The Email That Ended My 20 Year Marriage

And how it saved me in court

The message began,

“While I know now that continuing the marriage is not in my best interest…”

Just one sentence to explain our two decades together.

I was allowed in the marriage as long as it was to his benefit.

I’d already known we were over. I’d started stepping away months earlier, but I’d stayed a participant just long enough to keep my lifestyle safe.

I needed time to plan my exit — stash cash, retain an attorney, get as many credit cards as my decent credit score would allow. All the things to keep me afloat for what would be the biggest battle of my life.

Three weeks prior to that email I’d changed the locks. Although not totally legal, it was necessary. Turns out having your name on the house deed trumps erratic, stalking behavior.

His actions had become more wild, his behavior more scary. His stalking had increased and when that was taken from him when I disabled the cameras, he forced his way into the home he had so enthusiastically left eleven months earlier.

A home that no longer welcomed him.

Once again, I was in a position to remove guns from my home to keep me and my children safe. I was willing to ask the courts for forgiveness since the law would not protect us.

As soon as I shut off the house cameras and disengaged the Life360, I knew things would get hostile. His actions early in the separation told me he would be enraged as soon as he lost control.

Not long after he moved out he stopped by the house at 5am to drop off a pillowcase in the mailbox. He later admitted it was just an excuse to drive by and see if there were any cars near the house that he didn’t recognize. I would also catch him driving by at random times, just to make sure the house wasn’t occupied by another man.

Just weeks before the end, he turned to playing the role of a jealous lover. Trying to track my whereabouts — desperately calling, texting, pleading.

He was like a dog in a cage. Biting and thrashing until he would finally succumb to the exhaustion.

I just had to wait him out.

The race was on.

He had also been planning his exit — setting up a new bank account with $15k of our money, purchasing a new car and opening new credit card accounts.

He had been leaving since he walked out. But at the time I wasn’t ready or willing to give up. I was the toddler holding on to the leg of their parent as they tried to leave the house. I would not let him go easily.

Until I was ready.

And then, as Taylor Swift so perfectly puts it, I dropped his hand.

Eventually, I would stop trying to save our abomination of a relationship. We never could walk together side by side. One of us was always chasing. Mostly me.

Only when he saw me leaving did he start running back.

I was careful and deliberate in my exit. I saved every communication. Every text message. Every email. Every phone call.

My super power became my willingness to track the minutiae.

It was a miserable, humid July day when I delivered his goodbye email to my attorney. It turned out to be the perfect gift. Because it was something she could pull out over and over and over again during the trial.

“Your Honor, I believe she has proven the date of separation by providing the message that he wrote himself ending their marriage.”

The date of that message was the most important date of my trial. It gave me 10 extra months of a growing retirement plan. 10 extra months of a share of a military retirement. 10 extra months of a marriage.

That sentence at the beginning of his email would secure the date of the end of my marriage not through just one trial, but through two.

It was the date that he decided he no longer wanted to be married.

It was the date the divorce started.

It was the date my race to the win began.

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