It's 3:00am in the morning and yesterday I was on Day #10, Love is Unconditional.  My fiance and the father of my beautiful four year old daughter was upset and unfortunately made his mind up that he know longer wanted to be with me.  He left our home two weeks ago on Sunday, April 1st, 2012 making sure to tell me that he would never be coming back.  I have been sick ever since.  I can't eat, I can hardly sleep, and it seems that no matter how hard I try to stay positive  and "normal" for my children, the more I fail at even accomplishing that simple task.  I have two amazing boys from my first marriage that live at home with me along with my princess, Kelsie.  I started the Love Dare Challenge a little less than a week after Phil left me.  Unlike most people who accept and take the challenge, I did not start this journey for any other reason than to try to find out what was wrong with me that was so horrible, the love of my life, my soul mate, and my little girl's father decided I just wasn't good enough anymore.  You see, Phil started the challenge on his own and although he told me and discussed the dares with me a few times, he never invited me to take the challenge with him.  I would have gladly accepted had I known what it was really all about, but for his own personal reasons he must have felt the urge to take the challenge on his own.  I know as a couple, we had our share of issues, but we have always loved one another and except for a brief five month separation years ago, we have always stood faithfully by one another's side.  I do not know what dare he was on when his heart took him away from his family and lead him 200 miles away from us to where his parents live, but I have stopped trying to figure it out.  It doesn't really matter what day or dare he was on that day, all that matters is that he quit.  There was one issue I had that he desperately wanted me to change, and I was working on doing just that.  We had even attended a local church service together and made a pact to go every Sunday morning as often as we possibly could.  The weekend before he left was his birthday and although we are struggling financially because he has been unable to find a job, I scrapped up enough money so that he, his sister,  our daughter, and I could travel to visit his parents and other family members for a day.  All he wanted was to visit his family for his birthday and I made sure that he received that.  Now I am beginning to wonder what his true purpose was with so badly wanting to visit them only 8 short days before he walked out on our life together and our family.  The what-if's and why's are all I can constantly think about and I know that is not healthy, but no matter how hard I try, I can't stop trying to figure out his true reason behind giving up on us forever.  My heart hurts and my soul aches, and my amazing and beautiful little girl is just as brokenhearted.  She is a daddy's girl in every since of the words.  She always has been and I can tell from the look in her eyes that she is lost without him here.  The even more terrible part is that he is 200 miles away and other than calling her a few times, the outlook for him coming to visit with her looks very bleak and almost impossible with the distance between them.  I feel her hurt, her pain, and I believe that is what is making me so horribly depressed and constantly questioning his mind frame and reasons behind doing this.  

Phil and I are not legally married but in our hearts we have been married and we planned to spend the rest of our lives together.  I am not trying in any way to release myself from any of the responsibility for him giving up because we had a few issues between us, but nothing I believe couldn't have been worked on and eventually changed or fixed.  I never knew god as a child and honestly until I met my fiance I didn't really know what to believe.  However, he allowed me to read a book his grandmother wrote for his grandfather as a 50th anniversary present and through her story my faith in God began.  As a matter of fact, only about a week before he left I had a very moving and tearful, yet happy moment in which I felt his grace while we were on our way home from church that day.  It was such a wonderful experience, I even saw a tear drop from one of his eyes while watching me.  

My fiance left me once before when I was recovering from lung surgery, just 3 weeks after actually.  It was the hardest time in my entire life and I went down the wrong road by trying to drink my problems away.  I will not allow that temptation to ever take hold of me again, no matter how down I get and how hurt I am feeling.  I am trying to focus on my school which I attend online from home and my 3 wonderful children, and acting fake around them is proving to be more difficult with each passing day since he left.  Why?  I know I should be hurting right now and I am allowed to hurt right now.  I could even be angry if I chose to be, but I can't.  I love him with everything I have and my mind tells me that regardless of still being in love with him or not, I should just move on and never allow the possibility for him to come back home and do it for a third time someday in the future.  My heart however, is not having anything that my mind wants.  Even though I started the "Love Dare" challenge to try and understand everything he was going through while he was still on his own journey, but after completing Day 10 as best I can.  I've been trying to focus the dares somehow on my children since he isn't here, nor will he even speak with me at this point, but I am not choosing to continue this journey for him anymore.  I am going to use the "Love Dare" challenge as a way to hopefully strengthen the relationships I have with my babies and the relationship I just recently started with God as well.  At least this will allow me to try and somehow heal my heart with the help of God's love and blessings.  

I have no clue if there is anything left for my fiance and I, but without him even giving me a reason as to why he left to begin with, he is probably better off those 200 miles north with his parent's.  Even though I feel like my life is completely over at this point, and this is the worst hurt I have ever felt in my entire life, I have to take all my negative energy and feelings I'm struggling with and turn that into strength and everlasting, unconditional love for my 3 children.  I cannot fathom what they are going through, especially my daughter who thought the world revolved around her daddy.  My children will help me with this battle and they will have not even realized it.  That is where I need my focus to be, on my kids and my schooling.  Everything else can wait a little longer.  I would ask everyone to pray that my fiance realizes he should have never left to begin with, but I have no idea where my mind, let alone my hurting heart feels about that possibility even existing.  Pray instead for my children and I and that we get through this with the love and support of one another.  Thank you to anyone reading and advice is still very welcomed.