Midlife Crisis Her Story: Chantelle

Chantelle married her high school sweetheart.  She’d never been with another man but for the times she was on vacation and knew her boyfriend would never find out. 2 kids, 3 houses and 15 years later, she found herself at home frustrated.  A stay-at-home-mom she felt lonely and unappreciated.  She had wants and needs and no one seemed to care. So she left. She found an apartment 15 miles away from their home and moved in. Without her husband and without their kids. Freedom. Chantelle bought new furniture a new TV and a new ticket to life.  Looking back now she said that it never occurred to her to think about how her husband and kids felt that she had left, she was only worried about herself and that if she didn’t leave, she would never have a chance to live again. “Back then I was sure…one day…when the whole thing of me ‘leaving’ blew over, they’d all come over for dinner and visit and we’d all just all be friend again,” Chantelle laughs, “Ha!  What was I thinking?  I was crazy…” Chantelle says that he husband was very angry.  He wouldn’t talk to her for a few weeks and then they stopped talking altogether.  2 years passed, then 3, and then 4.  Divorce papers showed up and she signed them and went to meeting where they calmly separated their things and kid duty. Then that following year, things changed.  Chantelle and her ex husband became friends.  Slowly, their friendship grew and blossomed to a level they never had before when they were high school sweethearts.  They began hanging out together more and more and one day it became obvious:  We were meant to be married. And guess what? They married again. Slowly he started to be nice to her. Chantelle says it simply, “We were friends. We ARE friends.  Good friends.  And somewhere along the way, we forgot how to keep that friendship going in between all the crap you have to do as a parent and a wife and a mother.  Instead of trying to figure out how to mend our relationship, we focused on what we were missing and blamed each other.” She fully knows what she did by leaving, hurt many people, mostly her children.  “It’s hard to be the motivating Mom telling them not to give up on something…because I’m a fraud…they both know that I, their Mom, gave up.  On them.  Big time.  I missed so much that I can never get back.  Thinking about the time that I did not live in our home…I just can’t believe I left.” Chantelle did say that he husband had every right to hold what she did over her head and use it as a point to tell her she is less than. “He never makes me feel bad that I did what I did.  It’s almost as if those 5 years never happened and we are closer than we’ve ever been before.” Her advice to those going through someone who has left them, “Just be kind and loving.  And forgive.  I never expected my husband to forgive me, and he really did.  I’m the evil one. He is my rock.  He could torture me with what I did, but then I probably wouldn’t be here right now,” Chantelle laughed, “but he doesn’t. And I know that is hard and it makes me love him more.”

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