Divorce Survivors, Second Marriage Thrivers
How do we keep moving when the obstacles pile up higher than we can handle? When anxiety and despondency and exhaustion steal all of our energy? When stress cripples us? Life is a series of difficulties, one level after another. We graduate from one to the next and hopefully get stronger along the way. But
I wasn’t going to get married again. That was completely out of the picture. I was open to relationships, and I was willing to be committed on a day-to-day basis. But no more vows. No more legal ties and financial entanglements. Melinda was living with me. I loved her. But marriage was not in my
Six months after my divorce, I had to introduce myself to people I had seen all the time a year earlier. I had changed so much that they didn’t recognize me. I’d lost almost 60 pounds. I wore different clothes. I had a new haircut and corporately acceptable facial hair. Before my divorce, I had
It happened in a single day. On my way to work, the building was standing. On my way back home, the building had turned to rubble. That was the building I had dreamed about inhabiting. When I first saw it, I could hardly contain the excitement. It was the perfect location for the movement I
We’ve both had bad days. Believe me. We’ve had days where our entire realities changed before our eyes. Days where the documents were signed. Days where we didn’t know if we’d smile again. Days we didn’t know we’d be meeting each other in the future and never would have guessed we’d have a person to
This post is about MANLINESS … and humiliation … and taking help like a man. Yesterday I ran over something big on the interstate early in the morning while it was still dark. (It turned out to have been a black, full-size bicycle!) We were on the way to my daughter’s volleyball game—the only one
I don’t hear much about single dads. Single moms – yes, lots of press. If they can hold down a job and still get the kids to school in the morning and fed dinner at night, it’s seen as a saintworthy thing. And hey, it IS. This isn’t knocking single moms. It’s super tough to
Unfortunately, these days, divorce is all around. Most of us know at least one person, if not ourselves, who has gone through it. If you are a friend of the couple going through divorce, things can get awkward, to say the least. You might not know what to do or say. You might not know
This is the story of how we met. And we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for our friends. The story goes like this: FOUR YEARS AGO ON THIS DAY, Melinda found Israel. May 20th, 2015. It’s an important day, to say the least. Melinda moved to the Midwest in March of 2015. She moved
I’m the dad. But a few years ago I got Mother’s Day gifts, like this one from my (then) four year old son: I was a single dad with three kids. Recently divorced. I went into my bathroom that day and found the gift on the sink. He made it for me and snuck it
Israel and Melinda 