When a little time, Changes everything!

In my last post we were struggling to find out the fate of Brad's job. Just a short 2 years later I would find out that everything that I had come to know about my Marriage was built on a lie. The reason his job was in jeopardy at all was because of extra-marital indiscretions that he had taken part in while working for 911. In the end he lost the job and we ended up losing our home. When I found out all of this out in 2012, it had been 4 years since the first affair had started. FOUR years, and the man I had trusted the most in the world crushed me with words that in the depth of my soul I already knew were true, but had desperately tried to deny after every time I questioned him and was made to feel like I had a problem for even thinking he could do that to me. I remember the day well that he told me the truth because we had, had one of the most intimate and special moments we had ever had as a married couple. I really felt like we were making strides in getting through the problems we had been having after him losing his job and us losing our house, which had caused huge amounts of stress on both of us and a lot of depression and anxiety for me. He turned to me and told me that he had to tell me everything and that's when he told me that awful truth which deep down I already knew and had accused him of so many times. It was the hardest thing to hear but I also realized that carrying such a horrendous secret around for 4 years could have caused so much toxicity in our relationship and maybe there was hope for us. I still believe that may have been possible. I was in counseling, he was counseling. But their was so much pain still taking place. Many events took place that are just too dark to even put on paper at this moment. It did end up in a blessing of my parents sending me to a treatment facility for the overwhelming depression and anxiety I was feeling. I learned so much about my self and about what was appropriate for marriage. When I came home I was not welcomed and was kicked out within a week. This remains one of the most painful experiences of my life. I was so confused, had just returned from a treatment facility that did a very poor job of setting up after care and I was scrambling to set up a therapist for my self as well as support system as well as dealing with a circumstance that felt so unjustified. We were well established in a church and for the life of me I could not figure out why people where supporting this man who had done so much harm to me and who was keeping me from my kids. I just felt like I was fighting through sinking sand. God was still faithful to me through this. He brought couples who we had known for many years to help me navigate through this situation. I was finally allowed back into the house into the house and lived in my own room. That was around July 2013. For the first year it seemed like week after week Brad revealed more and more lies that he had told to people to make sense for the reason he had kick me out and gain their support. He has told me that he went back to several of them and told them the truth but the damage to those relationships had been done, unfortunately. By July of 2014 things between Brad and I had become so volatile and even more emotionally abusive on both sides, that he left. I had been determined to stay for our kids and work it out however we could. I was scared to leave and I am extremely thankful that he chose to do it at last. When Brad left it was like a breath of fresh air for the girls and I, for a period of time. It didn't stay like that for long. There have been so many ups and downs. It's gotten so ugly, especially for the kids. Our divorce was finally finalized on October 30,2015, and I just read a post on Facebook that showed a picture of a candle called "Freshly Signed Divorced Papers", Scented, "Freedom." I laughed a little and then thought to myself that is not at all the scent I would give to my freshly signed Divorced Papers. I could think of my many smells that I would attribute to that day none of them would be so good as freeing. Nothing about divorce has been about freedom for me. Maybe because I am Meyer's Briggs INFJ, as well as classified as a "highly sensitive person" verging on, if not a full blown empath. I am effected deeply by every situation that I go through and it takes me a LOT of time to work through all of my emotions. When I say that divorce isn't about freedom, I by no means intend to come off sounding like I am not all in for a new beginning. Or that I am not thankful to be able to let go of the pain from my past. I mean let's be clear, I in no way, ever want to be married to that man again and thankful that our divorce is finalized. But I am constantly plagued by the damage that is being done to our girls. The fact that their lives will never be the same and that this has all happened at a time when they are supposed to be blossoming into young women and instead they are navigating so many things that they shouldn't have to. I am still relying on God's strength daily to show me how to navigate these difficult days. I ask forgiveness for my constant mistakes and pray that soon I will be living close enough to my girls to be able to have them 50% time, as is written in our divorce.