GETTING IT BACK


Wow...you're just getting through a divorce, and suddenly you're realizing that in the time it took you to raise a family and take care of a household, you've lost all touch with who you were "before".

Before I started a family, I was this fearless, independent, take no shat individual, who had the world by the tail. I knew who I was, what I wanted, and exactly how I was going to get it.

Two kids into my marriage, I'd managed to turn into a 'mombot'...as most of us do. It's almost unavoidable.

What's a "Mombot"?

A Mombot is what I call the woman who's left her old life and dreams behind, for the sake of getting married, having and raising a family. She's robot mom. She does what's best for her family by default, for the most part, forgoing her own well being. It's not an insult...it happens to most of us. We put the care and well being of our significant others and our children before our own, and we turn into mombots.

What happens to the mombot when the relationship goes south?

Mombot most likely has been out of the workforce (the 'above ground' work force) for awhile. Mombot has become a part of the 'underground' work force. I call it the underground work force, because it would seem that the tendency of society in general is to assume that children raise themselves. They cook and clean for themselves, tutor themselves with regard to homework and general social manners. Society places very little value on the work that we as mothers do to provide it with intelligent, caring, contributing members. We are almost invisible. I have a girlfriend, whose husband actually pays her a salary to stay home and take care of their home and children.

What a WICKED idea!!! He gets paid to go out and work, why shouldn't she get paid to stay in and work??

But I digress.

The challenge for the Mombot post-divorce is how to 'find herself'. Because she's put her own interests on the back burner, she has very little social life to speak of...no real job skills unless folding laundry and changing diapers is in hot demand on Monster.com.

So...what do we do Mombots? Let's figure out what we like now...because it's been awhile since we've actually asked ourselves that question. Let's tackle the social aspect of this first shall we? What happened to our friends?All married off with kids? Or are they single, divorced...not sure?

When I was in the divorce process, I found that the stress and sometimes the anger were more than I could take on without some kind of release. So...I took up kickboxing. It was a ton of fun, I made some new friends, and my instructor allowed me to bring a picture of my ex to class! I taped him to the heavy bag and watched with glee as the entire class kicked at his head! =)

I'm still kickboxing 6 years later.

At the time, I wasn't particularly interested in kickboxing, but I needed something to help with the stress. Kickboxing did the trick.

Find out what interests you. If nothing comes to mind, try something new! What did you like doing before you had children? What did you like to do when you were 12? Ask your mom if you don't remember.

Don't think about it. Just do it. Need help? Email me!


You have the opportunity to be the architect of your brand new life.

Thanks for reading.


Debbie.

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