When a relationship ends suddenly the year of firsts is heartbreaking.

This year, for the first time in 25 years my husband couldn’t be bothered to wish me a happy mother’s day. Before our first child was even born he got me a card, I was just pregnant with her and he brought home flowers and made me feel loved and special. Last year he gave me a card and flowers even though we were having problems. This year I don’t even get a text. It’s as if he would rather erase the last 25 years and invalidate the fact that I have been a loving and devoted mom and wife for 25 years.

My kids were amazing and we spent the day together but the man who helped me create these amazing kids couldn’t even wish me the best. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise. He doesn’t even talk to his own kids beyond a rare text. It’s going on a month since the last time he texted our youngest. His priorities are completely different.

While it shouldn’t surprise me, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. If I said that every first without him still feels like a knife slicing into my heart to make fresh new cuts for me to bleed from a new.

I see people every day who have been together as long as we have who still manage to be friends. While divorce isn’t anything I wanted. It’s what I have to deal with. What i can’t understand is why it has to be this way?

His actions continue to hurt his kids and I but it’s also pushing us closer together in ways I hadn’t imagined. I have always encouraged them to respond when he reaches out. But when he goes more than a month between speaking to them they tend to believe that he is choosing his girlfriend over them and I can’t say a word about it. Only sit and hold them or support them.

Having to accept another person’s choices that are so different than the person they used to be is devastating, but seeing him for who he has become is very much empowering me.

This road has many twists and turns and eventually it leads to my being healed from all of this.