Divorce~

What an insanely difficult word this is. I never understood divorce. My parents have been married almost 40 years. No one in my family had ever been divorced... they literally died married and that was how life as I knew it was.

I knew marriage was sacred. I never took it lightly. The engagement thing I kinda did. I was engaged 6 times. Ok, stop gasping. I knew that when I really found the right man to marry, I would know in an instant and he would be the one and I would want to marry him, yesterday. This is all neither here nor there.

You see, I married into divorce...literally. It has never bothered me. I just never really understood it. I am much better at understanding it now. For anyone that is wondering, no, Tommy and I are not going down that road. We are perfect (well, in my eyes) and I am one lucky woman to have him. He was married before me. He taught me that marriage is not to be taken lightly and got me to trust in the fact that he did not get divorced to be alone. He married me less than two months after he got divorced and I knew that we were meant to be together forever. Again, this post is not about my marriage.

I have wondered for a long time why women stay in loveless marriages. Why they stay in abusive marriages. Why they let their children see the violence of anger or just plain absence of their husband. Why women allow this is one thing I just can not wrap my mind around. I was that cop that went to these calls and prompted these "tough guy" husbands to go ahead and hit me. I begged for it. I purposely took the guy away from the girl even if my partner was the biggest guy on patrol that day. I tried to get theses stupid men angry at me. I wanted them to throw a punch or get verbal with me. I wanted these jerks to understand that women don't need to take this b-s treament, especially from a dirtbag. Funny enough... none of them ever took a swimg at me, and, they only said nasty things after they had been dropped on a floor and handcuffed. Still this is not about me...

This is all about my sister, my only sister, Kelly, who after too many years of abuse, (that I did not know the actual truth about) found the courage and the strength to walk away. She walked away and has filed for divorce. And I am so damn proud I can barely type without crying.

Kelly and I are complete polar opposites. Kelly married young and had her babies and then moved onto the big career. I was so completely opposite I think my parents wondered whose child I really was. I needed the big career first. Kelly had the big wedding and what I really thought to be, the most wonderful life. She hid things from me. I understand it now. Looking back, I see those things and how they were not all perfect and shiny like I believed, or wanted to believe. I didn't want to see those things in my family. I lived it at work everyday...and it just couldn't happen to my sister.

For a long time I have prompted her to leave. WALK AWAY. Take your kids and leave the stuff behind. Stuff is just, "STUFF." "You can buy more stuff," I would tell her. I tried begging her, pleading and then threatening her. I tried to reason with her explaining to her that her daughters were going to think this is how relationships should be and find some jerk that treats them the same way dad treats mom. Then where would she be? Nothing was getting through to her. She was being the typical woman I had encountered on hundreds of family fights. I wanted to choke her myself.

Then she finally broke down and had taken enough from him. It took a long time but Kelly finally admitted to me that she was embarassed that it had come to divorce. She felt that she was letting our family down. She thought that she was the black sheep that everyone would look down upon and think bad things about. She didn't want my mom and dad to think that she didn't try. She didn't want to let her girls down.

My heart broke for her.

It is a long road that she has been traveling. I think she felt that she needed to travel it alone. I still, am not sure why. We were not raised that way and my parents are not ones to ever let their kids fend for themselves. Thankfully, she has taken hold of help and let us walk with her on her road. It is one hell of a road.. as you can well imagine from my previous post about her truck. We are walking it as a family. Helping her when she will let us.

I am sure it is not easy. If life was easy, it wouldn't be worth living. I am hoping that she understands that we are so proud of her. It takes strength to walk away. It takes strength to admit when you do need help and even more courage to leave a life behind to build a new one! We see the joy in her face. We see calm behind her eyes that used to be filled with anger and uncertainty. We see the light at the end of the long tunnel and we see a future filled with happiness.

We are proud and we are behind you 100%.