{"id":14,"date":"2014-07-07T19:52:38","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T19:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/?p=14"},"modified":"2014-12-02T01:41:56","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T01:41:56","slug":"are-there-too-many-people-in-your-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/2014\/07\/are-there-too-many-people-in-your-divorce.html","title":{"rendered":"Are There Too Many People In Your Divorce?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I bid my barista BFF, Elizabeth hello and I utter my order. It\u2019s the long-winded, order of a Starbuck\u2019s veteran. The kind that infers you are speaking another language. I\u2019ll take a decaf grande skim, extra hot latte. I swipe my beverage off the counter and make my way through the accompanying Barnes & Noble. It’s a good fit for the writer in me. I like to joke that over time I have spent the kind of money there that most women use for their shoe splurges.<\/p>\n

I sip a bit of coffee and wander towards the Best Seller shelves.\u00a0 I know what I am searching for. I am sandwiched between the other readers grabbing the newest romance, aka, Nicholas Sparks or the latest David Baldacci novel.<\/p>\n

My eyes scour the shelves and sure enough I spot a few books on relationships, marriage or divorce. I pick one up, sift through a few pages and it\u2019s expert laden, heavy, emotion\u2019ease\u2019 so I move towards the self-help section.<\/p>\n

I grab one off the shelf and once again I find more textbook size, expert advice. In the midst of these I find a few sandwiched post-divorce memoirs, a couple of relationship recovery how to\u2019s and starting over reads.<\/p>\n

I take another sip of my coffee. My shoulders slump with fatigue.<\/p>\n

I think back to the days of babies, of up all nights and wild mornings after. I am not reading parenting books as in my leisurely, What to Expect When You\u2019re Expecting\u00a0<\/i> days. That type of bedside reading went out with the delivery.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t read parenting books when you\u2019ve been up all night and then navigate the chaotic beauty of tiny people.<\/p>\n

Likewise, it\u2019s difficult to read when the heart\u2019s been up all night. To concentrate on classroom wisdom while the playground has worn you out.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why people always reference the heart as broken? That\u2019s not what it feels like to me. It feels like someone is picking up my heart and shaking it like a salt shaker until there is nothing left in it. It does not feel broken. It feels emptied<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t soldier through a relationship expert or read how to recover from a heartache when I have yet to fully move through it.<\/p>\n

I want another person to grab my hand. I want them to cry with me or dry my tears. I want them to shout in outright indignation that I have been done wrong and then throw their head back with thunderous laughter when we can both have a great laugh at just what a mess I have become through my \u2018marital Olympics.\u2019<\/p>\n

I want someone to look back for me to make sure I\u2019m following them safely since they\u2019ve walked this path before me. I want another behind me to shove me back in the right direction when I have veered away from our \u2018wounded pack.\u2019<\/p>\n

I stare at the jam-packed shelves. There is no book for me here.<\/p>\n

For the first time in my fave store I can\u2019t find a pair of shoes that fits.<\/p>\n

I know I have to make my own pair of shoes. Write my own story down. I have to make sure that I can grab another’s hand and be there to look back and nudge them forward.<\/p>\n

There is a heaviness to marital problems and to divorce……a weight within you. A time where tears are prosperous and smiles far too endangered.<\/p>\n

It is as many have said before me grief.<\/p>\n

I was 28 years old when I lost my mom and dad. They died six months to the day apart. Grief, as anyone who has experienced it knows is a journey that the heart would avoid if only it could.<\/p>\n

Grief is a solitary journey. A lonely journey no matter what anyone else says to the contrary. You can be surrounded by many, but utterly alone in the room.<\/p>\n

If you are one of the lucky ones who are experiencing marital trouble as a pair and working hard to put your faith and family first, then I would say that you are fortunate because you are still on a journey of \u2018two.\u2019<\/p>\n

I eventually ended up in marriage counseling \u2018alone.\u2019 What I call my own personal oxymoron.<\/p>\n

For me and sadly, for many, a decaying marriage and potential divorce are meant to be a journey of \u2018one.\u2019 If you still think it\u2019s \u2018two,\u2019 then there are too many people in your divorce.<\/p>\n

I spent so much time believing that I was still on a journey of \u2018two.\u2019<\/p>\n

It is a journey of one. It needs to be in order to move forward.<\/p>\n

I finally get it. I am what I call, \u201cDivorce Barbie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbie is just a happy word for us girls.<\/p>\n

Can you blame me for needing a positive moniker? After all, I\u2019m no longer sitting in our Malibu Beach House and Ken took off in the camper.<\/p>\n

\"how-great-thou-part\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Sheehy Orme
\non Twitter @colleenorme
\non Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
\nE-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
\nwww.colleensheehyorme.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I bid my barista BFF, Elizabeth hello and I utter my order. It\u2019s the long-winded, order of a Starbuck\u2019s veteran. The kind that infers you are speaking another language. I\u2019ll take a decaf grande skim, extra hot latte. 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That is the core from which I begin most stories. I find myself drawn to dig for the moments in the story that are the passion that drive the message. It may be the love of what originally started a business or an authentically motivated personal profile, or simply the love of a subject being investigated which compels me to write. My forever favorite form of writing is the human interest essay or what I call, \u201cAn Interview With Life.\u201d The average day that is explored and somehow once again instills in us a joie de vivre\u2026..a joy of life. These human moments are the Hope Virus that spreads amongst us and can\u2019t help but propel us into better human beings with a larger sense of the world.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/author\/corme"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/howgreatthoupart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}