Getting Recentered

This week has not been my best week ever!

I worked for Hospice on Monday and reached a saturation point with death and dying. I did two admissions, both urgent and actively dying and I did 5 visits most of which were actively dying- one patient died after my visit but before I left the facility...

I spent Tuesday crying and grieving my failed marriage, my husband walking away from our family, feeling dispensable and easily replaceable. And lonely too, I suppose.

I was out of the house for 14 hours on Wednesday.

Thursday I was still very fragile, my oldest son asked to stay after at school to work on a sophomore class project for winter carnival. He lost his cell phone so I had no way to be in touch with him. I was expecting him on the late bus around 5:15pm. By 8:00pm I was feeling like one of those single mother's who doesn't even know where her child is... He called to check in at 8:30pm, he wasn't packed for his flight out to see his Dad the next day, none of his chores were done and he lets me know that he will be home around 12:00am because that is as late as they can stay. It starts to come back to me from the previous year... I am too exhausted to protest and on some level am comforted that he is involved and engaged at school, supervised and participating but this doesn't stop me from laying into him about his lack of preparedness and communication. I hang up the phone both annoyed with him and myself. Why couldn't I just be supportive? Why did I need to lay into him? Why? I realize that I have no idea if my husband is planning to help me tomorrow with transportation to the airport in Boston or watching our younger children so I send him an email.

Friday morning I wake up to an email from my husband that entails a long list of excuses. I realize that I will just bring the little kids with me. We get to the airport and through the gate with 2.5 hours to spare. We decide to sit down and have dinner at a restaurant. My son has a 7:10 flight out. At 6:38 I look at my watch because the kids ask about dessert. I think 7:10, sure we have some time. We head over to the gate around 6:50 and you may have guessed, we had missed the flight. I was shocked because you see, we are not novices to this whole flying out to see dad thing. We do this all the time. I am wracking my mind trying to understand how I let this happen. How did I mistake departure time for boarding time? Because I am absolutely exhausted, that's how. I am standing there in disbelief trying to decide what to do and dreading the thought of having to call my son's father and let him know that we missed the flight. Of course, it was the last flight out. The attendant was very kind and rebooked my son on the first flight out the next morning- 7:00am. I'm standing there trying to decide if I should drive back home and get up and leave the house by 4am- which would be pushing it. Should I rent a hotel room near Boston? That won't be affordable... Thank God for mother's right? I call mine to problem solve as I have mentioned that I am exhausted... In the end, I was able to rent a room that the airline reserved at a reduced rate, we got settled in around 8:45pm. And by the way, my son's father was kind regarding the whole situation which I wasn't really prepared for but appreciated more than I can say.

Saturday morning we were up at 4:45am and back at the airport by 5:45am. I got my son through the gate and was heading back home by 6:15am, got home around 7:45am got ready for work, got the kids ready to spend the day with my parents, dropped my kids off at my parents and arrived at work by 9:30am only to discover that I had 5 visits and an admission at 3 different facilities with a good bit of distance between. I walked through the door of my house about 15 minutes before my parents arrived to drop the my little kids off.

Mean while, my husband and I have been going back and forth via email regarding the fact that our children miss him, February vacation is his break with the kids this year, he made no plans with his employer to take any time off of work and he is not planning to miss his weekly Wednesday trip to visit his girlfriend in Maine. My husband finally says that he is planning to take the kids to his parents house for the week. And this is fine with me. Our kids will get to spend some time with their dad and he will be around other people so hopefully he will actually spend time with the kids and not on-line or sleeping. And I will get a 4 day break to hopefully, focus on some school work as I have done the bare minimum.

My husband and I are also reliving some very old fights via email. These fights include the fact that he feels that he has made so many changes since he moved out and I have made none, that he is broke and doesn't have enough money and this is my fault because he needs to be completely available to me to assist with the kids even though he is only really spending Tuesdays with the kids. I am so tired of these fights and here's the bottom line:

• My husband feels like he has had to make so many changes and I have chosen not to make any.
• My husband is angry because I earn about 3 times what he earns and feels that it is not his problem if I choose to make no changes and cannot live off of $75,000 a year.
• He feels that by walking away from the kids he is doing what is best and choosing to not fight about custody. He keeps saying that "this is how you wanted it Nicole so now you have to deal with it."
• He does not want to discuss anything because he does not want to dwell in the past. He is embracing this new opportunity to rediscover himself.
• He feels that I am being manipulative and playing games. He feels that he has been at my beck and call and he is all done letting me walk all over him.
• He can't have the kids Thursday through Monday because he is working and he has to work to support them. He is not going to sit around and wait to see if I need help with the kids on the days that I am at work.

My perspective is as follows:

• The reason that my husband has had to make so many changes is because he quit his job in August with no job lined up and has since taken a $25,000 pay cut. As you may be able to imagine your lifestyle changes rapidly when you go from earning $50,000 to about $25,000. Although this was not the cause of our divorce- it was the catalyst. My husband's decision changed our families lifestyle and honestly, after I watched him become increasingly depressed, refuse to put any serious effort into finding a job and choose to spend the summer and fall at the golf course so that he could play with his friends- I was done. I was not going to support him while he did nothing.
• My husband is angry that I earn about 3 times what he earns including child support but he has the capacity to earn about as much as I do. I worked full time to support him while he was in grad school and he has a MBA which he has chosen not to use.
• I am trying to keep our children in their home. I feel like they are experiencing enough changes right now that they don't need to relocate.
• I have offered to give my husband anything that he wants from our home and he wants nothing.
• My husband loves our children but has always voiced feeling overwhelmed by parenthood and tied down with the responsibility. He got to the point that he yelled more than he talked to them. He is enjoying not being tied down to parenting and isn't stopping to think about how his decisions are effecting our children.
• My husband is angry that I refuse to take care of him any more. My husband is lazy and is satisfied with the idea of a woman taking care of him- financially, emotionally, physically. When I stopped taking care of him he found a woman who would.
• My husband enjoys playing the role of the nice guy, and he is a nice guy, but he is having a very difficult time dealing with the fall out of his own decisions and the reality that he isn't being a very nice guy.
• My husband has always used the children as a crutch for not being successful. He could never find a job that he enjoyed or that paid well because he had to take care of our children. My job wasn't flexible. Even when he is minimally involved with our children he continues to use them as a crutch.

So, after this very long and ridiculous week, I sat in church and was convicted about how I am choosing to respond to my husband. Kent preached today out of Colossians. He made the point that no one has the ability to take away my freedom to choose how I will react. I was powerfully convicted. I have spent about 48 hours going tit for tat with my husband instead of just enjoying our children before they go away for their break. I have spent a lot of energy reading my husband's girlfriend's blog trying to get a sense of who she is, trying to figure this whole thing out and make some sense of it. I have prayed that the Lord would help me to avoid this blog and access to information that I do not need to know but I have been weak.

After absorbing the impact of what Kent had to say, I walked away from church feeling recentered, restored and renewed. I am committed to avoiding the blog. I don't really want to know. I suddenly, don't really care. Things are not magically resolved. I am still hurt and angry and disappointed. But in the midst of this chaos I need to choose how I will respond and react.

I am committed to focusing on my children and what is best for them. I am letting go of any sense of family that I was holding onto with my husband. I am completely letting go and trusting that the Lord will provide and take care of my needs. But how will I accomplish this lofty and somewhat unrealistic covenant?

From the Word:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

Ephesians 6:10

I rejoice greatly in the Lord...

Philippians 4:10

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

My Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I have failed to react well. I ask that you restore unto me your love and patience. Father, I pray that you will seal my tongue that I do not use it to hurt people around me. Holy Spirit, remind me that I have a responsibility to control myself and my response to wrong doing. God, I acknowledge that I cannot accomplish this without your strength and power. Remind me that I will be judged with the same rule that I judge others. Father, you are not a respecter of persons and you do not weight sin. My sin is just as ugly as any other person's sin. Forgive me Lord for my unkind spirit. In Jesus name, amen.