I’ve been working on the steps of grieving. A recent post on Mamasource had me thinking about divorce, seperation and just plain old ending relationships. It’s ugly and unpleasant, but we ALL have been there and survived at least most of the person we were prior makes it through the tears and angst. So, how? How does one begin and end that process?

It’s death. Not in the mortal sense, but in a sense of the who/what/how/why of who I was with this person is no longer in existence…so where do they go?

I started doing research on the stages of grief and found them profound.

7 Stages Of Grief – Going Through the Process and Back to Life

Let’s start with stage 1 and as the days go by, I’ll share about the rest of the 7.

Shock & Denial

I think I was here from the time I was 3 months preggers…I was shocked that the man I was going to have a child with didn’t look the same once I had our child growing inside me. His face wasn’t the same. It didn’t glow anymore and I started to deny the fact that I knew this was never going to be where I felt like home. The shabby condo we shared up against the beautiful hills of the San Fernando Valley grew uglier and colder daily and I found myself worker longer and harder. I made excuses and created reasons to give it time…time and more time.

Why was this stage important to me?

You know I could slam my head against the wall for hours trying to figure out when the denial started and how I could be shocked that he ended our relationship, but asked me to stay. Part of me knew that no matter how hard I tried or how much I cooked or cleaned or did his laundry, there was no ‘happy ending’ at the end of this rainbow. In the end it was my choice to stay and ‘work on our family’ but in the end it was me who found the shocking parts to be exactly what they were ugly and unnecessary.

More tomorrow…