Rock bottom, 50 feet of crap, me

It was the week after I'd found out that my husband had been seeing someone else and he wasn't exactly handling it well. By which I mean, he tried to tell me about the movie he had seen with her on their date the night before. I shit you not. 

Most normal people would probably have lost their rag at that point and screamed at him for his extraordinary levels of insensitivity but I just walked out of the room. I knew there was no point in shouting as he didn't really care about my feelings at that point anyway. Plus I have a singing performance in a few weeks and I needed to save my voice. 

The problem was I was bottling it all up and it was going to come out somewhere, unfortunately 'where' was my office the next morning in front of about 100 people. I walked to my desk (after almost crashing my car) and just broke down into tears. Two of my colleagues rushed me off into a meeting room and asked me what had happened. I showed them my now naked left hand and they gave me the biggest hug. They sat with me for the next hour and rearranged their days so they could take me the 40 mile journey home. I was so grateful for their kindness but I also felt so ashamed of myself for breaking down like that. I haven't yet been back to the office and I'm sort of dreading it, although I do feel stronger now so less likelihood of histrionics.  

I was so tired, I couldn't sleep even when taking medication and I felt like a zombie. My eyes were so sore from crying and lack of sleep and I think if someone had handed me a gun I would have probably blown my brains out. It didn't help that my husand was pushing me about descisions around finances and custody that I just wasn't emotionally ready to make. He had arranged for an estate agent to come and value the house without consulting me and started texting me links to divorce websites. I couldn't handle this, it was all piling up on top of me and I knew the worst was still yet to come (telling my son). 

I told my husband to back off. He'd had months to come to terms with this decision and I'd had days. I couldn't and wouldn't be rushed into anything and if that caused him a financial burden, well that was his cross to bear. He'd made his bed and he had to lie in it. Interesting side bar; he suggested we take it in turns to sleep on the spare (single) bed; I laughed and told him to sod off. 

This was the first time I had felt empowered in this whole sodding process. I had let him push me around for so long but if I didn't stand up for myself now I never would. I would set the timetable when I was I ready and not before. This was a turning point for my mental health and I started to feel clamer and more in control. 

The problem with divorce is you can feel powerless, you just have to go along with a decision because that's what you do. You're self esteem is probably as low as it can get and you're easy prey for someone willing to exploit that. But you do have power, this isn't a one sided process and you get a say. I'm not used to sticking up for myself but I'm learning fast. 
I realised I needed to make him think about me and it that was ok for me to have some power. For me to say 'no this isn't right and I deserve to be treated better'. 

It's easy to be railroaded when you're so low but you have to take that anger and grief and chuck it right back at them. Right in their stupid faces.