It isn’t gone.

It mat never leave.

It PROBABLY won’t ever leave.

But the fog IS lifting.

The lifting of the fog comes with working together for a common goal.

it would have been a thousand time easier to have won each battle and just had my way.

It would have been so much easier. But not necessarily better.

Maybe couples would have to be kinder in the split and stop to think of other circumstances if they had been in situations like mine.

Being through years of years of cancer at Peyton’s side, through these years of strokes, coma, therapy, recovery, building, growing I have learned to never hesitate at TRUE HAPPINESS.

there is a difference between a GOOD TIME and TRUE HAPPINESS and you know them when you have them.

But I have also learned to basking in TRUE HAPPINESS does not mean ignoring the circumstances.

It really is as trite as that saying: EXPECT THE BEST BUT PLAN FOR THE WORSE.

Peter ans I don’t live in a theoretical world of single parenthood.

We live in it, VERY REAL, EVERY DAY.

We had to cool our jets, let go of our tempers and start working as the team we’ve always been.

Even though we can’t be a couple anymore, we still make one hell of a parenting team.

There is no easy way to separate something that was never intended to be separated.

We didn’t live our lives with the thought that someday we would have split it up.

Parents have an incredibly hard job.

Divorcing parents can make a hard job EVEN harder.

Under the constant strain, two parent can stand across from each other yelling about how much they love kids.

I LOVE THE KIDS MORE.

NO, I LOVE THEM MORE!

HOW COULD YOU LOVE THE KIDS MORE?

I.LOVE.THE.KIDS.

And while the two of you are arguing about that great parental love, who is loving those kids like they deserve?

Are the kids seeing seeing you fight about who loves them more?

Do they care?

Or are they just seeing Mommy and Daddy fight again?

Respecting my family, there are details that you just don’t need to know yet.

But you DO need to know that WE made the decision our kids will NEVER SEE IT AGAIN.

I was asked to keep it more private.

And I thought about it.

I really did.

Did I want everyone knowing that I failed at my marriage?

That I’m choosing to end a union I had once vowed my forever?

The sheer magnitude of my vulnerability.

Not really. NO.

But did I want to share every moment of my daughter’s cancer?

My failures as parent through treatment.

Did I want to want to let you watch as I came back from the strokes?

Has it been easy to take picture and videos of my handicaps?

Did I go with the easy way out with the physical side of my recovery.

How were those things not personal?

Why was it ok to make THAT public, but I was supposed to hide this choice that, although hard, was somehow RIGHT.

I have worked really hard to not make this more one-sided than it has to be.

Partly because that’s not how I want this.

But, more importantly, the kids might read this and I want them to knew that these posts were never about GETTING MY WAY.

It’s just that writing has always been MY WAY OF DEALING.

That’s the “d” word I was thinking about.

What were YOU thinking of?

Douchebandits. Douchebag McGreggor. Douchemover.

All good words to describe certain behavior.

I would LOVE to justify it by saying that *I* have never acted that way.

But I have.

So has Pete.

Out of anger. Confusion. Fear. Frustration. Hurt.

Just because I’m deciding to end a marriage for reasons that go SO MUCH deeper than you could even dream of knowing, I’m not doing it easily.

It doesn’t come painlessly.

I hurt for my kids. I hurt for myself.

And, yes, I hurt for Pete.

I just can no longer take responsibility for trying to FIX his hurt.