Divorce

I’ve always been the type of person that had absolutely no idea what to do or say when a loved one was hurting. I’ve always felt absolutely useless in these situations and as if I needed to step aside and let an adult handle it. Here are some things that stuck with me during a time I needed help: Don’t try to fill the silence. My best friend once said, “There’s not anything you can say to make it better, but there’s a lot you can say to make it worse.” Just let her be sad, hurt, angry, etc. It’s kind of selfish to fill silence just because you’re uncomfortable anyway, right? Buy a houseplant. Even if a mom thinks she has...

Being raised with divorced parents, I never wanted my own child to go through the same thing. No one really wants it for their child, or for themselves. But life happens, and we make decisions that affect our circumstances. So here we are. My daughter, who is now 10 years old, has no memory of her dad and me being together. She sees photos, but he and I living apart is all she has ever really known. Since our divorce nine years ago, my ex and I have done our best to ensure our daughter is taken care of. I separated from the military two years after our divorce and moved six hours away from my ex with our daughter....

When Your Home Is a Battleground. When your home is a battleground, you pull in the driveway in the evening and it doesn’t feel like the end of the day. It feels like the day is just getting started. You have a plan in mind for how the night will go. What needs to get done and what you want to get done. You said your mantras and prayed your prayers. You listened to your podcasts. You convince yourself you can keep it all together tonight, no matter what gets thrown your way. When your home is a battleground there’s territory claimed. The kitchen is yours’s. The front porch is his. There are unspoken agreements. He gets the bathroom early evening; you...

  I volunteer. I do Pilates. I run. Generally speaking, I look like a fairly put together person. I have a decent job. I’m well-spoken. If we met at Java Mama, a BREC park, or an LSU watch party, you’d have no clue that I had been going home to a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for nearly two years. Through countless counseling sessions and conversations with friends and family, I got myself and my daughter out. Recently, on the Betrayal Trauma Recovery podcast, I heard a guest say “an isolated victim is a controlled victim.” I’ve now realized the severely awful times were the times I was isolating myself from others. I was kicked, choked, slapped, called a sl*t, etc....

My parents would have been married for 35 years this month, had they not divorced when I was a teenager 20 years ago. Somehow, very briefly, it came up in a very general conversation with a close friend recently, and I haven't been able to shake feelings about it since. My younger sister has very vague memories of our time "as a family" and my brother has none as he was only four years old when they divorced. I have all the memories of a whole different life a whole lifetime ago. I remember so many good times, so many picturesque flashes of happiness, so much fun. Equal amounts of fights, so many tears, so much bitterness also populate these...