Share your compassion, not your opinion.

The moment you regret telling someone something happened to me today. I am pretty good friends with a few people at work. One simple question about a recent vacation I went on (just me and the kids, no STBX); turned into them (a few co-workers) having too much insight into how I’m navigating this breakup.

Kick him out.
He won’t leave.
I packed my ex’s stuff in bags and left on the porch.
He knows you’re just threatening.
You need to be stronger.

You need to be stronger. That one stung. It takes a very strong person to make the decisions that will inevitably change every single thing about their life.

Listen… Breaking up is hard to do. (cue song by Neil Sedaka – but sang by Beverly Hills, 90210 cast members). Some of those things may be true. But that is also the reason I gave him a timeline and said he needed to go, or I would. And I will. But not the way others (who are not going through a divorce) would do.

Some people (including myself) want to keep things civil. Civil enough for the kids. For the next 12+ years that we need to co-parent. For sure this means I will need to bite my tongue often and not say or do the things I’d really like to do. But also, I am not cold-hearted. I can not throw my STBX, the father of my children, the man I’ve spent the last 13 years with… out on the street. I can’t. I won’t.

It’s incredibly easy for someone to tell someone else how to live their life. What decisions they should make, what their next step should be, etc. But in reality, every single situation is very different than the next.

After spending the afternoon crying in my office overthinking the biggest decision of my life, I thought about it. One thing that I’ve learned throughout this entire process is that EVERYONE has an opinion about your life and how you’re living it. Most people don’t hold it back – regardless of if it will hurt you or not. My biggest takeaway from this situation, and many other similar ones, is to be careful with who you share certain information or feelings. Unless you’re ready for their thoughts – because you will get them!