The Talk That Ended Our Marriage

Trying to save a 14-year relationship for years, and finally breaking up

No one can say I didn’t try.

Well, except my husband. My soon-to-be-ex-husband, I mean. He accused me of not trying to save our relationship. He said it to me a little over a month ago, when he started a conversation I wasn’t expecting.

To be clear, I wasn’t expecting it that day. But it was one we needed to have, so in the end it wasn’t all that surprising. We were finally having the talk I’d been dreading. The big, bad “adult break-up” talk. The Divorce Conversation, if you will.

After being his biggest supporter and caring for him in every way I could, as much as I could, for more than a decade — hearing him say that I wasn’t trying cut deep.

We were mostly platonic these past two years. After discovering his devastating emotional affair, working through couple’s therapy, and even exploring consensual non-monogamy together — I knew I’d stayed and tried longer than I should have. Longer than was good for either of us.

During our difficult moments over the years, I tried my best to talk things through with him. To come up with new solutions. To make him happy and help him understand what I needed from a loving partner in order to be happy.

Then, there came a point where I gave up. I knew we couldn’t (and shouldn’t) change ourselves for each other. After giving it a genuine and grueling effort for years, I realized that I didn’t want to continue in our marriage.

I wanted to support his happiness in any way I was capable of doing, but staying unhappy in an unhealthy marriage forever was something I was no longer capable of.

Losing trust, gaining freedom

Now that he’s moved out, I feel like I can breathe again. I have my own space. I’m not cleaning up after him. I have time to relax and think and do whatever I want without having to feel claustrophobic sharing a cramped space.

I can watch all the bad TV. I’ve redecorated my bedroom with bright pink sheets and a fluffy black-and-white music notes duvet. I no longer have to wipe the hairspray grime that slowly built up and coated my entire bathroom, day in and day out, when he got ready for the day.

I don’t have to cook meals for him or sit around and be bitter that I’m supporting him by paying the mortgage, health insurance, and water bills all by myself. I don’t have to share one tiny bathroom with a man who takes hour-long baths every morning, during the highest traffic bathroom time in a house where I’m getting ready for work and a teenager is getting ready for school.

I don’t have to be married and feel racked with guilt that I’m not giving my husband affection or sex after being emotionally traumatized by what happened between us.

To summarize — every day since we broke up, I feel as though I’ve made the right choice.

He saw my trauma as me choosing to build a wall to keep him out. But I strongly argued against that, telling him it was a reaction to protect myself.

After reading six months of texts between him and the woman he was in love with, I saw a side of him in his writing that I never knew existed. Some of the top highlights include:

I married the wrong woman — I should have picked you./I’m in it for the health insurance, but I need the health insurance because of her./The stress she causes me is going to kill me./It’s a marriage of convenience./I hate that fucking selfish cunt./Etc.

When my husband approached me in our bedroom a month ago to talk about the state of our relationship (or lack thereof), we’d both been avoiding the topic and going through the motions of being married for quite some time.

I was afraid to end things because he was a good stepfather to my son and had been for 14 years. I felt guilty that his job wouldn’t support his health insurance — something he really needs right now. I felt like a bad person for committing to him and breaking my promise.

I can admit I’m just not a good example to my teenage son about how to keep a marriage happy and healthy. It’s a failing I have, but I thrive as a mom in most every other way — and I’m going to keep trying to be the best mom I can possibly be.

But in my marriage, I was hurting.

Uncoupling

Before it turned into the Divorce Conversation, my husband approached me in my bedroom and told me he was ready for things to change between us.

I was sitting on the bed with my laptop, lurking online but failing to write anything. I’d been having so much trouble getting myself to write lately.

He said that he wanted to go on dates again. To make out like teenagers. To start having amazing, passionate sex. He’d been giving me time, he said, but he was ready for us to start being a real, romantic couple. He wanted to connect not only physically, but also emotionally. Just like we used to.

I listened carefully to his words, and inside, I cringed. I just couldn’t imagine having to force myself to touch my husband. To let him touch me. To devote more time and energy to nurturing the thing that was draining me from the inside out.

In a healthy relationship, that’s not how a wife is supposed to react when her husband says that he wants to be intimate. That’s obvious, sure, but I’d been quieting that part of my mind for a long time in order to avoid disrupting our lives and hurting his feelings.

Despite hours of therapy, tons of emotional and mental effort, working on changing things, and trying to help resolve our sexual incompatibilities, I was spent.

Absolutely spent.

I took a breath and said, “I think it would be best for both of us to be friends, but not stay together as a couple.”

I said that I couldn’t stay married to him, and I’d known that for a while.

I said that I’d given it my best and most sincere efforts, but I didn’t want to do something that made me unhappy anymore.

“But you didn’t really try for us,” he said.

Exqueeze me?

For years I’d worked so hard just to keep us afloat and help him through his financial struggles. I did my best to help resolve our communication issues, clashing personalities, and sexual incompatibilities (including the erectile dysfunction that he wouldn’t seek treatment for).

I stayed by his side and tried to work through our political differences in the chaotic era of Trump. I became his caregiver when he had serious medical issues and his breadwinner when it came to covering most of the bills.

I supported (and sometimes funded) his passion for filmmaking and art because he was truly talented and I believed in him. I worked to finish college and get a good job with benefits to support us over the course of our relationship, while he decided to stay in the same contracting job even though his employer didn’t treat him well or pay him enough.

I gave everything I could for us to make it. I loved him and committed to him deeply and tried to rev up our sex life and meet his every desire.

And for him to say I didn’t try? That’s just a blatant untruth I won’t accept.

Polyamory kept us together — for a bit

Even in the final three years of our relationship, when I started seriously researching my polyamorous nature and discussing my desire for sexual exploration with my husband (who was my fiance at the time), I wanted us to be forever.

I truly believe that polyamory is healthy and can work for a couple with a strong foundation. He wasn’t into the idea at first, but the more he learned about it, the more he was willing to at least give it a go.

He was the one who made the first move to start dating, and once I saw how thrilled getting a phone number from a woman he liked made him, I dove headfirst into it too.

Looking back, I understand that we went into ethical non-monogamy as a last-ditch effort to save our marriage. I’ll always appreciate that he tried to give me what I wanted, but opening up isn’t enough to save a relationship that is already falling apart.

Polyamory gave me a sexual and emotional outlet and made our marriage last longer, but dating others couldn’t fix the fractures that were just between the two of us. Those were for us alone to fix, and even with professional help, we couldn’t. And eventually, I didn’t want to.

I wanted to be free of the claustrophobic relationship that hadn’t worked right for years. And he deserves someone who loves him in the way he wants and needs to be loved.

Maybe I’m being selfish by doing what I want in this moment, but ultimately, I do believe that it’s the best choice for both of us.

A different kind of love

I still love and care about my soon-to-be-ex, but that love looks different now. I’ve learned that we don’t mesh as well as I thought we did when this all began.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw him. He was a customer at the video store where I worked. It felt like love at first sight, and we developed a friendship as he continued coming into my store, several times a week. Even though he knew I was married.

I loved talking to him, and I was fiercely attracted.

What eventually developed between us gave me the courage and strength to take my son and leave a horrible, abusive relationship at a young age. It’s not easy choosing single motherhood when you’re a college student with two part-time jobs and no way to afford daycare. Fortunately my sister took me in while I saved up for an apartment.

My soon-to-be-ex and I started so, so strong. But our relationship changed and evolved — as they always do. We became comfortable with each other, but we also became oddly detached. Sometimes he felt like a friend to me. Other times, he was a struggling roommate who hadn’t been able to pay any part of the mortgage for years. Other times, he was a great stepdad to my son, and that’s something I’ll always be grateful to him for.

And, there were at least a few times, when he hurt me deeper than any partner ever had.

After our conversation, which turned my husband into my soon-to-be-ex in the span of half an hour, he decided he’d move out of state (a nine-hour drive away), the next day. His family is there, including a daughter, grandkids, parents, siblings, and a job in his brother’s company.

It was the best choice for him — but I knew my own son would take it hard. I was expecting they’d have some time together to adjust, at least.

I was prepared to help him financially and emotionally — to help him rent a place and find his independence. I didn’t want him to have to leave everything in his life behind so suddenly, including friends, film projects, a job, and a stepson — just because we weren’t going to work out.

I was ready to be there for him, and I told him as much. But he said he just wanted to get out.

Okay then. Whatever he wants and needs at this point is what he should do.

And doing what I want and need should be okay too, and just as acceptable. Even if it’s choosing not to stay in a marriage that hurts me.

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