10 Super Annoying Things About Going Through a Divorce

When you make the decision to get a divorce (or the decision is made for you) there are endless amounts of tears, worries, stressors, sleepless nights, desires etc. that you are forced to deal with:
Every. Single. Day.


So there I was, in the middle of an emotional breakdown, barely able to get up and dress myself and my two little girls and yet life wouldn't stop. It just kept going. I had to pick myself up and begin the process of unraveling 10 years of a life spent with someone who was now no more than a stranger---and man was it annoying.


1. Verizon Wireless: Do they not know that people get divorces!? Separating our family plan into two separate lines was almost as difficult as having an afternoon tea with the President of the United States. The contracts, the billing, the phone calls all to give them more money for the same freaking services!


2. Facebook: Dear Facebook--you suck for people going through a divorce. You show me roses on Valentine's Day, happy families in Disney World and gifts from loving husbands who don't lie and cheat.


3. The In-Laws: The truth is I was never fond of my in-laws to begin with. They never really got me and I never got them. They would tease me for being Italian, Catholic and drinking organic milk...I would question their values, integrity and how they treated one another. But none-the-less, looking at someone as your family for 10 years and then cutting those ties is painful and annoying.


4. "This is my...": He had always been my husband...and now I wasn't sure who he was. Introducing Mr. Little (an homage to my love for Sex in the City) to people we met was awkward and weird...and ANNOYING!


5. Advice: Now don't get me wrong--getting advice, guidance and direction from people is what literally saved my life during some of the darkest days I had, but it was also one of the most annoying things ever. It was like I needed to hand out guidelines as to what kind of advice I needed when.


6. Co-Parenting: I freaking hate co-parenting. I have said that co-parenting for me is like raising my children with a stranger who I hated and having no say in what he did with my children, who he brought around them, what he fed them, how he dressed them, what he let them watch on TV etc. etc. etc.

7. Dating: What the hell dating? You are insane! Fun, exhausting, scary, sexy, confusing etc. Last time I dated I was 21, and I don't think we called it dating back then. I think we called it "Go out, get drunk, make out with some guy and poof he is your new boyfriend".

8. Head Tilt/Rub & Pat: When I was 14 my best friends father died suddenly of a heart attack. It was horrible. I remember sitting with her mother on the couch in their living room and she would tell me how more than anything she hated the head tilt and the rub and pat--allow me to clarify. The head tilt was when someone would talk to her about what had happened and tilt their head towards their shoulder and frown to show sympathy....hated it...(and you know you are doing it as you read this). The second was when someone would hug her for an extended period of time, rub her back and pat it...hated it. I also hate them both, and the people who do them. It's annoying.

9. Sex: This somewhat ties into number seven...but not always :) Sex is madness. It was never something I thought much about in relation to supply and demand. When I wanted it, I got it, when I didn't want it that was fine too. But not being able to have it---now that sucks. Early on I was told by a close friend to be a strong woman, care for my children, get my finances in order, find a good therapist and get a really awesome vibrator. Check, check , check, check and CHECK!

10. Going through a divorce. Yeah...it's annoying.

The 7 Habits of Highly Broken Down People

I had a training recently on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I was inspired, moved to tears, motivated and broken.

After the training was over I went to the speaker, introduced myself and told him how wonderful the morning had been. He smiled and thanked me.

"But what if I incorporate all of these habits into my life, but the people I interact with don't do the same...then what?"

"You can only worry about what you do and how you act. Then it won't matter what those other people are doing because you will be living the best version of you there is..."

"When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are forced to change ourselves" ~Viktor E. Frankl

Day One

I can literally remember the exact second that my life changed forever. Sometimes I think I am lucky to remember that moment so clearly. To have that second to look back and reflect on for years to come. And I am hopeful that as the years pass and that second becomes nothing but a distant memory, that it won’t hold so much meaning in my life. That it will in fact be nothing more than a second. An insignificant amount of time that means nothing. But for now, for today, I can remember, and it hurts, scares me and brought me to where I am today.

When your marriage falls apart, when your husband cheats on you, when you feel blindsided and don’t know where to run, where to look, who to tell…things stand still. They did for me anyway, and I have heard from other people that they had a similar experience. I explain it by referencing a scene in a movie where a women is standing in the middle of a NYC street and all the cars and people are moving around her so quickly that they are blurry and not in focus, and she is there, perfectly still just looking around at the world passing her by. 

That was me, still, motionless, powerless, or so I thought. Just waiting. Waiting for my husband to tell me his version of the truth, to give me an explanation I could wrap my head around, to figure out how we were going to walk though this pain and come out the other end untouched. In those early days I remember thinking I would tell my friends and family in 20 years when our marriage was stronger than ever. I would tell them of this tough time we went through and how we came out the other end better...it didn't happen that way... 

"Day one day one start over again
Step one step one
I'm barely making sense for now
I'm faking it 'til I'm pseudo making it
From scratch begin again but this time I as I
And not as we" ~ Alanis Morissette