Exactly a month after my sister died, my husband walked into the room and told me to take the boys and get out. He had been cheating for about 6 months at that time, unbeknownst to me. Could I have stayed and fought? Could I have told him to get HIS stuff and get out? Yes. Did I? No.
Honestly, at that point, I was just done. I was tired of the fighting. I was tired of the abuse. I was tired of the control he had over me and the boys. I packed the boys up and we left to my mom's house.
We stayed with my parents for a month until I found a place to rent. It was hard at first. My mom had just lost her daughter. She was fighting for custody of my sister's oldest son from his dead beat father. And here I come knocking on her door with my 3 boys. We made it work, though.
The boys had to change schools. They lost their house, their school, their friends, their family unit, their dog and their cat. I kept one of the 2 dogs, though, so we at least had Sashi. This, after just losing their aunt.
One of them had a hard transition. You'd have thought it was Timmy, with the Autism, but it wasn't. Timmy had an amazing transition. It was like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He no longer was butting heads with his father, who just couldn't understand Autism. He did amazing in the new school. He stopped having meltdowns. It was amazing.
Niko was pretty heartbroken. He struggled in his new school. He was very popular in his old school, and in the new one, not so much. He struggled with a teacher that, instead of lifting him up and trying to help him to fit in, put him down in front of the class. He was the closest to my sister. He was the closest to his father. This really devastated him.
Adrian took it like a champ. He thinks his father hangs the moon, and that is fine. He really just shrugged it off and went on with life. There were a few nights that he cried because he missed daddy, but that didn't last long.
As for the Ex, he was able to start having visitations with the boys. Now the boys regularly go and see him every other weekend. We are legally divorced. He is engaged to a really nice woman that treats my boys well. (No, this is not the woman he was cheating on me with). He and I have decided that the children are the most important thing, and it definitely doesn't help them at all if we fight all the time. To that end, we've really been quite congenial with each other over the past 6 months or so. It was hard at first. Hard to get past the hurt. Now, the only time I ever seem to get upset with him is if he spaces on the kids and doesn't show up for visitation, but that doesn't happen much.
You know what, though? I'm happy for the first time in a long time. People kept commenting "Wow, Catrina! It's so nice to see you smile again! It's so nice to hear your laugh again! We haven't seen it in forever!" And it really made me realize how unhappy I was.
Something else I realized? I don't NEED a man. I can do this. I'm taking care of my boys. We are having fun. We are living a good life. And we are HAPPY! This has been huge for me. This self confidence was something I've been missing for a long time. I like this new me.
