A Marriage breakdown As Told By Facebook

One of my favourite pastimes is reading my facebook thread and making comments such as “who cares?” when someone posts another picture of their dinner or their kids winning a medal for writing/walking/singing (delete as necessary). Posts such as “so tired,” or “fed up” also drive me to shout stop moaning at my computer screen. Mr B gently reminds me that I don’t have to actually read these posts that annoy me. Does he not understand that I enjoy my daily facebook rant?

That was until I started seeing the recent posts from the application “On This Day” similar to other applications like Timehop, On This Day  show’s you what you posted 1, 2 or even 5 years ago on that particular day, and boy did I post.

Over the last few days my posts from 5 years ago became distinctly different and frequent, see if you can spot what happened?

17/04/10 is really very, very angry to find out her son’s nursery play area has been vandalised AGAIN by some drunken idiots, will not tell you what my husband thinks should be done to them!

20/04/10 Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again, skinned knees are easy to fix.

20/04/10 has just realised it’s when the chips are down you find out how many wonderful friends you have.

26/04/10 knows that in time this too shall pass.

27/04/10 would like this to stop, now please.

Yep on the 17th of April I was a happily (I thought) married woman with 2 children moaning about her son’s playground being wrecked by vandals.

On the 18th of April I discovered via facebook (ah yes that wonderful thing again) that my husband of 9 years had been having an affair and wanted to leave (he did, it’s all ok, that is not the point of the story).

The  last two posts above are exactly the kind that drive me crazy when I see them on facebook. Attention seeking, cryptic, begging for people to ask whats wrong? And they did, they replied, they sent private messages and texts, came round with chocolate and wine and travelled from the other side of the country to be with me. Those on the other side of the world couldn’t do that but checked in with me as often as possible and I needed it.

Maybe facebook isn’t the place to air such things and admittedly I’m sure there were some ill advised posts with language and recriminations which shouldn’t have been in the public eye and which were subsequently removed (mostly after threatening solicitors letters -scary!) But it was a support mechanism, it was reaching out to people whether they were close friends or vague acquaintances to be reassured someone cared. It was someone to interact with during those long hard days devoid from the one person I had come to rely ons support and company.

Here are some more;

28/04/2010 has lost a stone, knew there had to be a silver lining 

03/05/2010 what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and I have no intention of lying down and playing dead

03/05/2010 what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and I have no intention of lying down and playing dead

25/05/2010 is tired and sore and down in the dumps, boo hoo

25/05/2010 know’s it’s only Tuesday but really needs a large glass of wine, soon

30/05/2010 needs a big night out this Saturday, who’s with me?

30/05/10 I am woman, hear me roar!

17/06/10 is not sure a free bar on a school night was a good idea!

20/06/10 had a lovely evening with lovely people but is really getting too old to roll in at 4am, bang go any plans for today.

30/06/10 is starting to stress about childcare during the hols, not quite sure how all those working mum’s manage!

12/07/10 Illegitimi non carborundum

16/07/10 is feeling very wobbly about spending 4 days without her babies.

19/07/10 is loving being back at work but not loving the endless forms and telephone calls to arrange tax credits, childcare, council tax etc, aaaaaaaaagh my brain is melting.

25/07/10 sometimes wonders if she really is strong enough.

26/07/10 is truly blessed to have so many wonderful friends to lift me up when I am down.

The posts actually make me laugh now, they verge between fed up, tired, sad and there is also an awful lot of talk around partying and alcohol (see above) , before you judge I wasn’t celebrating the end of a marriage I was desperate for distraction. I had never been apart from my kids before and now found myself suddenly spending 48 hours a fortnight childless, and without another adult in the house and without those friends who dragged me out on the town I can honestly say I may not have made it through, so thank you.

There was a ridiculous amount of posts for such a small time scale and I’m sure I must have annoyed many facebook users with my incessant moaning but they were all kind enough not to say anything or unfriend me. In some ways I am glad to have them as reminder of what I went through and how I came out the other side. They are a permanent record of my journey from stay at home mum to single, working mum and all that, that entails (not least childcare issues and the maze that is tax credit applications).  There was also an awful lot of terrible cliched phrases and a couple of Kelly Clarkson lyrics, for those I apologise profusely.

So my vow to myself is, for all those people who are sad, lonely or upset and post something on facebook I will try not to be so quick to dismiss them, I will try and reach out and see if I can help someone the way others helped me.

Oh and I will also continue to post pictures of my kids winning things because they are the best 🙂

My favourite post though was this one, I’ll leave you to google it.

12/07/10 Illegitimi non carborundum