Hellobee

Quick Recap: I found out I was pregnant a few hours before my husband said he was moving out. I kept the news quiet for a day until I met with a lawyer, because Texas has strict guidelines for providing divorces and separations while pregnant. I told him the news with inscrutable results, only to have him pretend everything was normal later. We told the kids, who took it hard, and he moved out three days after giving me the news.

Monday came, and routine settled in. I got my oldest daughter ready for preschool and fed my younger one. We did drop off and I headed home. It was a pretty uneventful day. My anxiety was growing in leaps and bounds because of all the transition going on. Not only was I moving from married to single mom, but I would have to find work, immediately. I had been a stay-at-home-mom for the past four years, and hadn’t generated any income more than a paltry few hundred a year selling homemade furniture. Not only that, but I was pregnant, which would make job hunting much harder, plus I didn’t have regular child care, so away-from-home jobs weren’t really in my best interest. I was scrambling. I was also agonizing over the separation agreement. I had given my husband a paper with notes of items I planned to include. When we spoke he was agreeable, but then the day after he had have changes for it. I was terrified he was talking to his friends who would rile him up into fighting me just for the sake of fighting and the children would get hurt in the process. That was the absolute worst possibility in my mind. I had an appointment with my lawyer on Tuesday morning to hammer out the final details from my side.

The appointment went really well. It was long, but since we had so many clauses to edit and add, it was understandable. I felt like I had a good handle on things. He said the only thing he could foresee being a hangup was health insurance. My husband didn’t want to pay out of pocket for insurance, and it was standard to include that on top of child support as prenatal care was supporting the unborn child. He said I could find out what type of coverage I currently had through my husband’s employer (who said they were dropping us 30 days after the divorce was final, child or no child), so I could find private coverage elsewhere on my own.

That’s when things got hairy. I called my husband to ask HR if they could print something out (I had no idea where I filed that packet), and he flipped the switch on me. He claimed I had kicked him out; he thought this was what I wanted; I confused him; he never wanted this. He was very angry and he didn’t want to be at that house anymore. He realized how much he was going to miss with the kids. I was keeping him from them; I was hurting them.

Finger pointing blame game is what I saw, and it was really scary. Did I kick him out? I mean, that wasn’t how I remembered it happening, but it was only the two of us there. Was I responsible for this hurt my children are feeling? Was this really all my fault?

Then I got angry. My brand of anger is the cold, quiet type. I told him in no circumstances did I kick him out. I let him lead this conversation, and he was the one who said it was over. In fact, he didn’t come home saying he would do anything it took (which meant giving his guns away indefinitely and going back to couple’s counseling) to figure things out. No, he came home with plans and rented rooms and lists of dividing debts and finances. I refused to accept blame for this. The choices were his. And while I agreed with them, that didn’t mean I wanted them. Who wants someone to stay when they resent being there? I’ll keep the details minimal, but it wasn’t a surprise to me when he initially said he chose to leave, and I was actually impressed with his self-reflection and honesty when we had that very first conversation. I was grieving the loss of my family, of the life I had pictured, but I had accepted that loss. It seemed not only did he refuse to accept his own responsibility in this situation, he decided instead to blame me for it.

I ended the conversation feeling very unsettled. I called my lawyer back and asked for a game plan as my husband had already set hours to come see the kids after work. My lawyer told me to not mention anything about filing for divorce, but to instead encourage him to make a meeting so he could talk over all the details from the separation agreement with him.

We had a good conversation that evening, where my husband admitted he was freaking out about all the transition as well as the reality of how expensive everything was going to be, and he really didn’t want to just up and move back home. I told him how much stress and anxiety this was causing me. I barely slept. I was constantly nauseated, but not just with morning sickness. I didn’t eat much. This was taking a toll on me and the baby, and I had lost nearly five pounds in the handful of days since this began. I begged him to sit down and read over the agreement and call my lawyer for an appointment. We had to get this settled while we were calm and rational, and for the most part agreeable with each other. I needed that safeguard for my children. I wanted to know that we could settle our separation details with their best interests in mind, while also giving me the reassurance necessary over the whole gun issue. The worst case scenario for me was going to court and duking it out over every minute detail, shredding any semblance of a cordial relationship and destroying our children emotionally.

He was very understanding. So much so he called the lawyer that night and set up an appointment for the next day after work. I was still sweating it and I couldn’t relax. Everything felt topsy turvy. As soon as I started to feel acceptance, he changed the game on me. What would tomorrow bring?!