Divorce: Finding my Worth

There’s a saying that families only get together for weddings and funerals but that’s not true – there are other times and reasons like special birthdays and graduations, especially of grandkids. It can be really hard if there is a divorce in the mix – you want to have it special and wonderful for the happy celebrations but if the wound never fully healed, each event kind of tears it open a bit so you get to dreading something you should be happily looking forward to. As my ex has chosen to share his ongoing life with 3 other women since the initial devastation that was the end of my time with him, our sons have had to accept each new person in their father’s life and learn to move on when each one no longer was what he wanted. They have done so admirably, determined to keep their connection with their dad and with me, putting up with all the difficulties that go with all this. While I can look at each change as further proof it is my ex with the problem of not being able to sustain a relationship, it has been hard to override my own throw-away status and replacement. The following poem summed it up at one time:

Trade In

He won't lift a finger
To mend a relationship,
Although he'll patch,
nurture and repair
His "$200 special" cars -
While the wrecker
Hauls his wife away,
Replaced by a newer model.

(He used to find cars with 90,000 miles on them which the former owner would part with for only $200. Being skilled and handy, he could usually repair them and thus we had several of these $200 specials at different times but when it came to our marriage, he refused to do any counseling or therapy - no repairs and definitely no nurture.)

So my own struggle has been to find my worth for I felt like a throw-away which, despite much therapy and work and courses and interests, has been a hard feeling to counter.

I finally realized that there is one way in which I matter through it all that no other woman can and that is I am the mother of two wonderful sons and while the other women could bear him additional sons or daughters; our two exist only because of me. All these other women could not be the mother of these two fine men and now the grandmother of 2 fine young grandsons. In terms of worth – this is priceless!