Our Long Distance Love - Meeting my Husband From Across the Ocean

This is probably the easiest story for me to tell and one that I want to tell you all about.

As you know, if you have been reading my blog, I was married for almost 10 years but in 2010 we separated and soon after, got divorced. During the last year or so of my marriage, I was unhappy and I spent a lot of time on my IPhone.  Probably more time than I should have but it was the only little bit of happiness besides my kids, that I really had.  In August of 2010, I downloaded an app called Bingo Live 90.  It is just a little bingo app that allows you to chat with other players in the room.

I spent a lot of time playing this game as it was just a time waster and I was soon talking to almost everyone in the rooms.  There was a group of us that became really close and played and chatted together all the time. Honestly, my IPhone and the people in that bingo game became my friends. Although to this day we have never met, I still keep in contact with them on a regular basis and if I ever visit their hometowns, I am sure that we would get together for coffee.

The chatting in the bingo game eventually moved out to Skype.  Skype is an amazing way to connect with people all over without having to pay long distance fees.  I was able to chat with my him in England and it cost me nothing. Once a week we would all have a chat.  I remember my very first Skype conversation with him.  Honestly, if you are a woman, his voice would have had you swooning.  I am not bragging but I am sure that any woman out there would admit that hearing a British accent really is sexy.  I loved hearing him talk.  I purposely used to ask him questions that would take him a few minutes and lots of talking to answer just so I could listen to him speak.

One of the very first things I realized about him was that we were a lot alike.  We had quite a few of the same interests and we could talk for hours about everything and nothing.  He was also in an unhappy marriage and was in the process of getting divorced as well.  Our meeting and subsequent relationship happened very quickly. Do I think that it may have been too soon? Was he a rebound relationship?  Was this good for the kids? These thoughts and many others went through my mind but in the end I decided to see where it would go.

He spoiled me over the next few months.  Having my favourite perfume sent to me as a surprise, roses delivered on Valentine's day (11 real roses and 1 fake with a note that said "I will love you until the last rose dies, I'm pretty sure I cried for over an hour) and cards sent to me in the mail, just because.

We decided that he would come to Canada to visit me in March of 2011.  It was march break here for the kids so my sister-in-law (the angel that she is) said she would take them for a visit to her house in Michigan for the week and then I didn't have to worry about the kids for the week and I could decide if they were going to meet him or not.

The day he was arriving a friend of mine dropped me off at the airport and I waited.  I have never been so scared, nervous and excited all at the same time.  What if he didn't like me?  What if we didn't hit it off? I should have left all of the nerves at the door because it couldn't have been more perfect.  I saw him immediately and just like that it was like a door to a whole new life opened for us. We spent the week doing fun "touristy" stuff.  I got to go to the CN tower for dinner for the first time, we went shopping (he most definitely spoiled me), we spent a night in Niagara Falls in which he had the most amazing rainbow coloured roses delivered and waiting in our hotel room for me and we took my parents to dinner at Stage West, another first for me.

Everything was absolutely perfect and the only thing left was to pick my kids back up in Michigan and introduce him.  That went even better than I expected as well.  The kids had seen and spoken to him with me on Skype and we introduced him as my friend. The week couldn't have gone any better but it came to an end and I had to say goodbye.  About 3 weeks went by and we decided that we needed to be in the same country so I started looking into jobs that he could do, so he could come to Canada and work.  He was a truck driver in England so I started there.  Eventually, I found a company that had a foreign worker program and would take him as an employee here.  So it was decided, I would go visit him in England in July of 2011, my first trip anywhere (up until this point I had never been anywhere and never on a plane) and it was amazing, but I will save that for another post.  We now call that trip our honeymoon before the wedding.

On July 23, 2011 we landed in Toronto and our life here began.  We got married in September 2012 and had our son in August 2013.  We are currently waiting for his permanent residency to be approved and hope to have that sometime this summer.  We started off in different parts of the world but in the end love really did find me and I can't wait for what the future will bring us.

Sunshine after the Rain: Finding Happiness after Divorce

As I sit here typing this, I am wondering why am I choosing to write this now?  I think it is actually therapeutic.  I can finally tell the story about what happened and then be done with it all.  Well almost done, we do have 3 kids to raise without screwing them up but I think we may just be able to do that.

15 years.  That's what I felt I had lost, but I've gained so much more. I'll explain.

I was with my ex from the age of 18 until I was 33.  We were married almost 10 years when I made the decision to leave the marriage.  The decision was all mine.  He says he didn't see it coming but I'm not sure how he couldn't have.

My decision to end things was not made lightly.  I had 3 small children to consider.  I hadn't worked in almost 8 years so I wasn't even sure how I was going to be able to support us if I couldn't find a decent job. I stressed about it for months but finally in December 2010, I just couldn't think of any more reasons why I was still in the marriage at all.  I worried how it would be for the kids but I knew that leaving the constant fighting and tension and the loveless relationship had to be better than staying in it.  My ability to be a wife to him anymore was gone.  I had honestly begun to hate him, actually hate me and the person I was with him.  I had let him make me feel worthless, lonely and depressed.  My whole entire being was based on who I was with him.  I didn't like me anymore, I didn't like the person I was with him or my kids.  It wasn't all his fault though, I had let him.  I had given him all the power and it was time to take it back.

Then it hit me.  The person I had become was an awful mom, an awful wife and an awful friend.  The depression had taken over my life and I didn't even want to be in it anymore.  I loved my kids more than anything in the world and I had to get me back for them.  I had to be the mom they needed and I needed to do it now.  The only way I knew that I could accomplish this was to leave what was making life unbearable, him.  I didn't love him anymore.  I didn't love me anymore, so I told him I was done.

Oh my god, it was absolutely freeing.  I felt a weight lift.  It was an almost immediate sense of relief.  I could be me again.  I didn't even cry over it.  Does that make me sound cold? I hope not because I am not a cold person.  I am loving and caring and not at all cold, I just had spent the last 5 years of my life, my marriage unhappy and resentful.  I even thought in those last 5 years that having another baby would help change things, make things better.  It did not, it made things worse and then I had 3 children to deal with and depression and a crappy marriage. 

We just grew apart.  We wanted different things, needed different things.  He found God, I did not.  He made the choice to make that his priority and that's okay (now) but it wasn't enough for me.  I needed intimacy and emotional connection, he could care less.

Does that make him a bad guy? No, it doesn't.  He just wasn't the guy for me anymore.  He is a great father and loves his kids to death.  He and I can actually talk now as friends would.  No more fighting or arguing (although we do occasionally collide sometimes) and the relationship is better this way.  We still have issues but they are easier to deal with now.  I wish that it had been different, that my kids didn't have deal with a broken home but in the end we will all be happier.

So what's the point of this whole long winded post?  Well the point is, even after divorce, you can be happy again.  You can have everything you ever wanted in love.  Divorce doesn't have to be the end of giving your heart away.  You can learn from divorce.

I learned exactly what kind of a partner I needed and deserved.  I know what kind of a partner I am.  I learned what is really important to me and my life right now.  My kids are my priority and my new partner would have to accept that I am a package deal including having to deal with my ex on a regular basis.

Although I spent 15 years of my life believing I was with my "soulmate" only to realize that I wasn't, I ended up with 3 amazing kids and a truly new ability to love myself, my kids and my new husband.

This time around we are equals, partners in everything.  We truly love and respect one another.  He was divorced as well so we both had the same needs and wants going into this.  We are truly happy and life is good!