TheExWivesGuide: Launch Week Back to the Look in her Eyes

This week is a big week for us Ex-Wives.

It's finally here!!! 8.16.16 the OFFICIAL RELEASE DATE OF OUR BOOK
The Ex-Wives Guide to Divorce!!!

Wait... let's rephrase that - LAUNCH WEEK OF OUR BOOK!!!

Wait one more time... FOUR LONG YEARS OF OUR HARD WORK, UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP, TEARS, FEARS, AND MISTAKES IN OUR PAST WILL FINALLY BE IN PRINT AND RELEASED TO ALL OF YOU IN AN EFFORT TO HELP YOU NOT MAKE {HOPEFULLY}

THE SAME MISTAKES WE DID!!!

{Hard to squeeze that one in a tag line but probably the most accurate.}

I confided to Holiday that I was finding everything pretty hard emotionally with getting ready for our release. Which is crazy, because you'd think I'd be stretched out relaxing in a luxe cabana on the turquoise blue beach found only on Cloud 9 of course, with my name on the back printed in gold cursive reserved for the ENTIRE month.

However I'm feeling roller coaster emotions mostly like when I was getting divorced. Where one day you wake up on top of the world! And you almost high five yourself because damn girl you're strong and resilient and you did it!! Like the feeling you get when running through a field of fresh daisies on a perfect spring morning in this seasons must have Anthropologie dress!!! {I have never done this but could only imagine it would be the most ultimate feeling in the world akin to celebrating a big accomplishment.}

And then BOOM.

Something catapults you emotionally back to where it all started.

Like needing to find pictures in your 10,000+ library of photos

around when you and your co-author first connected.

A seemingly should be fun task that has you in tears and wanting to vomit

because naturally you start looking at all the other pictures around that time.

And by around that time I mean during our divorces.

As I clicked my left arrow and right arrow slowly across my events in iPhoto - I couldn't help but feel a giant knot in my stomach.

Sure there were sprinklings of good memories, but overlaying the happy were also the many"bad memories" that only I could or would be able to recognize. From the outside these perfectly filtered captured moment appeared like life was normal as usual.

That picture of my son sitting in my lap at Thanksgiving during my divorce? Well as I choked back delicious turkey and not so delicious tears at my sister's neighbors house, what you don't "see" or know is my son was technically supposed to be with my Ex. But he was with me, and his Dad was running very late, oh and I threw up a couple times that day because I was just a little upset to put it mildly.

And that picture of me with Holiday and our kiddos on a Memorial Day trip to Destin on the beach?

Well although we look incredibly happy, and the kids were grinning ear to ear {except during nap or bed time, that was mostly not happy} and we really were having a super time, neither one of us had ever dreamed our futures would hold trips without our children's fathers and us being divorced.

And although you don't "see" it - it showed.

I think what saddened me the most, and regretting that I ate two lunches that day I had to dig up old photos this past week, was that I knew I had seen that look on Holiday's face before. Looking like she's trying to have the time of her life but it's plain as day in her eyes... that "It was supposed to be different" look.

And if I'm being honest, I had seen it long before our Memorial Day trip photos {where the idea for our much needed The Ex-Wives Guide to Divorce planner was born!}. The very first time she reached out to me on Facebook I noticed it. She and my Ex, her then husband, wanted to reach out and say hey because we had some mutual friends. Being 7 months pregnant I was feeling the love everywhere - so normally I might not have said "Sure Ex husband and your 2nd wife who looks super nice and cool - let's connect!!!".

I remember quickly scanning those pictures Holiday had all over her FB wall, normally reserved for stalking an ex or his girlfriend or wife or whatever, but here mine was legit because we were actually FB "friends" and they initiated it!. Their new amazing house, them on the same pontoon boat with my Ex's family I had been on just ten years before, their growing family with beautiful girls. The pictures with Holiday and her girls were magazine worthy. The picture with Holiday and our Ex though told a much different story. At least to me.

Just like my many photos that seemed like everything was fine, I could see that LOOK in her eyes...

THAT ONLY A WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN THROUGH THE SAME THING

OR HAD BEEN IN SIMILAR SITUATIONS UNDERSTOOD...

That look of I should be happy because I have the family I always wanted but this is not the life I think I should be living. Things are not right. Things are not as perfect as I'm pretending they are. Things are not as they should be not just in my mind but in my heart.

But I'm going to smile, cradle my little girls, link my arm around my husband, and pretend it is.

At least for this shiny happy picture.

So when Holiday finally reached out to me at the beginning of her divorce via Facebook message, saying I might be "the only person that might possibly understand what I'm going through", well I already understood. And not just because I too, had divorced her husband. But because I had witnessed for the couple years we had been Facebook friends the look in her eyes.

Other ex-wife or not, you NEVER want to see a wonderful woman go through pain,

or lose the dream you know she had of having a forever family.

Especially when you knew you lost yours as well.

Hopefully this week during the release of our book, we can start filtering and posting photos of two women who came together {despite an unlikely beginning} hoping to make a brighter future for not only ourselves, but for the many other women out there that are having to create a new vision of what their life will be. Just like we did.

And if we just spare one of you from making mistakes or feeling unnecessary pain,

while giving you a Girlfriend to have by your side,

well then we shall consider our book a success - New York Times best seller list or not.

{Although p.s.: We really hope it is!!!}

Love, Valerie {Ex-Wife #1}