It Has Been a Year

30 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment

by Zoe in Love my Kids!, Marriage Tags: D Word, happy hubby, husband, marriage improvement, parenting

It has been a year since I told him to move out.

December 27th, 2010 - We had been fighting all day.  We had been fighting for years I guess.  I had been crying for a long time.  Then I was angry for an even longer time.  Then I was sad because I didn’t know how to fix it.  Then I gave up.  Then I got strong and decided I wanted to stand on my own.  I told him he should move out.  I told him I didn’t want to live with him anymore.

We went back & forth a lot this past year, trying to make it work and wondering if we should just give up.

We are still here.

On Tuesday it was a year since I finally made that decision and took a stand.  I read somewhere that if you decide that you want a divorce, wait one whole year after you have made that decision to act on it.  If you still want a divorce after that year, then you will be more prepared because you had all that time to get your finances etc together and come to terms with it.  Obviously the hope though is that you won’t still want that divorce.  So I have waited a year.  I fully expected to be separated from my husband by now, or at least to be very soon.  I knew that I would wait until after the holidays because that would be really crappy timing for my kids.  But I expected things to be miserable and I was hoping perhaps that by now we would at least not be so angry at each other, we would be resigned to the fact that we couldn’t make it work and be civil to one another.

Thankfully it did not come to that.

This year has been full of ups & downs.  And honestly I still can’t say that I trust him forever yet.   But wow.  SO MUCH BETTER than where we were a year ago!

Some days he still infuriates me.  Some days I get angry and wonder why I have tried so hard to save this marriage.  But most days I am glad that we are still together.

He had a major attitude adjustment.  That happened 9/26/11 – just 3 months ago.  There is no other way I can describe the change that ultimately saved our marriage.  Some days his old grumpy, moody self creeps out, but not as often as before.  Before it was pretty much all the time.

A great example of my new happy hubby:  Tonight the kids were all being rowdy.  The don’t-know-when-to-stop kind of rowdy.  Just picking on each other and laughing hysterically, and throwing candy canes at each other.   I kept telling them to knock it off, they weren’t listening at all.  (How long is Christmas break ?!?!?!)  Hubby picked a candy cane up off the floor and pretended to slam it down on the table with a loud bang.  They all looked shocked and then cracked up.  He laughed and left the room.  Well, this started a big conversation about what would have happened if daddy would have actually done that – how it would have cracked and been smashed to powdered candy cane that they could mix in their hot chocolate.  How it would probably fly everywhere and stick to the walls, etc.  My son went on & on with the stories and what ifs with his imagination in over-drive.  Apparently it got the best of him, he stood up on the table and threw a candy cane down with all his might.  It flew everywhere.  Little sticky red & white chunks were on the curtains, in the carpet, everywhere.  He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry when he saw the look on my face. It’s funny now, not so much then.  I laughed more than I yelled – I can say that I guess.  Ha.  Hubby came to see what happened.  He laughed and told him to get the sweeper.

He laughed and told him to get the sweeper.

Amazing.

It has been a year since I told him to move out.  He never did move out.  I’m glad.

(In case you are wondering why his reaction was so awesome...
Before? Yelling, swearing, Mean harsh words about how stupid
that was, just terrible nastiness. So this was a huge
improvement!)