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We hear you.
All you wanted was the latest iPhone. Instead, you discovered your husband’s extra-marital sex addiction via a series of unusually large mobile phone bills at the ATT store.
You are angry but not surprised; a little relieved actually.
You just completed your best real estate sales year ever…more than $10 million in closed deals. Just 3-years ago as your twin boys started first grade you got your real estate brokerage license and joined the Oak Park/River Forest chamber of commerce. Now, you’re a successful entrepreneur.
But you can’t remain married.
You’d met in college at the Campus Crusade for Christ chapter. You were both pastor’s kids from small towns. After graduation your future husband took an apprentice architect job in Chicago. You decided to cut your undergraduate studies short, and you followed him here. Marriage quickly followed and the twin boys were born shortly thereafter.
Chicagoland life was wonderful initially. Both of you loved the City with its great architecture and dining options.
However, a few short years later and you were exhausted. Your relationships with other adults are limited with 2 active young kids taking nearly all waking hours. Your husband was working longer and longer hours. You were depressed.
Your husband became more consumed with his work and very private in his work life too…just unwilling to share that aspect of his life. Financial red flags began to appear as he began to siphon off portions of his salary to an individual bank account.
He was passive and disengaged at home. He COULD be a good father but so often his head/heart wasn’t in it. Same thing with your relationship as the intimacy was gone.
Now you know why.
Your church friends and family - the ones that know what is going on - only have horror stories about what to expect in this process. “Lawyers are contentious and inflammatory.” “You're going to spend $100,000.”
What about the twins? Can your husband take them from you? And all these other women being around them…
We understand you.
Hi, I’m Attorney Peter Olson.
My knee was puffed up like a balloon and I wouldn’t be traveling to Aberdeen, South Dakota with the traveling team for that weekend’s college football game. I don’t know what happened. The first half of my junior season was off to a great start. I was a starting inside linebacker and just had my first collegiate interception last week. Literally nothing traumatic or impactful had happened, yet the knee swelling wasn’t right.
Two years prior, my freshman year, I had torn my ACL while on the kickoff coverage team (the primary stabilizing ligament in a knee). That WAS traumatic. That was 6-weeks on crutches. That was 6-months of hardcore rehabilitation. Yet, I made it back to the field for my sophomore season. I still remember our conference title clinching victory over the University of Minnesota-Duluth as the fans stormed the field as if it were yesterday. What a high!
But now clearly something was not right in my left knee. An MRI was scheduled shortly thereafter and then another surgery. I didn’t think it was anything major, there wasn’t ligament damage…it was just a quick ‘clean-up’.
I shook off the lingering effects of anesthesia in the recovery area at the Gunderson Clinic in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. My dad was there, and I sensed the news was bad. Dr. Zillmer explained that my left knee’s cartilage was shredded, nearly gone.
My football playing days were over. Many of my broader active, athletic participation days were over.
Yet, it far more devastating than this. I was a jock. Competitive sports, teams, seasons, these social worlds were literally what defined me as a person.
How could I move forward?
It was a dark time that moved in slow motion. But after a few months, all the sympathy and people feeling sorry for me got old. Eventually I felt a sense of clarity; I didn't feel cheerful or buoyant, but eventually I realized that I had a new opportunity.