Stigma

All my childhood I dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Nothing seemed to be as wonderful as being married. Society, religion, and family taught me that all other accomplishments in life would be nothing compared to the importance of me fulfilling the roles of wife and mother. I believed it, I desired it, I strived to obtain it. Movies portrayed that I would meet "the one," and would know we were meant to be. Then we would spend the rest of our time together in bliss and, according to Disney, would live happily ever after.

As I got older and watched all my siblings and many friends get married, I began to wonder about those childhood thoughts. I have always been an observer, willing to learn from other's mistakes instead of having to learn from personal experience. So after noticing that so many people were unhappy in their marriages. I began making mental notes of things I didn't want to do in my marriage and things I would like to include. The number one item on my list was that divorce would never be an option. The "D" word would never be spoken in my relationship. We would work out any problems we had and there would never be a threat of divorce or the ability to use divorce as an ultimatum.

I was never a big dater, I was one of "those girls" that were for marrying, not for having fun with. I only had a couple of boyfriends and by the time I was twenty-four (I know! That is so young! I was just a baby!) had decided that I should just give up completely on the idea of marriage. There would never be anybody compatible with me. That's when I met my future husband. Things progressed quickly and before long we were married and expecting our first child. All my dreams seemed to be coming true!

The problems started immediately. I had always felt I was fairly easy to get along with. I had lived with multiple roommates as well as coming from a large family. I had learned to get along with lots of different personalities but marriage seemed to bring challenges that couldn't compare with anything I had yet experienced. I tried to convince myself that we were just struggling with normal marriage problems. I was being too sensitive and needed to be less judgmental. If I just did things his way then he wouldn't have to yell at me so much. If I just fulfilled his desires and thought less about myself then he would be happy and things would be better. I must be too selfish. If I only thought of him then he wouldn't have so many things to complain about.

Before long, my sense of self was completely lost. It didn't matter what I wanted to do with my time, if he wanted me to do something else I did it. Even if I was throwing up from morning sickness, my body belonged to him. If he was home I couldn't talk on the phone without him listening in and controlling my conversations. Every moment of my day was consumed with how to make him happy and how to keep him from becoming angry. I didn't tell anybody, though, because I felt that I was failing at the one thing I had dreamed about all my life.

My mom would come to visit and she would see the way he treated me. When he would be gone at work she would try to tell me that I shouldn't let him treat me the way he did. I always defended him, excused his behavior, and justified the way he treated me. I didn't want my mom to know how much I was suffering inside. I didn't want her to know I was a failure.

I did everything I could for the first five years to not talk about my struggles in the marriage. Then we moved to another state and spent a couple of months living with my sister and her family. We had three children at the time and we all stayed in one room together while we were waiting to buy our own house. Walls inside a home are thin. I could no longer hide the truth about my marriage. I felt he was on his best behavior when we were around my sister's family, but apparently his best behavior was pretty bad because they were completely appalled at the way he treated me and our children. And his treatment of me behind closed doors could still be heard by others in the house. The secret was out. I had a failing marriage and I couldn't hide it any more.

It's interesting how stigmas can keep us from making decisions that will be for our highest and best good. I have known many people in my life who were divorced and I never thought any worse about them, but when I thought about me being divorced, I couldn't bear the thought of admitting I was a failure. I really honestly thought that it was a sign of weakness, a sign of selfishness, a sign I wasn't good enough to make it work. If I truly loved my children I would stay with their dad so they could grow up in a two parent home.

For three years after our move I tried to do what I could to "save" our marriage. I sought counsel from our religious leaders, I talked to my husband and tried to make changes to myself based on his suggestions, I prayed constantly, fervently, begging for help to know how I could make this marriage work. I didn't want my children to have the stigma of divorced parents. I didn't want to live with the stigma of being a divorcee. We shared the same religion, we claimed to have the same life goals, surely we could find a way to make this marriage work. But no matter how much I put into making it work, he still treated me with no respect. He still caused me to feel like I was less than the dirt he walked on. He still caused our home to feel unsafe.

I finally woke up to the fact that staying for the children to have a two parent home was far more damaging than getting a divorce when one of my daughters told someone at school that she wasn't sure that she wanted her dad to be her dad anymore. She also said at school that she was afraid that one of her younger siblings was getting bruised from her dad spanking her. At the time we had four children. Three out of the four had been bruised many times during "discipline." The fourth was still an infant. Something had to change. If I didn't get out of the marriage soon, a teacher was going to hear my child's reports and child services was going to be called.

When our youngest was eleven months old, my fear of watching him go through the abuse the other children went through became so great that I could hardly even function. I couldn't watch another child be broken by their father. Many things led up to that day when the pain of staying finally became greater than the pain of leaving. It doesn't sound logical, but in my mind I thought that I would literally die by following through with leaving my husband. I had asked him twice if we could temporarily separate to try to work things out from a distance. He plopped himself down on the couch and said, "This is my house and no one can make me leave!" I couldn't go to my sister's house because he would be able to find me. I had no where to go, no one to ask for help. That is when I was given the number of a homeless shelter for women escaping domestic violence. I put off calling as long as I could, but when I saw what was happening to my children, I finally called.

If the stigma of getting a divorce was difficult for me to swallow, the stigma of living in a homeless shelter was even more challenging. Add to it the domestic violence and it was almost unbearable. Domestic violence was a label for someone who was being beaten, not for me. But I quickly learned that there was just as much domestic violence in my situation as there was in the other women I met through the shelter. At first I felt guilty being there, feeling that I didn't fit the requirements, but as we shared stories I learned that my pain was real. My experience was valid. My marriage was filled with domestic violence, disrespect, and lots of pain. But during my time in the shelter and since, I also learned that there was hope. Life could get better. I could heal. I wasn't really weak, I was brave and strong. And the only reason there was hope was because I was willing to stand up and leave a situation that was bad for both me and my children. I was giving my children a better life.

Sometimes it is still hard to admit that I am divorced. I can easily say that I am a single mom of four children but it still hurts to say the word "divorced." I was never going to be "one of those" people, whatever that means. When I look back on my childhood dreams I feel slightly betrayed. Once you get married everything is supposed to just work out. Disney, you lied to me! ;-) There is no "happily ever after." Regardless of how things turned out, I am grateful for what I have learned. I am so grateful for my four amazing children. I am grateful to have learned that I am strong enough, I am good enough. And though there is still much pain, I can honestly say that I am grateful to my ex-husband for all he has taught me. I would never ask to repeat any of what I have experienced, but I would never ask to change what has happened because it has revealed so much of who I am. And that is a gift.

Are you holding back anything in your life because of a stigma or outdated belief?