The Heroine's Adventure

I am very happy to present below, a guest blogger!  Dear Claire has been very generous in sharing her story and allowing me to post it here on my blog.  Please be sure to check out her beautiful blog where she is “Saving the planet, one green tip at a time.” 

I have had the recent pleasure of taking part in the http://dailypost.wordpress.com/courses/blogging-201-branding-and-growth/ course.  One of the unexpected bonuses of participating is that I’ve discovered bloggers all around the world who write on such a variety of topics.  Chey Being caught my attention as a fellow blogging student as she writes on a slightly different topic to most ‘divorce’.

My divorce isn’t something I’ve written about in public before but reading Chey Being has given me the confidence to do so.

Back in 2005 I was going through a very rough time in my life having just lost my two grandparents who brought me up and Richard was there to comfort me.  The relationship very quickly progressed and we were living together within only a few weeks and engaged within a few months.  I’m quite an introvert really and find relationships quite difficult and so Richard was in fact my first real relationship so I was swept away.

By 2008 we had our first beautiful child together and were pressured by then by his parents to get married as they didn’t like us being unmarried parents.  To be honest, we nearly split up just before I found out I was pregnant as I found out Richard was exchanging explicit sexual text messages with another much younger woman.  However, with a baby on its way and my confidence being incredibly low I decided to let the text messages go and give Richard another chance.

Fast-forward to the Summer of 2009 we finally got married.  People say the day of your wedding should be the happiest day of your life, well mine wasn’t.  I had niggling doubts in the days leading up to the wedding but I assumed these were just nerves about the day, I wasn’t allowed to invite my family and friends as Richard didn’t get on with them but again he made me believe this was normal; in fact I hadn’t had any contact with my  own family and friends since he decided he didn’t like them.

My wedding day basically involved me looking after our daughter and him getting drunk with his friends.  Not a great start!

Within two years of being married, Richard had an affair and he had signed up to numerous sex chat websites.  I gradually learned to realise that Richard was being increasingly emotionally abusive towards me, he was forever putting me down, banning me from contacting people, shouting at me and verbally abusing me.  My confidence and self-esteem were at an all time low.

I eventually got admitted to a psychiatric hospital as I tried to take my own life things were that bad.

During recovery, I joined an internet forum for a hobby I have.  Over the space of a few months I built up a wonderful friendship with an American that changed my life.  Tom is a few years younger than I am, but we instantly clicked on the site, initially we just commented on each others posts and shared the occasional joke.

Gradually and I mean very slowly we started to private message each other and I confided in him about my situation.  Tom did an incredible job of rebuilding my confidence, made me feel respectable again and eventually gave me the confidence to leave my husband.  Finally I was free of him and it felt wonderful.  I’ll never forget the feeling of it just being me and my daughter int he house and the feeling of happiness washing over me.  Of course I would still have to deal with him for our daughter’s sake but I no longer had to spend time on my own with him.  It was only now that I realised how terrified I was of him.  My daughter also settled too, she was much happier as she could see me in a much more relaxed way; we played like we hadn’t really played before.

So, now nearly two years after I kicked him out, we’ve both moved on.  He still has regular contact with our daughter and I wouldn’t take that away from her, I have a choice who I’m married to she doesn’t have a choice who her Daddy is.

Tom and I stayed in touch and slowly built up a trans-Atlantic relationship.  We’ve met up in person lots of times through the two years and he makes me feel like no-one else has ever done.  He understands me, brought back my smile, he supports me, treasures me and makes me feel like the most special person in the world.  Hopefully one day in the future he’ll actually live over here in the UK with me as I can’t imagine things any other way 🙂

So I’d like to thank Chey Being for giving me the confidence to write about my divorce as it’s actually one of the best things that has happened to me!

Thanks for reading, here is where I normally blog: http://aimingtobegreen.wordpress.com