Divorce Over Text

It was a normal day, well our new normal I suppose. We just bought a home, sight unseen and moved our whole life to a new state. A state where we knew no one, and had only visited once prior.

Now, as I reflect, we had pretty mediocre lives, one of those lives everyone thinks they want, the kind of lives we were told to want, not realizing that life can be so much better. We had 2 kids, a girl and a boy — 2 years apart, healthy, happy, joy filled kids. We lived in a beautiful suburb outside of San Francisco. I had an awesome job that I loved while he thrived in his career. We had great friends and lived a seemingly great life.

I knew I saved one for a reason! This was our annual Christmas card — sent to all of our friends and family, a measly 2 months prior to my husband telling me he wanted a divorce.

D — Day was all sort of a blur— he flew back to California early that morning to start his work week. His schedule was such that he worked four days and would come home for three. I woke up, checked the friend locator app where we could see where we were (which in hindsight, was a huge red flag — more on this later). He turned his location off — odd. My heart dropped, and I text him, trying to be casual, “Hey, you landed safely?” to which he responded, “I’ve landed.” Reluctantly, I asked why he turned his tracker app off — a few minutes later, he replied with, “It’s not working out”. I was dumbfounded by his nonchalance, he was legit breaking up with me like it was a highschool relationship, OVER TEXT. Later he asked me to stop telling people that he asked for a divorce over text, because I already knew the relationship was over.

To orient the timeline of all of this, we moved in August of 2020 — by February 2021, he was asking for a divorce. After moving our whole lives to a new state, he tried to convince me to move back to the Bay Area, a super expensive part of California. I was heartbroken, confused, scared but despite all of this — I had to navigate life as usual for the kids. I was numb those first few days. Lot’s of “normalcy” with a side of hiding in the pantry crying. The way he flipped a switch from being my husband to cold stranger was astounding.

The following weeks, my then husband, was in fast forward mode. He went from texting me he loved on 2/1, to wanting a divorce on 2/4, on 2/17 having realtors come to our home to talk about selling, having our kids meet and spend time with another woman and her child the weekend of 2/20.

All the while, I stayed in our home Monday — Friday, taking care of the kids and doing all of the normal things. When he flew “home” I would leave and stay in the spare bedroom of his parents home ( they moved to be near us when we moved ) the next town over. He has the audacity to ask me if this new woman can come over to my home to have another “playdate” with our kids, was early March, approximately 30 days after D-Day text. I told him it was absolutely not okay for this woman to come over to my house, to which he responded, “Oh, still not okay with it”. I didn’t realize it then, but that is textbook gaslighting. He tried to make me feel like I was overreacting for not being okay with a woman coming over to my home to have a date with my husband and kids. I don’t think many humans would be okay with this! Is this classic narcissistic behavior?!

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Life continued on like this for a few weeks. I mustered any remaining strength I had to put on a happy face for the kiddos, and focused on one thing at a time.

1. Immediately established our own source of spending, there was no way in hell I should pay for his life including dates with other women! We were decently amicable, so we agreed on each using only one credit card. Later when things calmed down, we took the steps to remove one another on the respective cards.
2. Opened my own bank account — we were married for 7 years, together for 10. Up until this point he was in charge of all finances for our family. Embarrassingly, I didn’t even know the pins to our bank cards, etc.
3. Reached out to the first lender I could find — I knew no one in my new city — So I started following some local social media accounts for anything and everything. One was a realtor who seemed pretty knowledgeable and asked for a recommendation for a loan guy — it worked out really well! I let the loan guy know my situation, that I needed to refinance my home + needed to pull out cash to pay my then husband. It all worked out great — and I was proud of myself for getting to this point. When we purchased our new home, we put almost 200K down so I had to pull around 100K to pay him his portion — the part that annoyed me the most, he asked for half of the appreciation value, like seriously?!
4. I took a hard look at my finances, what exactly was coming in and what needed to go out. I created a budget sheet on google docs (happy to share — comment below for the link), even though there are plenty of apps now) Doing it manually forced me to purge a lot of superfluous line items. I used it to track every dime that I spent for a few months.
5. I sold my dream car and found a cheaper car so I can significantly lower my payments. I went from a $800 car payment to $350. I was lucky this all happened in 2021, when interest rates and homes were still very affordable.
6. Lastly, what helped me a lot — sounds weird — but I took time to shower and get myself ready EVERY DAY. Everyday I did my hair and makeup! I know it doesn’t sound like much, but as a mom of 2 young kids — that was a luxury! Doing something for only myself, feeling pretty everyday was soooo helpful in finding myself again. Finding myself outside of being a wife, a mother. I was a beautiful human again that had more to offer than snacks.

All while this was happening, my emotional state was very much like a roller coaster. I was heartbroken, angry, scared, sad, lonely, ashamed.

This was one of the loneliest times of my life though I spent very little time physically alone. I spent a lot of energy ensuring my kids were okay, I don’t think they knew at all what was happening, my son just turned 4 and my daughter was 6. I never officially spoke to my kids about what was happening (more on this later). It all seemed too much, they seemed too young. I wasn’t ready, maybe this was the wrong move? Jury still out on this. We spent a lot time doing crafts and finding fun activities around town. We tried super hard to make friends, so we accepted every birthday party and playdate invitation. We did find some friends that helped me navigate this time in our lives. I poured my heart out to strangers sooner than I probably should have. I don’t regret any of it, I leaned on others for the first time — in a long time. I let go of the perception of being “perfect”. Having the perfect home, perfect marriage, perfect children. I didn’t care what people thought. I had to face that fear as apart of my healing and growth. The weekends they were with their dad, I was living with my in-laws. I felt such sadness packing my bags, leaving my home, my children - but I wanted to be fair to the kids — I never wanted them to grow up later in life and ask why did my mom keep my dad from me. I did not want that weighing on me. I never once spoke badly about their father — for I knew, they would find out on their own. I spent those weekends away from home with my in-laws, which sounds weird to some, but they were there for me. They helped me sort through my feelings. They listened, gave advice, and helped me get on the road to healing and growth — for that, I am forever grateful.

I felt so much shame. Ashamed that I couldn’t keep my marriage together. That I failed as a wife. That there was something inherently unlovable about me, a notion that I struggled with since childhood. Afraid of what others would think of ME when they found out I was a divorced single mother of 2. They would think how awful she must be, what did she do to drive him away, she wasn’t good enough….Their kids must be ruined. Their home must be in disarray. I don’t want my kids to play with hers because they come from a broken home and there must be something wrong with them. Those were my biggest fears.

After the initial few months of living in this fog, the sun began to shine figuratively and literally. It was spring at this point. I spent 2 months figuring out my next steps in life and in my heart. By April, he used the money I gave to him from refinancing our, now MY home, to buy himself a home. In that process of buying his new home, he started dating his realtor (lots more on this later). We were decently amicable, we agreed on a 2–2–3 schedule with the kids which allowed me lots of time to reflect, recharge, and spent time doing things I want to do — as simple as watch shows I haven’t been able to watch because, you know #momlife. The next few months, I watched all of GOT, rewatched Gossip Girl, found some podcasts that got me through all of these chapters, and was finally doing things for myself!

Things were starting to look up — we were all settling into our new norm. Life was getting exciting. I even dabbled in the dating app world…

Till next time.