I'm so the ex-wife you want to have!

If I do say so myself. And in no particular order, here's why:

What I sometimes fantasised about doing What I actually did ·    Posting on FB my (sarcastic) congratulations to my ex in meeting his soul mate (insert name here), for all our mutual friends to see. ·    Bit my tongue. Kept my anger/pain/upset/honest thoughts and feelings to a trusted small circle. ·    Cut up his clothing ·    Scratch his extensive collection of CDs and DVDs ·    Rip random pages out of his books ·    Ripped off some buttons from some good shirts and jackets. ·    Answering my eldest son’s question of “why did you and daddy separate”, with “ask your father, it was his idea”. ·    Calmly explained that we still cared for each other but not like we used to at the beginning of our relationship, and that we want to continue being good friends for the rest of our lives and not end up disliking each other. ·    Give her a piece of my mind when I saw her at the gym ·    Worked out even harder. Then proceeded to send nasty texts to my ex about her. Think the lines “I could easily snap her” and “typical, she’s the kind of person who wears make up and jewellery at the gym” were among some of the gems. (note, I really don’t judge you if you wear make up and jewellery to the gym. Unless you are her, and then I will judge her for pretty much anything!) ·      Answering questions from friends/colleagues/acquaintances about the separation with details such as “he didn’t want to work on our marriage” or “he met his soul mate”. ·    Was honest about how I was feeling, but didn’t go into gory detail, or say anything I would regret a little later on.

And now I've given myself a pat on the back, I should explain - it wasn't easy. It was bloody hard. Hard biting my tongue. Hard sometimes fighting back the tears. Hard to word my sentences so I would answer the questions, tastefully. Hard to know when to seek out company (which I find hard anyway) and when to be by myself.

And I'm glad I was able to. Sure I had my moments when I totally lost my shite, but I was either by myself, with a dear trusted friend, or with my ex. And now, a couple of months on I can hold my head up and be proud of how I handled myself.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not going to judge anyone for how they process this kind of grief. But I   know I wanted to minimise the pain for the kids and myself. I started to realise that by continuing to hit out at my ex and hold onto the pain, I was only hurting myself. It wasn't going to change what happened, stop him seeing her or make me feel any better. It's been a tough couple of months, but on the whole I'm in a much better place than I was in the beginning and have learned so much about myself. Most importantly - how strong I actually am! We have no idea of what we are made of until we are tested, and this was my biggest test to date. And if I had held onto the pain, I wouldn't have gone on this journey.

But the other ex - her husband - is reacting like a lot of people would. He's hurting. From what I hear he's saying all sorts of hurtful and inappropriate things around town, to his friends and family, and worse, to their young kids. He hasn't called me in a while, but he did send me a text after midnight a couple of nights ago. And I can really feel the pain he is in. But I can also see he is not accepting the reality of the situation, and is actually making it worse by making things up to make him feel better, when all it's going to do is make it harder for him to get through this. But that's his journey.

So yes, I can give myself a pat on the back and tell myself "I'm so the ex-wife you want to have!", because on the whole I've helped this separation be a lot less painful and messy than it could have been. But more importantly I'm going to give myself a pat on the back and remind myself "I'm so going to be a better and stronger person, because that's what I deserve!"

And they are words I will need to keep reminding myself, as the new milestones come up. We survived Christmas and our anniversary, then this weekend comes his birthday. I will be going back to work soon, so I will be seeing him at work, plus there will be other work colleagues to deal with over time. There'll be more chances of seeing him down the street, and ultimately having her more present in my life and the children's life. But I'll just need to take those milestones one step at a time.