Our Family Minus One

My family is not "typical."  I married and had three children together before he passed away.  A couple of years later, I remarried and six years after that I divorced.  

When I am asked my marital status, I'm mostly confused.  
"Should I say widowed?"  I think to myself.  
"That is how I feel.  I have no financial support from my ex and I'm raising my children on my own . . . but, I was most recently divorced," I reason again.  
"Maybe I'm lying- or people will think I'm lying if I tell them I'm a widow.  After all, they don't really care about what you've been through, only where you're at."  Ugh.

Honestly, I don't just feel like a widow, but it's a much easier pill to swallow in the LDS culture.  Divorce, although increasingly common among LDS families, is still frowned upon.  You're still looked at as a failure, or at the very least you're a quitter. Hmmm.  I don't consider myself either.

I've been divorced for just over a year now.  It's been a tough year, but it's been good in so many ways. I've come to realize that I learned a great deal throughout both of my marriages and I've also learned a lot from my second marriage and the ensuing divorce.  I have the blessing to compare and contrast relationships in the context of two different marriages in a way that few others get to, and I get to learn from all of it . . . if I want to.  I get to grow and change because of it . . . if I want to.  

How much do I want to know?

I attended a conference earlier this week, and I realized once again, that I'm not alone in my divorce or my feelings of being judged. The important thing to remember is that what others think of you never matters as much as what you think of yourself.  Did you do the right thing?  

I know I did.

This is my beautiful family minus one.  Life isn't easy after divorce, but because I didn't divorce their father, life seems to be more . . . normal again.  There is us, just like it was after Dad died.  We're just . . . well . . . . . .  older.

"The time will come," prophesied President Spencer W. Kimball, "when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us."

As I begin this blog, I want to be clear on this one point:  I believe!  I believe in families and I believe they can be forever but as the father of the afflicted son plead with Christ, I cry out with my tears, "Lord, I believe! Help thou mine unbelief."