And almost with the blink of the eye, she is gone. The last few days were extremely stressful, and I kept my composure until the last moment to not have the stress make a difficult situation go bad. My still wife, soon to be ex-wife, is now gone. She left to live with her parents in another country. Behind we stay – our 15-year old son, a dog, and myself – now being in charge of this ship.

Yes, I divorced from her. But what happened today - I am not talking about a “normal” separation, but the fact that she left the country for good – leaving her son to grow up 5,000 miles separated from her. I tried to reason with her, but she is under the spell of her own mom and her mom won. Even more confirming to me that I made the right decision to file for divorce after so many years, but it breaks my heart for my son. Yes, the divorce is on me, but leaving him behind – that is on her. I am not taking responsibility for that decision, because that is a whole different league or ballgame. It is one thing to live separated and share parenting for a child, but leaving altogether … that is something very different.

The divorce is not even official. Yes, we notarized everything and the paperwork is with the court for signature. And she is already gone.

My son and I had a lot of good talks over the last few months and weeks and especially today. As much as I can tell – he is in a good spot for the moment, but one day is not every day. There will be lows coming and I have to mentally prepare myself for this to happen. I will be there for him and do my best to give him comfort and strength to deal with this.

I did not have many down days during the entire time, but today it is probably hitting me pretty hard. Scratch that “probably” – I am not superman. I just need a pat and somebody saying “You got this!”