Life and time won alright. This is where things get messy. This is also harder for me to talk openly about. Since we're being honest...here goes nothing.
Summer before my Junior year in high school I met an older guy, by five years. He was visiting some of his family who were my church leaders in Spokane. They tried to discourage the relationship, to no avail. There was already a part of me who was mature beyond my years. I was interested in him. We started writing letters back and forth. This was back in the days of long-distance phone charges, and boy did we rack up the bill. Nearly every phone bill was upwards of $100. Our parents weren't impressed.
After that my new found long distance relationship took flight, with one last bump in the road. Sometime around November 1997 I got a letter from Phillip. Only the address in the top left corner, and on the back it read "You should know who this is from!". I had mailed of a letter months earlier to him with the same thing written on the back. My heart felt as though it was on a roller coaster. Pounding, again as if he were standing right there. What was I going to do? I wound up calling him a few hours later. We caught up on the phone. I told him about school and my job. He talked about school and his family. Neither of us mentioning our newest love interests. After a few phone conversations things just stopped moving. He went on with his relationship which wound up lasting 4 years. I went on with mine.
I wanted out of Spokane more than anyone. Mostly I didn't want to be where I was in life. It was awkward and uncomfortable. I was a senior in high school, In my mind getting out of Spokane was the answer. I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was being a good mormon girl and getting my young self hitched in the temple and moving to Utah. When I did this, when I made that choice I gave it my everything. We bought a townhouse and started our family. My value and purpose in life was to take care of my husband, bear and rear our children. I wouldn't me honest if I didn't give credit to the happy times. We laughed together, made a lot of friends, built his career, and raised our children. I didn't know what I didn't know. Over time I started feeling lonely, depressed and like I had little purpose in my own life. I just kept trying. It's hard for me to explain the last few years of my marriage, but happy was fewer and farther between. It seemed like the harder I tried to make my life into something it wasn't the more unhappy I became. It also seemed that the more I put into my empty life the more people believed my life was wonderful, and perfect and fantastic. It was confusing. I tried to go back to school. I was an awesome student and made straight A's, but it wasn't enough. After a couple of semesters I dropped it all together. September of 2009, I knew something had to change and fast. I was growing increasingly depressed and to try and fix it I was on a serious cocktail of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and a little something to help me sleep at night. On a normal 'good' day I was taking 4 pills a day, on a bad day 6. All legitimately prescribed by a psychiatrist. I often wondered how people couldn't just look at me and see right through my pretty candy shell. On top of the depression I was beginning to suffer from serious stomach pain. Some days it was debilitating, towards the end most days it was debilitating. I had MRI's, x-rays, CT scans. Nothing showed any problems. I started taking laxatives, and pro-biotics. After a trip to visit my mom in Georgia over Christmas and suffering for most of the trip. I realized I wasn't being true to myself. I was living life for everyone around me. I was unhappy and needed to face it all head on. I had to take control over my life and deal with all the choices I made. I had to be responsible. After Christmas I knew in my heart what had to be done. It was something I never thought I would do. Divorce. I sat on the word for a couple of days. Thought about what it really meant for me and the kids. I was more scared of a choice than I had ever been in my life. I hadn't had a paying job since 2005. How was I going to survive? What about the kids? Where will we go? and How in the HELL am I going to tell my husband? I lived silently and alone with my decision for two weeks.
In the meantime I was on facebook, catching up with old friends left and right. It was my outlet and connection. Early in January, I noticed that a friend of mine was now friends with Phillip Dompier. "How funny," I thought "wonder what he was up to...". So I went to his page and sent a friend request. Almost immediately it was accepted. A couple of days went by and all of a sudden an instant message popped up. I was sitting on the couch next to my future ex-husband, it was 8 o'clock at night with my lap-top. It said "Hey, how's it going?". I slammed the lap-top shut and said. "Let's get the kids tucked in". That heart pounding was so familiar, even though so many years had passed since I felt it last. I didn't go back on instant messaging. Instead I sent him a message later that night asking what he was up to, what was new, how are things, sorry I missed his instant message, I was getting the kids to bed. I also added a generic comment about "I'm married, have four kids and doing well". I got a response later that morning. Phillip was fresh out of his own divorce and just trying to find himself. He had some really nice things to say about how he's happy for me, that I'm doing so well. I realized that with him I was doing what I did with the rest of the world, I put a layer of sugar to hide my pain. I was so sick of it. I was disgusted with myself for doing it, and doing it without a second thought. It was really time to bite the bullet. I decided that I was going to end my marriage the next day.
I couldn't sleep and just kept thinking about what I was going to say, how I was going to say it. Agonizing over what it meant for the kids. They were going to be devastated, their life was going to change and I had little I could promise them about how everything would turn out. I just didn't know. Whether it was the right thing to do, or not. I got up and wrote Phillip a message. I let it all out on him. I felt like all of my friends were going to be judgmental and or tell my ex before I had a chance. I knew I could trust Phillip and I knew that he had an idea of what I might be going through. I was sure he thought I was completely insane. I really didn't expect to hear from him ever again. I had to let it out, and so I did. After letting it all out I fell asleep sometime around 4 am. The next day was pretty uneventful considering I was about to change our lives. The older kids went off to school, I watched my usual morning shows, played with Olivia, ran some errands. I put Olivia down for her nap in anticipation for some quiet time to gather my thoughts and get ready for the kids to get home. I also checked facebook. I had a message. It was Phillip. He said he was sorry to hear about all that was going on and that if I needed to talk to someone give him a call, anytime.
That evening he came home in time to tuck the kids into bed, 8 pm. It was part of our normal routine. After we were finished I stood in the kitchen as he started in on the dishes. I was so nervous I couldn't hold still. Finally, I just said it. I told him it was over and we needed to decide together how we were going to go about this, remain friends and watch out for the kids interests. The entire conversation was 45 minutes from start to finish. A clue to me that I was on the right track. There was no arguing, no one raised their voices. We agreed it was time. Then we watched some tv show together and went to bed. I was fine once I let it out. But in the silence of the night I fell apart. I couldn't stop crying, as if every emotion that I had been stuffing for years, spilled out of me. I needed to turn to someone, so got my phone and dialed the number. Phillip said "anytime" right? Why not 1am? I was desperate for him to answer the phone, but scared that he would. He answered. My heart pounded again. I said "Hi, this is Megan..." he barely got out "Hi" before I just started babbling like a flooding brook. I cried and cried and just went on about how I don't know what I'm going to do, what about the kids, how could I be so cruel? He sat there on the phone patiently answering my endless unanswerable questions until I finally ran dry of both tears and words. I thanked him for being there, he thanked me for calling. I hung up the phone and passed out from exhaustion.
I woke up the next morning, feeling oddly refreshed. I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I finally let it all go. Over the next few days we worked out a plan for the kids. Discussed how to remain friends and when to start dating again. We decided that we should continue living together (platonically) until the end of the school year. We worked on a schedule to get the kids used to "Mom Time and Dad Time". We also sat down and wrote out a letter to our family and close friends explaining our situation and asking for support and respect. By the time the divorce was final we were both ready to start dating.
I was well aware that I had to keep what was going on with the divorce as separate as possible from my relationship with Phillip. They were completely different. I didn't want one to poison the other. I was honest with my ex about everything that was going on. I was afraid of going too quickly from my marriage to a new relationship. It was hard, it was obvious to both of us that the same feelings that were so strong at 13, 14, 15...were still there. Having had more life experience under my belt, those feelings now made much more sense. Still, I proceeded with caution. I was honest with Phillip, too. I explained that with four kids I didn't have time for games, my kids will always come first, they aren't disposable, and that I expected him to be completely honest with me. If at any point he couldn't deal with it all he had to pull the cord. He assured me he was in it for the long haul. He said he loved me and always had. He would do whatever it took and wait as long as he needed to wait for me. We started talking on the phone multiple times a day and texting almost constantly. After the first month of that, Phillip had to go to his dad (they were all on the same family plan) and ask him to change the phone plan. I was so embarrassed. What a great first impression!
Things had been moving along at the pace of a freight train, but a smooth running freight train. We came up with a two year plan, where in we would date for two years, let the kids get used to the idea of Mom with someone else, and give Phillip time to bail if he needed to. If all went well we would marry in the summer of 2012. I came up to visit Phillip in person, and make sure I wasn't losing my mind and in some weird made up online relationship with a giant super-freak. I promised myself that I wouldn't go into a relationship blindly and for all the wrong reasons. Especially now when I would have four kids counting on me to not destroy their lives.
I got off the plane in Spokane and had a friend there to pick me up. I had not so secretly made a plan to spy on Phillip at work. I sent him a text to let him know I was in town and we were going to grab some lunch and hang out until he was off work. We were already going up the hill to embark on the spy mission, when I got a text from him saying he was let off of work early and sitting at Panda Express eating lunch until I was ready for him to pick me up. We were at a stop-light. I looked to my left and there was Panda Express. I told my friend to pull into that parking lot. "He's at Panda!!". I quickly explained that plans had changed, he's off work and eating lunch, "right there!". I wasn't relaxed and cool anymore. I was nervous and there was that heart pounding thing again. I had to pull myself together and did the best I could. I called him and said we were there at Panda and had been on our way to spy on him. He laughed and hung up. I went in and was met with one of the best hugs of all time. A kiss for old times sake. We sat down so he could finish his lunch. I was too nervous to eat. My friend politely left us to catch up and that's exactly what we did.
As they say: The rest is history!
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