Sadness

I got an email today from someone I care about very much.

It explained that she and her husband are separating. She will be moving far away with their two little girls.

I have hardly been able to think about anything else all morning.

This past year:
1 - My brother in law got divorced. At then end of his marriage, I was the only one in the Linderman family she was speaking to. She emailed me at Christmas. It made me cry. Thankfully, they had no kids.

2 - My college roomate, girls state alumni and all around dear friend, who was married a month before I was, called me from Texas to ask what St. George was like because she was getting divorced and thinking of moving with their 2 year old son.

3 - A close family friend - her parents live a half hour from us - left her husband, taking their 5 children with her. It has been devastating for her kids and her mother.

4 - This morning.

This is an average of a divorce every 3 months that has had anywhere from a peripheral impact to a direct impact on me and my little family.

I know every situation is different, and I am not judging any of those situations and the difficulty that they entail. And sometimes I think a divorce may be the only answer for some people. Nobody knows what it is like standing in anyone else's shoes - no matter how good we might think we are at empathy.

But my heart hurts.

I HATE divorce. My parents' divorce had a very big and lasting impact on me. And even though I feel Trev and I are more secure than ever before, the knowledge that there are so many marriages out there that end this way still frightens me.

It just all makes me so sad.