The Light at the End of a Very Long Tunnel
 With all the trust, intimacy, self respect and pride gone: I decided that I wanted a new life with my Son. I was still deeply entrenched in my rage but this is the start of your slow recovery. The feeling of falling has passed but the despair remained. This will not be easy, in fact it's downright scary, but there is an element of excitement. At this point you've started to accept the changes in your life. In my own case, my partner wanted to stay together - I didn't.
 Now comes the next dynamic that threatens to pull you back. You've told your partner you do not want to stay married. After she went through her grief she made the next 8 months of our shared life a living hell!!! We agreed that we'd take alternate weekends away to ease the tension. After a few months I discovered that on my weekends away, she'd bring her boyfriend and his kids from his first marriage into the house. This pretty much destroyed the sanctity of the marital home. After all let's face it, Divorce doesn't actually perpetuate the myth too well. The list goes on and on but you can be too easily pulled back into rage.
This is a very fragile time in your life so go steady. By this time you should be over the worst of your rage and anger (partners antics not withstanding). What you make of your new world is entirely up to you. What you choose to bring to it comes from you. It's not yet a good idea to start dating. At this point you need to try and win back all that you've lost. Sadly the new partner you'll find will have her own horror stories. Build a friendship first. I made the mistake of trying but fortunately realised my error and backed off before any harm was done to either of us.
I can not emphasise what a delicate time this is for you. The best analogy is living between 2 worlds. one is full of betryal, rage bordering on hatred, the continual drain of what you've done to deserve this. The other is full of hope and a new life. This is perhaps the hardest time. You so much want your freedom but must face a daily life is the shattered home. This is also the time when the frustration of your new life will test your patience and tolerance to the full. It is now where you risk doing something stupid that can screw up your divorce as well as your future life with your children.
 This was the time when God sent me a helper... I was looking through the local paper when I noticed that the local church was running a divorce workshop. I called and spoke to a kind lady called Margaret. Going to this was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Friends and family are supportive but to sit around in a circle listening to some of the horror stories from complete strangers helped me so much. It showed me that no matter how savage I felt my divorce was, there were people in much worse situations. Sadly the women outnumbered the men 4 / 1 - A damning indictment on my gender.
 It's very, very important to know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. This group helped me see this and with their help I was able to start the long path to recovery. This is a very delicate time for you.Please seek help when you're ready - Do not give up the fight to get up and carry on, do not give up the belief you will get over this if you allow yourself to.
This is where my poetry started to show my grief and sadness of the life that had just passed. In the case of a Brave New World, it proved sadly prophetic...
No light, no sound just cold, dark night,
No smiles or laughter, no glimmer of light,
No smell of her hair or naked embrace,
Can comfort me here in this desolate place.
In this dark hell that you will not see,
is a prison built and locked my me,
I hope for so much and reach for the stars,
But my prison is strong with hate as its bars.
Where once was love now a new king reigns,
His name is Hate, his Queen is Pain,
Betrayal and Rejection rush to their side,
As my night grows darker and all hope subsides.
There is no escape from this terrible place,
Until I've overcome what I must face,
My chains are the love I had for my wife,
A long-dead person from a dying life.
The woman I once loved is now dead,
She died in the sheets of another man's bed,
And with her death things died in me,
My heart, my trust and the man I see.
To the memory of my lost love I hereby swear,
To build a funeral pyre from my pain and despair,
At losing the one thing that bound this life,
A beautiful woman and loving wife.
On it I will place my most valuable parts,
My memories, my trust & what's left of my heart,
I'll stand back and watch as the pyre ignites,
And from this great fire my dark world will light.
From this great light I will set myself free,
From a whore's lies and the chains that bind me,
Then start to build a new life from this day,
Where trust can flourish and lies die away.
But the price for this new life is cruel and unkind,
This woman's lies will infect my son's mind,
She'll tempt him with money and toys to win,
His innocence to her and behind it her sin.
She'll tell him I hate him and all that he is,
She'll tell him don't call me, I'll only dismiss,
His cries for help through his terrible nights,
And soon his reaction to me will be spite.
I'll watch as her tentacles start to entwine,
Strangling his innocence and twisting his mind,
Soon his young values will slowly diminish,
His greed will increase and my role will finish.
Then one distant day his only answer to things,
Will be in the bank and his moneys cold ring,
From that day the lessons of life will be hard,
When his money is stolen and his friends depart.
When he's alone and lost all that he had,
I pray that I'm there to show him his Dad.
As much as I want to I can not shatter,
His illusion of his Mother is now all that matters.
For now I'll take the pain and bide my time,
When once again I can hold his heart to mine.
copyright: Alan Graham 2002 - 2010
It's a new day tomorrow is all I would hear,
If only they understood, it was the night's I feared,
The rising of the sun couldn't come too soon,
In a family home that's now a cold tomb.
Echoes of forgotten laughter suddenly fill my head,
Remembered tenderness in a now empty bed,
Soft hands on my back and a face on my chest,
Is now part of my life that I've now put to rest.
I feel my Brave New World calling me,
New frontiers to explore and faces to see,
I'll lament for a while and mourn for the past,
Of a love doomed to failure that I thought would last.
Tears warm my thumbs as I wipe my face,
Shadows of a tragedy now haunt this place,
Of a smile that once lit a fire in my heart,
All that's left for her are ashes in the lonely dark.
I've spent long enough in the company of Death,
It's time for the worms to take all that's left,
Hate, betrayal, pain and twisted rage,
Cold bitterness fashioned into a burning cage.
That once held this lost and misguided man,
Imprisoned in that cell by a wedding band,
But perhaps there's a truth I refuse to see,
That the end could not come too soon, at least for me.
For what I cited as her heinous crime,
Was a sin I'd long ago taken as mine,
Maybe forgiveness is the end that I finally seek,
Now I'm safely away from her silken keep.
To sacrifice your all to live another's life,
Is an unworthy price for an unfaithful wife,
She must now build a life for the man that she's with,
And my final words to her will be...I forgive.
copyright: Alan Graham 2002 - 2010
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