Category: divorce

God

Posted on by Tikeetha T

July 2013

God! God help me! I can’t breathe God! The pain is insurmountable. I feel like I’m struggling. The devil is on my heels and I can’t seem to shake him.

God I know that I haven’t been faithful in following your lead. I know that I have chosen to live a life that you didn’t want. I know God. I know.

But, God! This pain is smothering me like a wet blanket on a hot fire. Take it away God! Please! I’m walking around like a zombie. My son is holding me as I cry myself to sleep.

God, I never knew life after wanting peace could hurt so much. Help me God! Help me move past my pain so that I can be strong. Munch needs me. I need him. You have never forsaken me God.

I must keep pressing on. You saved me God! Do it again!

Have mercy on me God! Have mercy.

G

This post was part of the A2Z challenge and the letter “G” is for God. My posts will be written as a journal style for the challenge and will be on the theme: Mothering While Black. I hope you enjoyed it.

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/.

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Effort

Posted on by Tikeetha T

July 2013

It requires a lot of effort to fake indifference at my lot in life. To get up each morning and put on a smile and try for the sake of my son to be present in the moment. To not stress over the bulls*it games. To disengage from the noise and focus on being there regardless of those weapons formed against me.

But, I will not give up. Effort is exerting. I am tired. I’m trying to focus on the positive of my situation and accepting that Munch will be okay. I have to smile, show up and love. Love without limits and give freely of myself.

How can I do that though?

As he sat there packing his clothes to move out, he told me today that he could sue me for full custody and take half of my retirement. I couldn’t breathe. Life stopped. What were mere seconds felt like an eternity. How could you?

I don’t care about money. I care about Munch. I squared my shoulders and said “I don’t know who is filling your head with this BS but I will leave this house, put everything in storage and move in with my mother and get the best attorney and fight you with every thing I have. I will spend my yearly salary on an attorney, but you will not take him from me and when I’m done wasting your time and money in court, you will have 83 days a year instead of the 182 I offered.”

Silence. The thickness of my words filled the room. He stared at me.

The truth in my words lay like at his feet. Only death would keep me from my son. I wasn’t going to die.

Rage. I was filled with rage.

It takes effort to fix your mind when the person you loved the most tries to take the one thing you live for. The one person you breathe for. The person that needs you now more than ever. I have to stay strong. Munch needs me. I need to keep my sanity. Keeping my sanity requires effort.

I pray that God will continue to have mercy on me and give me the strength to keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other. I must keep walking for Munch. For me.

No matter what.

 

E

This post was part of the A2Z challenge and the letter “E” is for Effort. My posts will be written as a journal style for the challenge and will be on the theme: Mothering While Black. I hope you enjoyed it.

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/.

Divorce

Posted on by Tikeetha T

March 2013

It’s over. I told him in January that I wanted a divorce. He wanted to take time to think about it. Think about what? We’re not happy. We deserve to be happy. It’s not getting better. I just have to cope with this change. Wake up and repeat.

Some days are better than ever. I’m an emotional wreck. I don’t want Munch living in two separate homes. But, this is what I signed up for when I asked for a divorce. I just have to get used to it.

What about schools?  What kind of school will Munch attend? I don’t really like the public schools in my area. I picked out a great Catholic school. We both went. Munch is allowed to spend a day with them to get used to it. That’s good news despite the stress.

I’m trying not to think about the fact that Munch is now another statistic. A child of divorce. Will he be okay? What have I done? I don’t think I thought about Munch. Am I being selfish?

I pray not.

I have to focus on one thing at a time. This is stressing me out. I need to get my mind right. Focus on the logistics; the parenting plan, finding a school and getting through his day care graduation. I feel like everyone is looking at Munch and I when we go anywhere. Am I wearing a big “D” on my forehead. I’m consumed with thoughts of how Munch will survive and whether or not he will survive this. Truthfully, I wonder if I will survive.

It is as it shall be. Another black boy from a broken home. This was my worst fear realized. I never wanted to raise a child alone.

D

This post was part of the A2Z challenge and the letter “D” is for Divorce. My posts will be written as a journal style for the challenge and will be on the theme: Mothering While Black. I hope you enjoyed it.

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/.

Is He My Type?

Posted on by Tikeetha T

Dating is hard. Heck, not much has changed since I’ve been in a relationship with my love. I get it. We all want that “perfect love”. That person that brings out the best in us. That person that we can just click with. The person that knows how to love us and love us right because we’ve all been hurt from prior relationships. Does this person exist?

Yes!

That person does exist. But, do you know the type of person that you should be dating? Have you spent time reflecting on your love language, your dating style, your compatability? Have you focused on finding the type of person that fits your personality?

I didn’t at first. See, when you’re in your 20’s and enjoying the great times of being young and career focused you don’t get the benefit of knowing who you are and what you truly want if you are randomly dating guys. You just enjoy the company, but you are more focused on your career. You have an objective to focus on love later.

I was in my late 30’s when I divorced and a lot had changed. I still didn’t know anything about me. I tried learning and dating was rough. The possibilities and the wrong selections felt overwhelming. I was drowning in a sea of the wrong ones.

At least that was my story.

That story changed when I found myself happy and in love after my divorce. Something that I never imagined possible. Not that love was impossible. I wanted to love again, but the happy piece – seemed impossible. The genuine happiness of feeling that I have an incredible partner that shares my journey with me. A man that helps me rewrite my thoughts about love and life each day because of his continued support of me.

I am a work in progress, but I have to tell you that I have learned a lot about myself after my divorce. I have been called “controlling” by men. Controlling is part of my nature. I think because of my abuse, I’ve learned to survive by controlling the aspects of my life that I can. My life. Not others. I live by the planner and calendar. It’s all I know.

But, that is only one piece of who I am. I discovered that I’m an alpha female. I talked about women who are alpha females and discovering that I was one in my post a few years ago and how that explained some of my behaviors. I wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think I was as bad as some may have described. Learning more about myself helped me to realize that there was nothing wrong with being who I am.

I’m strong and that’s okay. I’m an alpha female and that makes me self-assured and enterprising. I work for what I want. At all costs. That makes great determination when looking for a partner that will have your back.

In learning my personality type, I also learned my love language. My love language is quality time. If you don’t know about the 5 Love Languages, I suggest you take the quiz and learn your love language. This is part of learning who you are and what you want out of a relationship.

Arming myself with the knowledge of who I am and what I need helped me to be able to stand tall and speak what I wanted in life. I was able to determine who I am and what I need out of a relationship. The next step was figuring out were we compatible or not. That’s where my journey led me to Mr. C.

 

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/

Cursing and Conflict

Posted on by Tikeetha T

One of the things that I’m trying in my relationship with Mr. C is to make sure that we have constructive conflict. Conflict happens as part of any relationship. It’s normal. It’s natural. But, many people (myself included) either avoid conflict or we aren’t taught how conflict is supposed to work.

My marriage was an example of this. We didn’t have healthy conflict. We saw many therapists and one relationship therapist turned us on to Gottman’s method for couples :

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The goals of the Gottman method are “to disarm conflicting verbal communication, increase intimacy, respect, and affection, remove barriers that create a feeling of stagnancy in conflicting situations, and create a heightened sense of empathy and understanding within the context of the relationship.”

It sounds awesome in theory, but it was hard to do.  We didn’t get too far. It wasn’t our therapist fault. I got put on bed rest and couldn’t continue in the therapy sessions. My pregnancy was high risk so I didn’t want to discuss stressful things that could endanger my baby. So, I chose to stop it. The baby’s life was more important to me than working on my marriage.

I stifled the pain and frustrations of my marriage and focused on my baby. I was determined to carry my pregnancy to term so we in essence avoided the conflict. It wasn’t healthy. It was unsettling. We didn’t fight fair. Our foundation wasn’t built on solid ground and it began to crack after Munch was born.

We couldn’t communicate to save our lives. Neither of us had learned how to effectively communicate in relationships and that has moved into a major reason why we don’t communicate well now. Good communication is essential to anything you want to do in a relationship and let’s be real…co-parenting is a relationship.

I realized that I couldn’t do it alone with co-parenting, but I had to shift how I let things affect me. However, in my relationship with Mr. C this shift in poor communication was not something that I was willing to sacrifice. I was okay being alone. Learning how to communicate mainly through texts and emails was something I’ve gotten used to in co-parenting, but I needed a man that would talk to me, lead me and love me through our issues. Especially those that involved communication.

I am learning to be more open with Mr. C. To express my discontent on issues or frustrations in a way that he will hear me, but not make me feel as though I’m blowing things out of a proportion. I needed to make sure that we are practicing healthy communication behaviors. So, I did what I do best and began to research effective ways to communicate and how to have healthy conflict resolution.

I focused on my communication skills and wanted to research “fair fighting” and healthy conflict. I needed to know how to communicate my dissatisfaction in a relationship without it escalating into World War III. I wanted to be able to increase intimacy, respect and affection like in the Gottman method without either of us cussing each other out and I wanted to make sure that we understood our end goal was always to be heard and respected.

-To Be Continued-

 

 

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/.0

I Don’t Want That

Posted on by Tikeetha T

Last week, in my post Marriage Isn’t For Everyone I told you that I’m freaking out because I’m not sure that I want to get married again. EVER. Not that I’m unsure about Mr. C.

He’s actually the only thing that I’m positive about when it comes to imagining my future. He’s the known. It’s the unknown that scares me.

In that, I’ve been having a lot of anxiety around our future. Last week we had a conversation and I shared with him how I was unsure of whether or not I wanted marriage again and asked could he be okay with that. I explained that I loved him and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, but I didn’t know if I was the marrying type.

I told him that we’d essentially been there and done that and I asked would he be willing to be with me and live with me at some point with no prospect of marriage. He paused. He always pauses when asked deep and introspective questions, but this pause seemed to drag on for eternity.

He asked “What will we tell Munch?” I responded “The truth. That families come in all different forms and that we are a family and the love we have for each other supersedes. I’ll tell him that we love each other and maybe we’ll get married some day, but at this point, I don’t want too. I want to live and build a home and a family with you.” He asked could he get 24 hours to think about it. I agreed.

We resumed our conversation and he said that he could accept that I may never want to marry one day. He wanted to know would it be one-sided. Basically, if I woke up one day and said “Hey, let’s get married now and he didn’t want too would I be okay with that.” I paused. I hadn’t thought about that. I assumed that he would be okay with a “Hey, let’s get married now announcement.” But was it really fair? No. So, I told him “Yeah, I have no choice. It’s both of us. It’s about our family and our legacy.” He said he was fine with it.

I didn’t know if I believed him or not. I gave him a lot of information to process. I prayed that he understood that I loved him, wanted to be with him, raise my son with him and grow old. However, the male ego is precious and I didn’t know if my declaration about not wanting marriage would roar it’s ugly head in another way. Was I really being fair to him if we wanted two different things?

– To Be Continued –

 

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/.

 

Marriage Isn’t For Everyone

Posted on by Tikeetha T

I have a confession.

Ugh!

I don’t know how to really say it.

Saying it out loud scares me.

But, we’re friends right?

I can trust you with this confession.

Okay, here goes…

I don’t know if I want to get married again.

Whew!

I said it.

I’m scared though.

What does that mean for my relationship with Mr. C? We’re planning our lives together. To be united as man and wife. To love without limits and live together legally. In God’s eyes. In man’s eyes. But, I don’t know if I want that anymore.

Not that I don’t want him. I love him. I want him. I literally thank God every day for the love this man has given me and continues to give me, but I have such negative thoughts about marriage. My last marriage left a horrific metallic taste in my mouth.

It felt like a sham. The fact that we still have to communicate for the sake of Munch reminds me of how horrible someone can change when love just doesn’t reside there anymore. I don’t want that with Mr. C. That’s what scares me.

I know he’s not my ex. He’s different. Completely different. But, marriage. Marriage changes people. Divorce changes people. Children change people.

Sometimes for the good. Sometimes for the bad.

Mr. C told me the other day that he wanted us to adopt. A little girl. A six year old girl after we got married. I laughed.

I later had a panic attack. I can’t do this. I can’t raise a child and go through a horrible custody battle if we don’t work out. I don’t want to divide up assets or create a shared custody schedule. I can’t put another child through the pain that I’ve already put Munch through.

I thought we had agreed to no more children. Hell, I almost cried when the doctor told me that my ovaries are acting 15 years younger than I am. What the hell? I don’t want anymore children.

Sigh.

It’s true.

Not now.

Not ever.

In a perfect world – I wish that my man and I can live and raise our children together. That we will laugh and love until we tire of each other. If we don’t ever tire, I pray that we shall grow old and gray and thankful that God gave us each other.

Not legally bound.

But spiritually.

Is there something wrong with that wish?

 

Want to keep in touch? You can find me on social media at the following links: Twitter @mskeeinmd, Facebook page A Thomas Point of View and my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/mskeeinmd/.