Divorce is hard. It is ugly. It is painful, and nothing can really prepare you for what to expect. Add in children, step-parents, and co-parenting, and you have yourself a whole new set of issues.
WHEN WE BEGAN NAVIGATING THESE UNCHARTED TERRITORIES WE WOULD OFTEN SAY, “THERE SHOULD BE A MANUAL FOR THIS.”
We've all heard that there are three sides to every story.
Rarely do we get to hear all three sides at once.
Much like parenting, divorce is just doing what you think is right, while hoping and praying for the best. We are going to tell you how we made it through (and are still working hard at) some of the most difficult times of our lives.
We will give you a glimpse into our lives - the good, the bad, and the REAL ugly! We promise to be raw and vulnerable, in hopes that our story will help just one person or family who feels hopeless and that there is no chance for a positive outcome.
Here’s to hoping you enjoy this real-life journey through our divorces, co-parenting, and chaos, as we share the truth… hers, mine, and ours.
Buckle up, grab a drink, and enjoy the chaos. xoxo
OUR STORY
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CHAPTER 1, Loren
And So It Begins: Part 1
I grew up a child and product of divorce. In today’s society, divorce has become the norm. However, 30 years ago it was still considered taboo and a rather frowned upon “choice”. In the case of my biological parents, it was the only option. My father and mother were married for only a few short years before they decided to divorce.
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CHAPTER 2, april
And So It Begins: Part 2
I was born to a single, teenage mother. My mom is one of the strongest women I know and is responsible for molding me into the strong woman I am today! My mom married my dad before I was two and gave birth to my amazing sister shortly after. The earliest childhood memory I can recall is around 4 years old.
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CHAPTER 3, LOREN
My First Forever Love
Your 20’s can be a scary and confusing time in life. You are unsure of what your future will look like or what you really want out of life. This is the decade of finding out who you are and who you hope to become. Some of us go to college right out of high school and have a concentration we are set on. Some of us will change our minds...
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CHAPTER 4, APRIL
Child Bride
I was stupid. I was not enough. I was unlovable and destined for this nightmare…Those are only a few things I would tell myself during my first marriage. I was a child-bride; not in the “my parents arranged my marriage to a much older man” kind of way. It was in the “I was the OG Teen Mom so it was the right thing to do” scenario.
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CHAPTER 5, april
Happily Ever After...
Or So I Thought
After eight very long and traumatic years of marriage, and one week after my divorce was final, I thought it only appropriate to get married again. Don’t judge me just yet, there will be plenty of time for that later. Yes, I got married one week after my first divorce was final.
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CHAPTER 6, loren
An Affair to Remember
We all make mistakes, make bad choices, and miss judgement calls. If we didn’t, how else would we learn and grow? The affair I had with a much older man when I was 21, impacted my life and my perspective on love forever thereafter. It was a judgement call that I am only now speaking about publicly.
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CHAPTER 7, loren
The Husband I Never Knew
We’ve all heard that the first year of marriage is the hardest. In my opinion, for couples on their second marriage this is even more true. The second round of marriage, for myself, gave that statement a whole new meaning. The beginning of my marriage felt much like an ending. I began my post nuptial life in a state of regret...
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CHAPTER 8, april
How I Met The Guy
Next Door
On a warm July night, we decided that we were going to celebrate Independence Day a little early. As we began getting things set up for the big lights show, I was asked to knock on our neighbor’s door to provide them the common courtesy of letting them know what we were doing.
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CHAPTER 9, loren
A Letter To The Wife
After Me
I never could have pictured you, because for me you were never supposed to exist. You were never in “our” happily ever after. When we said our vows, you were not in them. When our first child was born, you were not a part of this new creation.
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CHAPTER 10, APRIL
A Letter To The Wife
Before Me
When I met your husband, he was broken…we both were. At the time, we were not aware of the truly dark place we were in. After a while, that brokenness rose to the surface. He had an expectation for his life. He imagined that he would be married to you...
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CHAPTER 11, loren
The Watering Can
When I made the decision to leave our marriage, it was a decision that we had both come to mutually. It made no sense for me to stay in a town where I knew no one and would not be able to find a career that would financially support myself and my children. So, the only logical solution was for me to move home to Georgia.
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CHAPTER 12, APRIL
My Search For Greener Grass
Many say that money is the root of all evil. I have a different opinion. I strongly believe that the root of all evil lies in the expectations that we set for ourselves. It is not my belief that anyone gets married with the intention of anything other than forever, for always, no matter what.
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CHAPTER 13, loren
Sweet Revenge
They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…and scorned I was. I had been scorned by a man not once, not twice, but what felt like a thousand times. I always bit my tongue - to the best of my ability - and gave second chances out as if they were raffle tickets at the state fair. Just when I thought I had hit a breaking point; I was faced with another mountain.
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CHAPTER 14, april
Unlove Thy Neighbor
Have you ever heard the old saying, “Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see”? That statement precisely depicted what was going on in my life. I knew what I was living, yet everyone around me believed something entirely different. I also knew exactly what I was seeing, yet perception is rarely ever reality.
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CHAPTER 15, april
Burning Ring of Fire
Some say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result each time. Others believe it refers to a mental illness or madness. For me, insanity was a state of mind, or the state of my life in this case… Much of my childhood was spent in chaos.
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CHAPTER 16, loren
Burn, Baby, Burn
I carry a tremendous amount guilt for giving people more chances than they deserve. I have always believed in the good in everyone, and everyone deserves a second chance. Why did I continue to give my husband chance after chance? For what? To prove he loved me? Why did I need that to be proven to me?
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CHAPTER 17, Loren
His Wrath Found Me
Our divorce happened so quickly that I barely had time to even comprehend the severity and finality of it all. It took only a couple months to hear the judge hammer the gavel. Within moments, a man who never truly felt “mine”, legally was no more. I signed my name on our divorce papers that day, never to see “Mr. and Mrs. Kirk” again...
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CHAPTER 18, april
Send Me Someone to Love
Letting go is one of the hardest things you will ever do, especially when you are letting go of something you imagined would last forever. However, God must close the door to one chapter of your life in order to prepare you for a much bigger one. I had no idea just how true that statement could be.
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CHAPTERS 10 - 18
CHAPTER 19, loren
Road To Nowhere
“There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child.” Instinct and adrenaline rushed through me like lava. They say the adrenaline that a mama has, when she is scared for her baby, could lift a car straight into the air. Mine could have lifted an 18-wheeler. My ex-husband had crossed a line...
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CHAPTER 20, april
Bring it on Home
There is a song that says, “Every new beginning is some other beginning’s end.” This was the season of new beginnings for me. However, it was also the beginning of the end…the end of peace and life as I once knew it. The police officer that came to our home, the Friday of the email, was very kind....
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CHAPTER 21, loren
The Road You Leave Behind
I still remember the emotions I felt the moment I held each one of my sons for the very first time. Jackson, my oldest, made me a Mom. It was love at first sight, and I saw nothing but absolute perfection when we met. My heart had never felt that kind of love before, and the meaning of love was forever changed for me!
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CHAPTER 22, april
For These Children
She Prayed
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” That is just what we did; we hung on for dear life. Every shred of the rope was another ounce of sanity gone. John and I never lost hope, but we were prepared to accept disappointment.
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CHAPTER 23, loren
Punishment For My Crime
My world had been shattered into a thousand pieces. Sure, my heart had been broken by men before, but this…this was a heartbreak like no other. This hurt a depth of my soul I never knew existed. The pain of being erased from my babies’ lives was unbearable. Fight or flight was all I knew.
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CHAPTER 24, april
Nobody Wins in War
“Sometimes we fight not because we hate what is in front of us, but because we love what is behind us.” After the court hearing that granted John full custody of his boys, our lives were suddenly more hectic than they had been. We quickly hired an amazing nanny and spent a few days getting the house ready for three additional boys.
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CHAPTER 25, loren
Can You Stand the Rain?
I’m not sure of the expectations I had for co-parenting our sons, but any idea I did have was quickly dimming. Every notification from court or my attorney was a dagger that started to slowly kill a piece of me. In fact, I began to go numb entirely and remember thinking at times how much easier it would be if I were to just give up.
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CHAPTER 26, april
You Don't Know Me
I knew if I did not follow my heart, I would spend the rest of my life with regret and wishing I had. I had fallen in love with John and the life that I imagined we would have together. Of course, I wanted to marry him. There was only one problem that was deterring me from signing that marriage contract…
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CHAPTER 27, loren
Committing to Defeat
Letting go is one of the hardest things you will ever do, especially when you are letting go of something you imagined would last forever. However, God must close the door to one chapter of your life in order to prepare you for a much bigger one. I had no idea just how true that statement could be.
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CHAPTERS 19 - 27
CHAPTER 28, april
Two Pink Lines
I had spent so much of my life trying to be the person I was supposed to be instead of just being the person I wanted to be. I accepted so many things that I did not deserve and was too afraid to go after what I knew I was worthy of. As a little girl, I dreamt of starting a family. I planned to go to college, find the perfect man to fall in love with...
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CHAPTER 29, loren
I Am Mom
“A Mom is she who can take the place of all others, but who’s place no one else can take.”Before I had babies, I had no idea exactly what motherhood entailed, nor did I ever imagine that I would be qualified enough to take care of little lives. When I became a Mom for the first time, the name "Mom" immediately felt as if it fit me...
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CHAPTER 30, april
Momma Tried
My earliest childhood memory of the plans I made for my future self, included being a mother. The expectations I set for the type of mother I would be were extremely high. Like most things in my life, I wanted to be perfect at it. I took several ideas from the way my mother raised me, as well as a few different and creative concepts.
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CHAPTER 31, loren
Hope and Hopeless
“One of the toughest decisions you’ll ever make is whether to try harder or walk away.” Dating after divorce can be scary. For me, it turned out to be mostly weird, mixed with some lessons I had clearly not mastered nor paid attention to in my 20s. So, in typical stubborn Loren, fashion I had to learn the hard way. In walks Loren’s late life lesson.
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CHAPTER 32, april
Read my Lips
Have you ever wanted something so bad, but deep in your heart you felt it could never happen? That is exactly how I felt about reaching a positive co-parenting relationship between John and Loren. It seemed the harder I tried to forge an alliance, the worse it became. It was always one step forward and twelve steps back.
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CHAPTER 33, loren
For the Love of Money
I was certain I had hit my cap when it came to the amount of bullets I was able to withstand from my co-parent. I could not fathom that there could possibly be anymore ammo they could shoot my way. Ah, but how wrong I was. I began to realize that these hits towards me were meant for one reason, and one reason only: to break me
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CHAPTER 34, april
Stanger in my House
John and I allowed a stranger into our home. That was not a normal occurrence for us, but this visitor had something that we desired... information to help our custody case. She declared that she knew the deepest, darkest secrets of the person that had been causing so much pain, anxiety, and torment in our lives for so long.
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CHAPTER 35, loren
Behind Enemy Lines
A meeting of the minds was our next attempt at an effort to make peace. Typically, a double date would seem like an excellent idea. A double date with my ex-husband, his new wife, and my very new beau, however, was not exactly the “good time” that I had in mind. Much like all of our interactions, the tension was thick...
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CHAPTER 36, april
Lovie Me Tender
During our child custody case, John and I had attempted to reach out to Loren several times in hopes of creating a peace treaty. If I am being completely honest, it was more of me reaching out than him. It is not that John wanted the chaos to continue, he just does not possess the same communication skills that I do.
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CHAPTERS 28 - 36
CHAPTER 37, loren
A Mother's Love
To my son, Jack -
“From the moment I held you in my arms for the first time, I knew I was holding the greatest love of my life. As my greatest love, I vowed to love and protect you until my last breath.”Motherhood has posed new challenges that I could have never foreseen.
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CHAPTER 38, april
Happiness Lies Ahead
Throughout the past two years, John and I had gone back and forth with Loren on several occasions. For a short time, things seemed like they would get better. However, just when we got accustomed to one way of thinking, the relationship would hit a new low. After the final meeting in our home, I felt a glimmer of hope
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CHAPTER 39, april
Call Me Crazy
for Loren, -
“Sometimes, things do not work out. Not because you do not deserve it, but because you deserve so much more." Once we arrived home after the hurricane evacuation, we were relieved to find that we had only sustained minor damage to our primary and rental homes.
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CHAPTER 40, loren
Wakeup Call
“You don’t lose a good man. You lose a man who’s not good for you.” The August heat beat down on our little town well into the early days of September. If you grew up on the east coast, you are well aware that between the months of May and September, Mother Nature will often show her power by bringing ashore her wet tornadoes.
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CHAPTER 41, april
Last Call
“When I first met you, I honestly didn’t know you were going to be this important to me.”
On my knees with tears uncontrollably pouring from my eyes, my fingers searched through my phone as fast as possible. I scrolled past the phone number of my mom, my sister, my best friend, until I landed on "her" name.... April Kirk
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CHAPTER 42, loren
I'll Be There
During the past three years, our phones had shared several conversations. The recipients on either end of the calls had heard laughter, tears, naughty words, threats, promises, and screams. In the hundreds of hours of documented and recorded conversations, none had been like the one I was experiencing in that moment.
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