Till death do us part?

What does that actually mean? “Till death do us part?” Physical death or death of the marriage?

When I told my ex-husband that I wanted a divorce, he seemed shocked. He later admitted he knew we had issues, but thought we had time to work on them “because we said vows”. So our marriage wasn’t going anywhere, in his mind. Umm, news flash – if you have issues, you need to deal with them. You can’t just ignore them “because you said vows”.

Every year when a new year comes along, people vow to make changes that they know they won’t keep. The difference with wedding vows is that when you make them, you actually intend to keep them. Unless you’re in Hollywood – I swear their marriages only last a few weeks on average anyway. Their “I do” means “I do right now”.

The thing about marriage vows is that both people need to uphold them. You can’t neglect your spouse and expect them to stay because you made vows. You can’t be emotionally abusive or emotionally absent and expect them to stay. You can’t keep them on eggshells and expect them to stay. Just like you can’t expect them to stay if you’re physically abusive, unfaithful, or otherwise overtly brushing off your vows.

Marriage is hard work. For both parties involved. No one else’s marriage or lack thereof can actually have an effect on your outcome – only the two people involved have that power. But let me tell you, you can only put up with so much before you can’t put up with anything else. Just like a sponge: it can soak up water to a point. There comes a time when it is saturated and can’t hold any more. That’s literally how it is with the end of a marriage sometimes. You deal with so much – until you can’t deal with one drop more.

My heart goes out to anyone making this tough decision. It’s not made lightly, no matter how “easy” it may look to outsiders. In a time of social media when we can make our lives look as perfect as we care to, we have no idea if anyone is truly struggling in their marriage – unless they tell us. Only the people in that house have any idea what’s really going on. And sometimes one person in the marriage turns a blind eye to what’s happening, because they don’t want to admit that things aren’t as perfect as they seem. They may see it as a sign of weakness to admit there are issues. Well, let me tell you, the weakness of the marriage will come to a breaking point if you don’t work on repairing it.

Just because you said vows doesn’t mean you need to be miserable now just to hold onto them. And don’t hold on for the kids – they need to see good role models. They need to see happy parents. If you’re going to hold on to any vows, hold on to the ones you make to yourself – vow to love yourself and not blame yourself if things don’t go as planned. Vow to respect yourself and your children enough to set good examples. Vow to not be miserable for the sake of someone else. No one else’s opinions matter, anyway.

Riding the struggle bus

Oh man, oh man. To say I’ve been on the struggle bus lately is an understatement. My coping skills for life are being seriously tested, and the parent-teacher conference here would not go well.

As we neared the start of the school year, I watched meme after meme going up about moms ready for school to start so the kids would “get out of their hair” again. I wanted my kids “in my hair” more often. I watch my youngest child, especially, struggle with life and I just wish I could hold him longer and love him more. Maybe then he wouldn’t have so many troubles.

Maybe I was wrong for going to school so long and building up so much debt. Maybe I was wrong for wanting to be a mom who works outside the home so much. Maybe I should have done this or that, or not done this or that. Maybe it’s my fault he has behavioral problems. Maybe there’s nothing to do with me at all. I have no f&$@ing clue.

All I know is I wish i could help my child, but I haven’t a clue how. I love him. I cuddle him. I try to teach him boundaries and coping skills. I discipline him when he’s naughty. Then I love on him some more, because maybe that’s what he needs. We had him in behavior therapy, play therapy, and now with a regular therapist. He says all the right things when he’s with them, and he graduates out of programs because he gives a line of BS. In therapy right now, he can talk about all of these helpful techniques for dealing with frustration. But will he use these techniques at school? Of course not. But it sounded good in the therapist’s office.

So I sit here dumbfounded, unable to fall asleep, trying to mull over in my head what I can possibly do to help him. But tomorrow he goes to his dad’s for a couple days, and I won’t be able to help him at all. And it breaks my heart. My heart breaks daily for this guy. And so the stress continues. This stressed out mama just can’t catch a break.

I wish I had more insightful words to share today, but I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. If nothing else, of you read these words and they sound familiar, maybe you’ll find some solace that you are not alone. Keep loving those Littles and trying to help them the best you can. Being a kid is hard. So is being a parent.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Remember that phrase from childhood? Or did I just age myself? Remember when there would be those families on town that always seemed so perfect and had everything together, and they always had the best of everything? Remember that envious feeling you’d get when you’d see them? Thank goodness it wasn’t every day!

But now we see them every day. Everywhere. On Instagram. On Facebook. On Twitter. They have it all. They’re practically perfect in every way. And you just want to puke.

YOUR kids lose their homework. They don’t get ready when you tell them to. They wear clothes that have stains on them, because “it’s my favorite shirt”. They may or may not have worn that same stained shirt the day before… The kids don’t listen at the grocery store and you have to count to 3. Heaven forbid you have malted milk balls as a treat in with the meat & cheese roll ups and blueberries in their lunch. Is this just me here? Or do you have the same experiences?

But as we scroll on facetagram or instabook, or whatever social media platform it is we’re mindlessly scrolling when we have a million other things to do, and we see all the perfection, we start to feel imperfect. We start to feel “less than”. And we start to wonder who’s judging us.

I used to live the ‘Facebook perfect’ life. Everything looked amazing on my Facebook page. Even my marriage that was less-than-perfect. And people were a bit surprised when we got divorced. Well, I wasn’t. I was in the trenches. I knew the truth. And I wasn’t surprised. And you know what? I’m not alone. People are living their truths every day, thinking they’re less than other people because of what gets blasted in our faces daily.

So why do we still feel the need to keep up with the Joneses? We SHOULDN’T! We should be free to live our own imperfect lives. Because it’s our lives, after all. Whether you’re a bento box mom or Uncrustable with a GoGo squeeze applesauce (real lunch that was packed this week), you’re still a great mom. Just ask your kids.

You have not failed anyone

I grew up in the church, always active in the church – as a small child I was a “clown for Christ” (yes, a CLOWN! Yikes!), then I was a part of our bell choir, regular choir, New Life teen band; I once referred to myself as a “dork for Jesus”. In my early 20s, you could still find me in our church choir, but in a much larger church and much larger choir. Then in 2007 we moved to Iowa, and I haven’t called a church “home” ever since…

Whether you’re a church-going person or not, you have SOMETHING that you do religiously. Maybe fishing or hiking is your church, maybe serving others is your church, maybe you don’t do anything at all or you don’t believe in God. Whatever the case, I ask you to continue reading. Because there’s a point to this message.

I know when we moved away from Minnesota, I was comparing every church to my Minneapolis church, and nothing compared. Not even close. So I struggled to find a church home because of comparison. It’s probably no surprise that I struggled in my marriage because of comparison, too. We seemed like we were doing ok. I would see the struggles in other relationships and think ours weren’t as bad, or so I thought. I didn’t really know what a good healthy relationship these days should look like.

When we moved back to the Minneapolis area, we used the excuse that our old church was too far away and we wanted the kids to be able to be in church school with their regular school friends. But we still didn’t find a local church home. Nothing met the standards we had set from our Minneapolis church. So we continued not to go to church, and I continued to have a growing void in my life. In my marriage, in my relationship with God, in my relationship with myself.

In the words of one of our marriage, and then uncoupling, counselors, I had grown disgusted with our marriage. It was not what I had imagined, and I fought by myself for a long time to try to keep it alive. To no avail. Because a marriage isn’t sustained by one person alone.

I had started working on personal development because of the lack I was feeling in my life, and as I read books and listened to podcasts, I learned a lot of things about myself. I tried to improve these things, but I couldn’t do it by myself. In the process of divorce, I stopped going to our uncoupling counseling, because it was just making me more angry, and started going to my own therapist. In a previous blog post, I identified that we traced the start of my personal issues back to when I was 13. When I had adults in my life that I looked up to and respected, not believe what I was saying and instead support the people who were bullying me. For 26 years, I’ve been waiting for an adult I admire and look up to, to tell me that I hadn’t failed them and I was worthy of love and respect.

As we went through the tedious and angering steps of the divorce, I avoided the church. I became ANGRY with God. How could He have led me astray with my marriage and let me keep my blinders on for so long? How could He keep putting health issues on me and adding more stress to my life? God only gives you what you can handle? I call B.S. I’ve gotten WAY more than I could handle in the last few years. And then some.

After meeting with friends recently, and having started to feel the need/desire to go to church again, I finally sent a message to my old minister, the one that had married me and my ex-husband, requesting a time to sit down with him. He had time that week. I was shaking as I drove to see him. I got in his office and almost immediately started crying as I poured out a synopsis of what happened to my marriage. And I admitted that I had let my pride get in the way of coming back. I didn’t want to admit that my marriage wasn’t successful. I felt like I had failed him and God because I hadn’t stayed married. He told me the words I needed to hear – I hadn’t failed him or God, and mistakes are human. And anger is a natural feeling and was expected given all I’ve been through. And that God hadn’t left me alone all this time, but He had suffered through all of it with me. And He still loved me. He told me I’m still a good person with a lot of inner strength. He invited me back into the church, and encouraged me to get back into the choir.

I’ve needed to hear those words for 26 years. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I’ve felt a peace that I can’t even recall when I’ve felt last.

Have my friends and family and my boyfriend told me I’m loved in this process and that I’m a good person? Of course they have. So why didn’t that do the trick? Because it was adults with authority, adults I looked up to and trusted to help me grow up into a responsible adult, that had let me down when I was 13. I needed someone with that same authority figure to fix it. I’m so thankful for my minister. I’m thankful for the words that he said, the meaning and love behind them, and the sincerity with which he welcomed me back. None of it is a magic wand that will make everything amazing overnight, but it certainly makes the road ahead that much more bearable.

What is it that you need to be able to truly feel that you are worthy, and to start believing the positive words that others tell you? Because you haven’t failed anyone. The only person you have to explain anything to is yourself, and you’re already forgiven.

Stress isn’t just mental

Anyone who tells you stress is just mental is a liar! There, I said it. It’s so much more than mental.

I’ve lived in a chronic state of stress for YEARS! Stress from multiple moves, stress from job changes, stress from trouble getting pregnant, stress from family dynamics, stress from taking on too much. I enjoyed most of the things I did, so I didn’t think much of all the stress. I was young, I had the energy for it.

Well, I’m almost 40, and I don’t feel so young anymore. I feel like I’m 80. All of the stress of my life finally caught up with me and I was just diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Autoimmunity is extremely affected by stress! Extremely.

I ended up in the emergency room, and had several rounds of blood draws to come up with a diagnosis of Sjögren’s syndrome. That’s a whole blog post in itself. But my mental stress became very physical, literally overnight. I worked out on a Monday and on Tuesday when I woke, I could barely move. I was crippled with pain, and it wasn’t just muscle soreness from working out.

It’s so disheartening to not be able to do the one thing you love. But after 3 weeks of doing nothing, I’m finally moving again. Stress can have some serious effects on your health. I recommend you keep yours in check.

I’ve got CRS

At what point do you start to wonder about dementia? Is it too early to worry about it when you’re in your thirties? I mean, seriously?! Where the f#%! did I leave my keys? Where are my favorite boots? What time did I schedule that appointment? Which child has their conference tonight? Where’s my phone?!?! Oh yeah, it’s in my hand. Ugh…

I work in neurology, so sometimes I feel like I know too much. But sometimes it’s just enough to make me think I’m a hypochondriac. I mean, when you’re in your twenties and thirties, you shouldn’t forget things as often as I do, right??

I have my calendar on my phone now, because I couldn’t remember where I had my pocket-sized calendar. I don’t remember when my kids met all their milestones anymore, but I can tell you they were ahead of all of them. BUT, I can tell you what my first AND second drivers license numbers were, a few phone numbers from when I was a kid, my social security number, and some random other facts that have somehow managed not to escape my brain. And I can remember which room in the hospital many of my patients were in, way back to the year 2000 when I was a nursing assistant.

And do I really worry about dementia? No. I know it’s really just stress. I’ve been so stressed for so long that I can’t even hold onto memories. Sometimes I think it’s my brain’s way of protecting me from things that were painful and I don’t REALLY want to remember them anyway. But unfortunately not all the memories that slipped away were painful. I wish I could have them all back, but I guess some things in the movie Inside Out were spot on – after a while the old memories get shoved to the dump never to be retrieved again.

So I suffer from stress-induced CRS disease. Can’t. Remember. Shit. …….ugh. My kids remind me of things, thankfully, and some of the memories come back when they say things or do things that they used to do. And I’m grateful when those memories pop back into my mind, instead of heading off to the dump. But I still can’t rattle off my favorite recipe for tater tot hot dish. I’ll still pull it up on my tablet and scroll through it as I cook. It’s on the menu for tomorrow night. I better go find the link…

I feel pretty

I walked by a store yesterday that sold skin care products – I unknowingly engaged in conversation that led to a skin care demonstration and the gal tried selling me $300 worth of skin care products, all the while commentingn that I had great genetics because I didn’t look my age. Umm, did I miss something here?

I used to be excellent and so consistent with my workouts, until my stress level reached the fan and the shit spread for miles in the last year+. When I was a kid, I had all the confidence in the world in my looks and thought I was beautiful. As a teenager I still recognized that I could catch people’s attention, but I lost a little of my personal mojo. I started gaining weight after high school and kept thinking I had a pretty face, but didn’t really like myself from the neck down.

Then I found exercise in my mid-twenties and loved how it made me feel. I had times when I loved my body, even after having kids, because I was in shape and I was skinny. Then I’d go through stressful patches and put on weight again. Then I’d lose it again. And so on and so on, into the weight yo-yo program I go. Ugh.

Then in my mid-thirties I was in the best shape of my life and of course shit hit the fan and my life imploded. And I gained 30 lbs in a year. So many colorful words for this.

But I’ve recently gotten back into my healthy habits and have been feeling, dare I say, sexy again! I went shopping for clothes to wear for my conference in Hawaii, where I currently am, and the clothes all fit! So I had the choice of what I wanted to wear vs what actually fit me, which is what I had gotten used to have happening.

Which brings me to the story of the skin care products. So while this woman was trying to talk me into buying expensive skin care products because I needed to start taking care of myself, she asked me how old I was. I answer that I’m 39, and she stops for a moment and looks at me surprised, and comments on how good my skin looks. Duh, I don’t need your skin care products. I was just being nice and talking to the other woman in front of the store that was giving me a sample packet of your products. I didn’t realize I was getting sucked in to try to spend money because you know I’m here for a conference.

And tonight I put on a sexy dress and went to an awards banquet. And I felt pretty. And before the banquet I sat on the beach in a swim suit and didn’t care that there were young chicks all over with thong bikinis and their asses hanging out. Because I feel pretty, and I don’t look my age, even without your $300 skin care products.

Stress is stress is stress…

Stress can do awful things to a body. But did you know your body sees all stresses the same? Good stress (eustress) and bad stress (distress)…they all have the same effect.

In the last couple years, I’ve had most of the major life events happen in very close succession. My marriage took a nosedive. I got separated, I had a job change (lost one job and found another, but had a few weeks in between), my father had a heart attack, I moved out of the house, I started dating, and finally the divorce. All the while, my children were having behavior issues. And there was drama in my family.

So even with the positives, my body still wasn’t sure what to do. Starting to date can be scary, and I’m thankful I had the opportunity to start dating someone I already knew – a friend from high school. Thank you social media for keeping us in touch! I guess that was my version of online dating? 😉

Moving out on my own was scary, but it was nice to have a place of my own. Having the opportunity to put things where I wanted, eat when I wanted, exercise when I wanted, do things with the kids on our own time when they were with me. But I don’t have my kids all the time. And that SUCKS! I went from full time mom to part time mom, and that’s my least favorite of all! But I digress…

My mojo started fading, even with all the exciting good things that were happening. I started gaining weight, I got injured – a lot, I found it hard to get up and exercise. After months of looking for a house, I finally found one, and I started moving in this past weekend – yay!! And that’s an entirely different post…BUT I feel awful that I haven’t been able to do much for the moving. Because I’ve been SICK!

I started getting sick before Christmas. Pretty sure I had the flu, despite getting the flu shot back in October. I started feeling better and got to enjoy most of Christmas. Then I went back to work and this past weekend started getting really sick again! So I fall asleep on the couch and can’t help unpack. I sleep many hours of the day. And the cough and head congestion won’t stop. And I’ve had it! But it’s not through with me yet. Because even the good stress of moving into my own home and out of an apartment is still stress. And my body is still revolting. This too shall pass, right?

The blame game

Why does there always have to be someone to blame?

My 9-year-old commented the other night that he “wonders what daddy’s take is on the divorce”. He knows my version, but he was told there’s more to the story.

I could have taken a nasty “it’s all his fault” approach. Instead I had told the kids it was nobody’s fault, which is really the truth. But I guess at the same time, we were both at fault. I said we both took each other for granted and grew apart and that we didn’t work out anymore. At which my middle child once responded “but you DO both work out”…yes we exercise but we didn’t work TOGETHER anymore. We didn’t grow together. We became two separate people living in the same home. On social media we looked perfect, because we had an image to uphold. I didn’t post a picture unless it was perfect. I didn’t post workout pictures where you could see my rolls. I didn’t post a picture with bad hair. I didn’t post a picture that didn’t make us look happy. But, that’s a topic for another post…

Why does there need to be more to the story? Why does it have to be someone’s fault? Why can’t we admit that neither of us held up our ends of the marriage? We’re all adults here, except the kids. Let’s let the kids be kids.

Hello there!

Let me introduce myself…I am a mother of 3 crazy boys, work full time, would rather spend more time in nature…oh yeah, and I’ve been divorced twice. How’s that for a blind introduction?

I’ve had a crazy past couple of years, which it turns out actually has been longer than a couple years. While doing a lot of reading for personal development, I realized I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life. I tried to get my partner in crime to grow with me, but instead we grew apart – badly. And I ended up in therapy. How am I the one to end up in therapy? Who knows, but I’m glad I did. I learned that my troubles started long before husband #2 came into the picture…even long before husband #1!

Adulting is hard. Parenting is hard. Spousing (is that even a word??) is even harder. I’m about to embark on a journey that I’m hoping will help at least one other person out there on the word wide interweb. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has struggled with perfectionism, wondered if she was a good enough mom/wife/sister/daughter…wondered if she made the right choices…wondered how in the world she got where she is… Am I??

If you are even a little bit intrigued as to what kind of stories I might share, please bookmark my page, share as you see fit with other stressed out mamas out there, sit back with a glass of wine, or beer, or tea or coffee or water…and read on…