Disclaimer

 I feel like I need to make a disclaimer post before I write from my heart from here on out.

I hate that the world we live in requires disclaimers on opinions, but it does and that is a part of the new reality that I feel like social media has brought with it.

2 things mostly that I want to get off of my chest and down on paper:

Like I wrote about nearly a year ago, my 25 year relationship with Andy is a part of my story.  It is a part of my past and it is a part that I can't erase and that I don't want to erase.  I want my kids to be able to look back and know that I haven't deleted their father from my story.  Andy and I had what we had and for better and for worse it is my story.  I'm not cleansing my Instagram of all things Andy and I'm not burning my photo albums.  I look back on some of my posts and I know now that I was naive and that what I believed to be my reality often wasn't, but that doesn't mean I'm going to make any post-dated edits.  It was my reality at the time and I'm fine leaving it as such even as I look back and know that things were often not as they seemed.

Secondly, and I think most importantly for this post, as I begin to write about my present, the things I write WILL NEVER BE A COMPARISON!  If I write about my new guy and say how kind he is or how selfless he is or anything, I am not writing it to compare him to Andy.  If I write that he loves me selflessly, I am not secretly saying that he loves me selflessly and Andy didn't.  It may or may not be true, but I am not using my present or my future as a comparison to my past unless I blatantly say that.  It is important to me that I don't use my present to cut Andy down.  That isn't healthy for my kids and it just seems childish.  When I write about my new guy, I am just writing about my new guy.  I am writing about my new reality.  I am writing about my story in present tense as I move forward along my journey.  

I feel like these disclaimers are important because I have found myself wrestling deeply with publicly moving forward.  Being divorced has been embarrassing for me.  I didn't advertise that Andy and I were over for a long time, I didn't really even publicly mourn aside from a couple of blog posts.  (I let our relationship end pretty privately and I let my heart break and heal pretty privately.)  The end of my marriage was fairly private and I still find people just becoming aware of it (unless they also follow Andy).  So coming "out" with a new guy has been so strange for me.  The enemy has really used my pride (I think) to make me feel shame for not still being married.  And the enemy has really been using my pride (I think) to make me feel weird about publicly having a new guy after vowing to be married "till death do we part."

As I have slowly started "showing my hand" with my new guy, I have been struggling with words because I don't want anyone to think that I am comparing him to Andy.  I think because I want to be above reproach in the way I respect Andy as a person and the relationship we had, I don't want to ever use words or phrases that insinuate that because my new guy is so great that Andy was not.  Again, things I say may be true when looked at from that point of view, but never ever do I want to use my words to put Andy down just by building my new guy up.

My struggle has been with pride and my struggle has been with integrity.  Pride being how do I publicly move on after divorce and after being a "relationship failure."  And integrity being how do I brag on my new man without making people thing that I am bashing Andy.  I never want to publicly do that.

So, there is my disclaimer.  I'll be writing about restoration and new beginnings and blessings and redemption and I'll be shouting from the rooftops about how WONDERFUL my new guy is!!!  As I move forward and brag on my new guy, I will be bragging from the present forward.  I will be bragging about him and about God's faithfulness.  My bragging will be out of love and respect and thankfulness and not about looking back and comparing.  I have hope for a great future and I am thankful for the person my past molded me into personally so that I would be ready for the rest of my story.

So, here we go now that I have written my disclaimer. . . .