Getting Divorced Freed Me to Be My True Self
I didn’t plan on getting divorced. I met my ex-husband when I was 21. We married when I was 25. Our son was born when I was 28. We had a good relationship, and together we built a good life. I truly expected it to last our lifetimes.
Nothing really happened to change this. Except that I wanted a divorce.
It’s not like I woke up one morning and was like, “What should I do today? I know, I will blow up our lives.” I have no doubt that it felt like this to my ex and our son. It certainly appeared this way to many onlookers.
The reality is messier. I could look back over the previous decade and connect the dots of my discontent. But that’s hindsight. What happened to my marriage was more forward-looking.
It was almost exactly one year to the date between the first time I voiced serious discontent to a friend and the finalizing of the divorce. The timeline shortens when I consider that my friend heard me out, and then put some Band-Aids on the situation so that I could get through some intense travel that had already been planned for me individually and for us as a family. I thought the Band-Aids would hold long enough to give me a chance to work through this bad patch and get us back to solid ground. Instead, the bandages frayed. Quickly. Three months later, another friend ordered me to counseling. I started therapy a month after that, and within four weeks, it was clear to me that I could not stay married.
Correction: it was clear to me that I did not want to stay married.
I could have remained married. We could have stayed together. I chose a different way.
My ex-husband was — and still is — a good person. Our relationship had its issues, and we worked through them as best we were able to do. We could have kept on doing this indefinitely.
Instead, I chose to create a more authentic life for myself.
In any relationship, we make compromises. This is simply how it works unless one person is a dictator.
It’s when we compromise ourselves — things that are at the core of who we are — that a line gets crossed.
In our relationship, I had reached the point at which I was no longer simply compromising on specific details, I was compromising myself. And I was asking him to compromise himself. Staying together would have meant that neither of us could be fully ourselves. A relationship that asks you — that demands of you — that you be anything other than your fullest, best self is not healthy. Relationships should encourage each partner to grow, flourish, and be true to themselves. No one should have to be smaller, lesser, or inhibited.
I still care deeply for my ex. I always will. We are friendly, and we co-parent our teenager well. Sometimes, I miss our little family. As a unit, we were awesome. We still are, just in different ways.
As a single woman, I am soaring to new heights. Each day offers something new. I have learned, and continue to learn, so much about myself. This morning, for example, I changed the air filter on my furnace. In the last year, I have tackled using the power drill, taking out the trash, running a carload to the transfer station, and painting a room entirely myself. These are all things that I had not had to do in two decades. As silly as it might seem, these are all things that I was not sure I was capable of.
Creating my authentic life has meant pushing myself, challenging myself, tackling assumptions and habits that had become naturalized or normalized in my mind. I have been reminded of things I once knew but had forgotten — such as my love of different styles of music, my enjoyment of an intense basketball game, my appreciation for silence. I am stronger than I ever imagined. I am capable of so much more than I had ever given myself the chance to be.
I did not plan to get divorced. It’s turned out to be an important milestone on my life journey.
In this newfound freedom, I am more myself that I ever knew I could be.
