Introducing Myself - Strahlen, Single Mom Smiling

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Hi Everyone! 
I know Melanie asked contributors to introduce themselves a while ago. I put it on my To Do List. I really did, and I know I am late to the party (again!), but I figured I'd finally throw my name out here and say hello.

I am a single mom of five amazing, wonderful, adorable, active, loud, smelly (sometimes, really smelly!), fun boys. There are just not enough adjectives to describe our kids are there?

Anyway…

Being a single mom was about the last thing I ever thought I would be. I absolutely loved my husband, and, it may sound crazy, but I thought he was my best friend...right up until the day he told me he was leaving.

We renewed our vows on Valentine's Day 2009.

Unfortunately, it was also around that time that he discovered Facebook and reconnected with a woman he had dated 20 years before when they attended the same Catholic high school. 

He told me he was leaving on Mother's Day 2009.

Literally one week later, he moved out and never looked back. It was a day I will remember forever with a degree of nausea that cannot be put into words.

I was also five months pregnant with our 5th little boy (surprise!) at the time.

My husband texted me when the baby was three days old to let me know he had filed for a divorce.

I literally shook for months - and months - and MONTHS.

Over the next few years, my boys and I would lose our home (and have a hard time finding housing for a single, stay at home mom of five boys), endure battles with a man who was now a stranger to me in a court system that still favors the monied spouse and the petitioner over the defendant, need to file for an Order of Protection, and turn to our local churches and charities for food, heat, Christmas presents, and more.

I still look back at those months (and sometimes even at life now) and wonder,
How did I become the star of a Life Time Original movie?
I hope you join me at Single Mom Smiling for the rest of my introduction and for the shortened version of why I speak about my faith. Faith and life…each is an ongoing process - of learning, praying, forgiving, falling down, and getting back up again.  

Comments

  1. Manny11:45 pm, March 12, 2014

    God bless and I look forward to reading your posts. May your struggles all be to build strength and faith. In my past I would have had a few choice words for your husband, but I'm going to seal my lips on that. My prayers for you and your sons.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Victor S E Moubarak4:50 am, March 13, 2014

    Welcome Strahlen. It's great to see you here and thanx for taking the time to introduce yourself. We look forward to your posts an comments.

    God bless you and your family.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown9:42 am, March 13, 2014

    My prayers are with you and your precious sons! Ditto what Victor said. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Melanie Jean Juneau8:37 pm, March 14, 2014

    great header, powerful prose, wonderful spirit and heart

    ReplyDelete

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