8 out of 10

There are a lot of people touting an 80% divorce rate for parents of special needs children.  The statistic gets so widely hyped that although there is NO research to back it up its almost universally believed.  There are some limited studies showing less shocking increases in the rate of marriages failing for special needs families but honestly my heart is not in the search for an objective truth at the moment.  Because you see my marriage is going to become a part of those statistics.  That is a hard, dreary, depressing thing to type.  Knowing you have failed at something so important is, well, it's not an exaggeration to say it shakes me all the way to my core.  My very identity feels shaky.

I'm not going to talk about fault or who has done what to whom here for a lot of reasons.  I've never been comfortable with the extent to which people seem to live all of life out in the public eye these days.  And although I can see many of the mistakes or missteps that happened in our relationship along the way (on both sides) I can't quite grasp how we went from having the usual stresses and dissatisfactions that occur in any relationship to where we are now.  Finally, as one of the two people in the relationship ending - I could never be an objective reporter and airing only one side of a disagreement strikes me as fundamentally unfair.  

I will say this, our children - both of them, are not to blame for this.  No matter their issues or the stresses those issues may cause - they are children and not in any way at fault.  Fault, if blame must be laid, rests on my husband and I.  We are the adults that made promises to each other and we are the ones choosing to lay those promises aside.  I know I have not handled this well up to this point.  I've let anger and grief and fear have the upper hand.  That can't continue.  

And so I'm taking some time, to put myself back together, to find a new vision of what my future looks like, and a make a new plan for how to get there.  I'll try not to take too long.  I promise to be back.