Every day I receive messages from women (and sometimes men) asking me how I knew my marriage was over, how I came to the decision, and very simply, “Why? Why did it end?”
Outside of wanting the tea (which is a valid curiosity and I don’t shame anyone for it), I think we are mostly desperate for someone else to provide reassurance about our relationships and help inform the decisions we make about them. We want to gauge whether our bad is bad enough.
I spent years doing that.
We love a cheater, a double life, an addict of all kinds. We gasp in understanding when the aggrieved frees themselves of a sexual deviant, a gambling fiend, a drunk. Abuse is a no brainer, a quick, “Absolutely. They had to get away.” Case closed. Although we must acknowledge the hierarchy, society is a bit reluctant to recognize the legitimacy of emotional, psychological, and financial abuses. Our eyes widen as we put a tally in the “leave them” column, but it might not be enough to get the job done.
These are generally not the circumstances of those I receive messages from. My comrades are wrestling with whether or not they have the right to be unsatisfied, if their reasons are reason enough. They report to me from the land of emotional and domestic incompetence. The gray area, a catch all for apathetic workaholics and the romantically neglectful, where the bare minimum is on life support and there’s a widening gulf between their spouses values and passions and their own.
I understand the impulse to keep our friends, strangers, and ourselves in marriages.
More than once I have caught myself saying, “But he really loves you. Not everyone can say that! It counts for something” to a friend seeking support. And then I must rattle my socially conditioned brain and remind myself that, it actually doesn’t matter how someone feels about you and that it takes two people wanting to be in a relationship to be in a relationship, and how one person feels is an entirely valid and a whole enough experience to base a decision on.
But to leave a phenomenal father, when all the worst ones get a pass? A person that is mostly good? One who has abundant resources? A breadwinner? Good luck. That permission slip is going to be hard to come by. Your family, friends, society, and religious community might not ever be in consensus.
I went to every therapy session hoping it would be the one that would release me from my marital bonds. I needed an expert to sanction my decision, someone else to assure me of the legitimacy of my unhappiness and suffering. I was incredibly disappointed to find that is not what they do.
My liberal and progressive family was split across the board. And after years of listening to me rattle on about the state of my marriage, I suspect some of my friend’s opinions were more motivated by their desperation for me to shut the fuck up than what was best for me. No hard feelings, I really did need to STFU about it and move forward in action.
I, like some of you, was very attuned to the marriages of those around me and in the media. Mining them for clues and information. At some point I was sure I would recognize myself in someone else’s story and that would be the external validation I needed to do something.
I wanted to know if I was the only one who had to beg for an annual compliment. I was always equal parts delighted and horrified when I found out that was the case for many. In the end it didn’t matter that my experience was shared, it only mattered if it was one I wanted to continue to live in.
No one else can determine what fighting hard enough or working on it long enough looks like for you. It was particularly important to me (due to my obsession with providing my children an idyllic family based on my own childhood trauma) that I felt I had “tried” enough. If I wasn’t going to be able to Stay Together For The Kids, I was going to go out swinging.
For me that included individual therapy, couples therapy, and clearly communicating my needs and desires enough times to be assured of the fact that the other person had the opportunity to hear and act on them. My communication with my husband was the best it had been in the last year of my marriage, and that is something I feel good about.
But, as you can imagine, my idea of what trying hard enough looked like is in stark contrast to my spouse’s. And likely a number of outsiders who it has no bearing on. What would ever have been enough? It is an arbitrary threshold that would change from person to person and be variable depending on when you asked.
There’s no shortage of methods to exhaust. Retreats, religious counsel, therapeutic modalities (Imago was the one we accidentally landed on), books, podcasts, threats.
You can do some of that, none of it, or more of it. Someone else will always be unsatisfied. Release yourself from being awarded the, “She did everything she could have” ribbon.
It doesn’t matter why I felt like my marriage was over. The details are irrelevant. And your reason for wanting to leave is a good enough one. Even if it’s not as “bad” as someone else's.
I can’t tell you to leave your husband.
But I can tell you, that it’s ok to leave your husband.
It’s ok to ask for a separation. It’s ok to say, “If you want to save this marriage, you’ll join me in therapy.”
It's ok to leave and then change your mind and fight for reconciliation.
It’s alright to stay and work on it. Even if you’ve been cheated on, even if other people think you’re a fool.
It’s ok to give it one more shot. Or fold.
Relationships have two outcomes. They go on forever, or they end. And neither is inherently good or bad, but remaining stuck in the in-between will consume you. You will miss your life while you are suffering over what decision to make about it.
Staying in your marriage will be hard. Leaving your marriage will be hard. And you know. Really! You know. In your gut, your soul, your intuition – whatever woo woo source you want to attribute that knowing to, believe it.
I wanted desperately to be told that I could trust myself. I tried to pay my psychologist for it, I went to my mother pleading, I was certain I just needed to cry on my best friend’s couch and go over the 13-year history of my marriage in excruciating detail one more time and then she would say the exact words I needed to hear that would allow me to make the correct decision. The answer, of course, was within me all along.
So come, sit on my couch, and hear me when I tell you that you can trust yourself.
Some resources that I have found helpful during this time:
Liberating Motherhood - her piece on Valentine’s day is a good place to start.
Concious Uncoupling - I recommend this book even if you are just considering separating.
The Way of Integrity - By Martha Beck, important: “Integrity,” in this sense, is not defined as the pursuit of a set of virtues, but rather as a lifestyle characterized by an integral unity of one’s values, desires, and actions. It is not the imposition of an external code of conduct, but the expression of an undivided heart, committed to living without lying.
Podcasts:
I feel myself here a lot , my husband has his faults but goes out of his way for holidays, birthdays, compliments me daily, is a great dad, does his fair share of maintaining the household, financial provider, faithful, but has done & said awful things (in my point of view) towards me . It’s like does one offset the others... it’s so hard to know what the right choice is
"Release yourself from being awarded the, “She did everything she could have” ribbon." Ah lovely. I am separated from the nice guy and great father. That choice was gut-wrenching and unpopular. I still find doubts and judgement creeping in on a daily basis. Though I also feel peace and relief. Thank you always for sharing your thoughts.