tired of his affairs and knew I could make it on my own. But the hurt and raw emotion of the past 20 years seethed through my body threatening to burst through its very cells. It felt like his leaving wrenched the heart right out of my body leaving me nothing but pain and emptiness.

Looking back, with the wisdom gained over the past 15 years, I can see the little warning signs, like when he got into the front seat of the Volkswagen with the best man after putting men in the back as we left our wedding reception on our way to our honeymoon.

And when we were married only 4 months and were living in a motel room for 3 months while we looked for an apartment, he was doing tax returns and coming back late at night. I usually asked one of the cable installers for a drive, but he never thought to check if I had a ride home. One night in the dead of winter, I didn't. Back then we couldn't wear pants to work and the skirts were short. It was about 10 miles from work to the motel and I had no money, so I started walking. I walked til I was blue with cold and stopped into a garage to get warm. I asked them how far 50 cents might get me in a taxi and told them where I was staying at the motel.
We never really learned to communicate with each other. We were so young. I was just 18, fresh out of high school.

My dad was a quiet man. He never discussed his feelings, nor did my mother, so I accepted my husband's not talking to me about things as normal. He on the other hand had listened to his mother, "go on and on while my dad listened and said, uh huh every now and then." So he learned that nothing I said needed to be paid attention to.

Where were all those marriage courses that might have shown us the error of our ways? Why didn't I trust my intuition and go for help that first year after I saw the doctor who told me I was much too young to take pills for my nerves?

What his actions did was to build more strength and independence in me. That's what he said he wanted before we were married. He didn't want someone like his mom who was always sick and overly dependent on his dad, but when I look at the women he was with over the years, that's exactly what he chose. His current wife has been suffering form various ailments over the 30 years that I've known her.

Source: http://www.franwatson.ca/stories.html