…her husband had been cheating on her for an unknown amount of time. How did she find out?
“I forgot my phone at home. I said, ‘Hey, can I use your phone to call your mom?’ So, I went to go make the call and I saw, ‘I love you’ [on the phone],” Beauvais says. “I looked again, and I said, ‘What’s this?’ That’s pretty much how everything changed.”
She continued, “The shock was like a freight train hitting me. The pain was unimaginable. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to exit my body like a character in a cartoon. I had so many questions. What happens next? Do I stay for the sake of the kids? Do I stay because, well, that’s what some women do? And oh my God, what do I do with all of this anger?” Her husband’s infidelities in deed ended the marriage.
Some people are so bitter after a divorce that they may involve the kids by disclosing damaging information about their partner.
Not Garcelle Beauvais.
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She recalled, “I did all the things that they say you should do, because I didn’t want my adult drama to affect my kids,” she says tearfully. “I couldn’t have moved on and been a good parent and co-parent with him if I didn’t do those things. We’re doing the best we can for those boys. They deserve it.”
So after the divorce, the couple remained in each other’s lives, and they didn’t bad mouth each other around their kids. Beauvais realized,”…part of my self-esteem was tied to being a wife. But ultimately, I made the decision to leave my marriage. It was especially tough because I adored the idea of a whole family — but I love my children way more than I hate his betrayal.”
In an effort to heal, Beauvais began going to therapy and seeing a life coach. Sometimes, the best way to handle pain is just to talk about it.
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Garcelle Beauvais: Lesson In Positive Co-Parenting After Divorce was originally published on blackdoctor.org
