I’m not sure why….

Every story has 2 sides, but not everything that happens in this world necessarily has an explanation.

When it comes to my story and of where I am today, I can tell you my side of the story but for whatever reason was never given a specific reason as to why I was no longer needed in my ex wife’s life. Sure, we had our issues and spoke a couple of times over the years but I was made to feel that everything wrong was with me and there was no equal share of blame or responsibility. Whilst it was – and to some degree still is – difficult to rationalise, I quickly came to realise (with some help from mental health professionals) that it was impossible for any marital problems to be one sided. I eventually for my own mental wellbeing stopped being bothered by this point of view of my ex. It didn’t matter anymore why we were no longer together so I accepted it, moved on and made the resilience and wellbeing of my 2 children my sole focus.

Now, as to why I believe that not everything in this world has an explanation I look no further than to my own self-esteem and self-love. I have never QUITE reached the point where it was self-loathing but I never seemed to be equipped with the tools and mental fortitude (or aptitude) to believe that there were good things about me and that I didn’t need to meet anyone else’s expectations – or what I thought were the expectations of others.

After my separation and around the time of my divorce just over 3 years ago, I felt the real pain of formally and legally no longer being part of a family and knew that I would no longer see my children every day. That hurt the most. To try and cover up that hurt, and due to my lack of self-esteem, for whatever reason I felt that I needed to replace my ex wife with someone, and felt that there was a void that now desperately needed filling. That led me to squander my life savings on the never-to-materialise promise of a new life with someone else. I allowed myself to be duped, swindled and fooled into thinking that the void needed filling, when in fact there was no need to fill it at all. I now know that I just needed to give myself time to properly process what happened and to set myself up for what I could call a new happiness.

With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, years of introspection, some very harsh life lessons as menioned and a whole heap of self-assessment, but – most importantly with the love and support of my family and close friends – I have managed to come through the other side with a greater appreciation (or merely just appreciation) of myself. I had placed a heck of a lot of pressure on myself and the negativity and lack of self-esteem was purely and simply down to the fact that I had an unrealistic expectation of who or how I should be. I am not sure why I took myself down that path when I should have just accepted and enjoyed being MYSELF, but I think I am now finally in a place and at a point in my life where I truly and wholeheartedly accept who and how I am and I solemnly vow to never go back to how I was. Of course, there will be tough times and challenges ahead, particularly with my 2 teens growing into adulthood, but I feel now more than ever that I can guide them through their challenges because I have a new found faith and appreciation in my own worth. I couldn’t be strong for them if I wasn’t strong enough to be myself.

I’m not sure why it has taken me 57 years to truly see the worth I have inside me, but it has been worth the wait.