I Couldn’t Give up on My Husband

I discovered the difference between fighting and surrendering

I’ve been stressed for the past six weeks. It’s not my typical post-divorce financial stress. I’ve learned to compartmentalize that. It’s some legal things I’ve been working on.

I’m tenacious, it can make me a fighter.

I don’t give up.

But this morning, I knew I needed to surrender.

I couldn’t give up on my husband either.

I fought until I couldn’t fight anymore. I exhausted myself. I could fix anything, even another human being. Love was worth fighting for. Marriage wasn’t something you surrender.

I was in the ring.

My husband was outside of it.

He had become an observer.

There’s a difference between fighting and surrendering.

A critical one.

It reminds me of a story. Years ago I was in a writing group led by a publishing consultant. I met a young guy with an intriguing theory. He had survived cancer.

He was a personal trainer turned nursing student.

He told me he thought people can get it wrong.

They say they should fight cancer. He thought that was the worst thing you could do. He didn’t believe it was the proper mentality to heal. He thought fighting placed the body into stress mode.

He said he surrendered to it while taking care of himself.

This included treatment, nutrition, and exercise.

He kept his mind centered.

When he told me his story, I was fascinated with his ability to resist the human condition. Adversity, challenges, and fear can instinctively make us want to fight.

We need to overcome the opposition.

If not, it feels like giving up.

As though we have lost before we could win.

These past few weeks, I have been reminded of what happens to the body when we are stressed. I should clarify. What happens to my body when it’s reintroduced to the stress it’s been trying to leave behind.

I’m not sleeping.

I’m distracted.

I don’t feel well.

I didn’t recognize these warning signs while attempting to save my marriage. I should have. Instead, I focused on feeling unhappy. Or should I say, I confused misery and stress.

If you had asked me if I was stressed then I would have said no.

I would have said, “I’m unhappy.”

I didn’t understand stress can accompany misery.

I should clarify. Stress can partner with unhappiness when you remain sad for too long. If you choose to remain married, despite every fiber of your being telling you it’s over.

If you’re the kind of person who is tenacious.

If you’re a fighter.

If you don’t give up easily.

Even when you’re the only one in the ring.

I was reminded me this morning, of the difference between fighting and surrendering. I’m tired. I don’t feel like I have the legal fight left in me. I can’t solve one more problem. It’s been a two year battle.

Sometimes it doesn’t hurt us to give up.

It may even heal us.

I no longer say I’m unhappy.

It’s the gift of giving up on my marriage.

But as the young guy I once met told me, we use the word fight. We use it for more circumstances than we think. We give it a positive connotation. We think it’s admirable.

“You need to fight for your marriage,” they said.

“You need to fight for your family,” they said.

“You need to fight,” they said.

But I didn’t.

I could have surrendered to my truth.

It was right there before me…all along. I had put in tremendous effort from the day I said my vows. I walked beside a man, not behind him, and not in front of him. I lived my devotion.

I shouldn’t have had to fight to save my marriage.

It should have been a team effort.

It was okay to surrender.

My body, mind, and soul were feeling every remnant of that battle. They were attacked. They were sleepless, distracted, and suffering. My husband wasn’t going to protect them. I needed to.

I’ve spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of love and relationships. As a journalist, I became a relationship columnist to elevate awareness to the misunderstood journey of divorce.

I hate injustice.

I wanted to fight it.

I wanted people to have a better outcome than I had.

I still do.

Yet that may not be the case for me, even my post-divorce legal battle envelops a degree of injustice. What started as a chance to redeem what was lost, has me fighting again.

It shouldn’t.

This time there should be redemption.

But I have to weigh the lessons I’ve learned. I have to decide how much stress I will allow to invade my body. I don’t want to give up. I want to be paid the money I earned throughout my marriage.

I don’t want to be a burden to my children one day.

I’m tired and I can’t hit anymore walls. I didn’t expect this many twists and turns. I didn’t expect this second legal battle to last this long. I didn’t expect it to cost this much.

I can’t come up with more money to fight.

I’ve exhausted all of my options. I’ve fought my outcome and my truth. I lied to myself. I told myself somehow I would continue to secure the funds to proceed.

I promised myself I wouldn’t get screwed again.

But I need to surrender.

Sometimes it doesn’t hurt us to give up.

It may even heal us.