Divorced Before 30

Today’s guest post is from Phenom, a young woman and mom who is still going through the divorce process. Enjoy!

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The day I knew it was over was a beautiful fall day in Northern Virginia. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was warm and sunny and totally perfect. The weather was mocking us from the start.

We had taken our son, just 13 months old at the time, to one of those fall festival-type gigs at a local farm about thirty minutes from our house in one of the more the rural suburbs in the area. The plan was to have a fun family day of a Saturday and just enjoy one another’s company. Pet the animals, drink some apple cider, eat some fried dough, and maybe bring home a pumpkin or two for carving. I was giddy with anticipation of all the fun stuff we were going to do as a family as I packed the diaper bag (alone) and loaded up the car (alone).

While I got myself and our son ready, my husband dragged his feet, asking me childish questions like how long we were going to be there and if there was going to be food. I’ll admit that I didn’t handle his sour mood on top of his not helping to get us ready all that nicely. We had been in marriage counseling for four months at this point and at our most recent session, just 3 days prior, he had made promises that he pretty much was already breaking with his bad attitude and reluctance to help out. Needless to say, I was angry and tried my best to just trudge onward and upward for the sake of our son. I wanted to go to the festival with my husband and son. I wanted to be that family. I wanted the sunny Saturday without the fights and without the doom and gloom. But he was already raining on my parade…so, I yelled. I’m not going to pretend that I was the perfect spouse or parent that day.

We got over the initial fighting somehow and made it to the farm without too much yelling at one another in the car. Our son didn’t nap because of the arguing, but at least we weren’t screaming at one another upon arrival. Right? At least we made it there without the car being turned around and us throwing the towel in on the whole plan. Right? This is the type of self-dialoguing I was used to at this point when things between us were bad in front of our child. I continued the rationalizing in my head as I unloaded the baby, his stroller, and his bag while my husband moped around in the backseat on his Blackberry.

Well, as you can probably guess by now, the whole day was a bust. We argued the entire time. I kept trying to push the “day of fun” on him and our son, and he kept moping and resisting every effort I made. He paid more attention to his Blackberry than me or our kid. I don’t even think he noticed how beautiful the weather was or how much fun our son was having running around and playing. Every time we spoke, we argued. And this time it wasn’t just in front of our son, it was in front of anyone and everyone around us. At one point, my husband left me in the corn maze alone with our son to finish it without him. At another, I left him at a food service booth because I couldn’t stand to be near him for one more second. We couldn’t even pick a pumpkin without fighting, so we left without one.

While we stood in line for the corn maze behind multiple happy couples holding hands and being affectionate with one another and their children, we argued over whether or not our son should wear a bib and if he should walk or sit in his stroller. While we ate lunch next to a family of six where the mom and dad spoke to one another with compassion and cooperation as their four children screamed and wiggled out of their seats creating chaos, we argued about what I had brought for our son to eat and why he shouldn’t just eat crap from the concession stand. We basically watched most of the people around us enjoy the beautiful day, with their kids and with each other, while we each wanted to die from the misery of it all. It may have been sunny for them, but for us it was the darkest day yet. I remember thinking to myself how grateful I was that our son was too young to notice our bad behavior, let alone let it darken the fun he was having on such a gorgeous fall day.

On the ride home, we barely said a word to one another. I would like to think it was because we didn’t want to wake our son who, after such a long day, was finally napping in his car seat. But I know that we didn’t speak because both of us knew it was over for real. Finally. We knew it because we had just spent an entire family outing hating one another in the presence of family fun experienced by everyone around us. We couldn’t even pretend to be happy for our son, let alone for each other.

I knew I had to leave after that. I just had to. I knew that our innocent son deserved the warm and sunny days over everything else. He was so young. He is so young. He doesn’t deserve to grow up with a rain cloud over his head because his parents were so utterly dysfunctional. I had to get out. I had to save him from the never-ending, always-building storm that had become our day-to-day lives. I had to leave before it was too late. Before he was sucked into the dysfunction too, and before he ended up forever scarred by it. I no longer wanted to be the family that we actually were. We would never be that family that I dreamed of. It was over. The dream was over.

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Thanks, Phenom, for the terrific post! This is the first Divorced Before 30 guest post from a parent, and I’m sure there are many people out there in unhealthy marriages who struggle with whether to leave because of the kids. Please visit Phenom’s blog, Starting Over Wonderful, and follow her on twitter at @OverWondeful.