The Way, the Truth and the Life – When I Decided to Divorce

I am now in my forty-third year.

I am a caring partner and mother, living with my two children and my current partner in a village not far from Szombathely.

My parents live three houses away, and my older brother and his family another three houses down.

Fortunately, our family is very close.

I can honestly say life has blessed me with a beautiful family.

My daughter is eighteen.

My son is fourteen.

Every person in this world carries a different cross and walks a different road.

My life has had its share of turning points too — moments when I felt completely broken.

I started working at eighteen.

I have now worked for twenty-five years as a nurse in an oncology department.

Like many people, I went through an intense teenage relationship.

We became engaged.

Then came the first major disappointment of my life:

My best friend, who was also my cousin, took my partner away from me.

Many people experience something similar.

I closed that chapter.

Then another love entered my life.

We married.

Our two beautiful children were born.

Thanks to my parents, we were able to build close to them.

We still live in that family home today.

After our first child was born, my husband began working for an Italian trucking company.

It was difficult.

He could usually spend no more than one weekend a month with our little daughter and me.

I hated not seeing my husband.

And I hated that our daughter experienced so little of her father’s presence.

I would have preferred to feel safe beside him.

To know he was there.

Watching over us.

But that was not the life he chose.

Eventually I became pregnant with our son.

The months passed.

Nothing changed.

In fact, the situation became worse.

Even the small amount of attention I had previously received disappeared.

Not long after our son was born, my husband left the trucking job.

For a brief moment, we were happy that he was finally at home.

The happiness did not last.

He confessed that during the nearly four years in which I had essentially raised our children alone, he had been sleeping with women for money while travelling for work.

And he had cheated on me even during the periods he was home.

The blow was enormous.

I felt turned to stone.

Still, I believed divorce was not the answer because our children needed their father.

Over the following years, I became increasingly uncertain about that belief.

He often did not behave toward the children the way I believed a father should.

And he continued being unfaithful.

Then one night, without warning and seemingly transformed into someone else, he tried to rape me and beat me to death.

My eleven-year-old daughter saved me.

I escaped with injuries to my skull and wrist.

After that, we divorced.

Since then, their father has moved in and out of the children’s lives unpredictably.

It took me two years after the divorce before I could finally walk through the world without my head bowed.

I began noticing other people again.

And then fate brought my first great childhood love back into my life.

We had not seen each other for twenty years.

I had also been his first great love.

After meeting again, we talked several times.

We had coffee.

Half a year later, we realised:

We had fallen in love with one another again.

He has been part of our family ever since.

My year 2017 began with an epileptic seizure.

Once again, my daughter saved me.

During the examinations, doctors discovered a brain tumour.

It felt as though my life had turned 180 degrees again.

But there was good news inside the bad:

The tumour was in an operable location.

And it was benign.

Several months after the operation, I finally felt something clearly:

Yes.

I am alive.

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It had been a long road.

Now I have finally reached the point where I know:

My life belongs to me.

I decide what is right for me and what is not.

And because of that, I move through everyday life with much more confidence, courage and joy.

(The cover image is only an illustration.)

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