When I Turned 40 I Realized I Had Emotionally Outgrown My Husband

These are just a few of the clues that proved I had

I walk into the bedroom and find my husband watching television. It’s Saturday afternoon and our children have games to get to. All of us are ready to get into the car.

“It’s time to go,” I say.

“No one asked ME what I wanted to do today,” says my husband.

I’m aggravated by his response.

“You decided what you were doing today,” I say. “When you became a father.”

He’s annoyed but gets up to leave with us.

I’ve shocked him by having such a rapid no-nonsense response to his childishness. Typically, I would simply plead with him to be rational or do the right thing.

But I’m nearing my 40th birthday and I’ve lost patience.

Not long after, my husband begins a weekly football escapade.

It’s like being married to a frat boy.

He can’t miss watching football with his friends and he has to get wasted. Let me frame this properly. I met my husband in college. There wasn’t much to do in Scranton, Pennsylvania besides drink.

My husband is drinking more than my college boyfriend.

They are the same guy.

I’m thinking how is this possible?

Around this time, my boys and I are in a car accident. The cars in front of me stop and I stop behind them. We live in a rural area outside of Washington, D.C. with winding country roads.

I see a car coming in my rearview mirror.

I have only one thought.

All three of my boys are in the car with me.

The old man driving the car hits us and throws us into the oncoming lane. The side of my front bumper gets caught in the car ahead of us. It’s a double-impact accident.

I’m so relieved the car seats have stayed secure.

I keep it together until the firemen arrive and I spot a friend of my brother’s. It’s like stimulus and response. My brother is a firefighter too. A familiar face allows the tears to flow because I’m so relieved my children are okay.

They urge me to go to the hospital but I refuse.

They tell me that the force with which we were hit mandates getting checked out. At the very least, they explain that since I braced for impact after seeing the car coming toward us combined with the speed will mean I will have trouble moving in the days ahead.

I call my husband and he shows no concern for his family.

He finishes his workday like any other day and arrives home at his regular time.

The next day I can barely move.

It seems the firefighters are correct. I get through as best I can but I”m unable to carry our son upstairs. He’s nearly a year and more than twenty pounds.

“I don’t think you can go away this weekend,” I say.

“What do you mean?” says my husband.

He’s got an Arizona football weekend planned with his buddies.

“I’m afraid I can’t take care of our kids,” I say. “I’m having a difficult time moving and as the day has gone on it’s getting more difficult. The firefighters tried to tell me this would happen because of the speed of impact but I didn’t believe it.”

My husband eventually cancels his trip.

But he is not happy.

You would think he would be grateful his family is okay.

I walk past him in the garage the next day as he is sweeping. He is swiping that broom so furiously that it’s hard not to notice his anger.

It’s a full-on embarrassing lacking self-respect adult tantrum.

“What’s wrong?” I say.

“I’m disappointed,” he says. “I wanted to go away.”

It was one of the first times I find my husband absolutely unattractive. It’s gross seeing a grown man need to announce his mood to gain attention. Our children don’t even do that.

Things are piling up.

Emotionally my husband and I are no longer on a level playing field.

I want to shout, “Grow the f*ck up!”

“You are blessed your family is okay.”

But all my husband can’t focus on is a missed boys' weekend.

At this point, I am emotionally outgrowing my husband.

Am I conscious of this? Not entirely. I just feel annoyed and aggravated. I feel shocked and turned off. But I’m still deeply engrained in our less-than-healthy relationship.

But I do remember something someone told me years before. It’s floating in my memory. It’s disappointing because I’m realizing what my young self once discarded is actually coming true.

“You know,” says my sister. “A lot of marriages end because one person emotionally outgrows the other.”

I deposit this wisdom in the recesses of my mind.

I’m in my twenties and newly married.

I don’t think it applies to me.

I now realize it does apply to me. I am nearing the age of 40 before I completely digest this. Before I am forced to pluck it from my memory. In between, wanting to yell at my husband to, “Grow the f*ck up.”

In truth, you can simply say I outgrew my husband.

It’s not even necessary to say I emotionally outgrew him.

He wasn’t maturing at the same pace.

There’s actually a bit of controversy about whether or not you can emotionally outgrow your spouse. As a relationship columnist, I’ve spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of love, relationships, marriage, and divorce.

Emotionally outgrowing your spouse is definitely recognized.

At the same time, there’s a mitigating factor.

Are you really outgrowing your spouse?

Or are they simply who they were all along?

And you have matured enough or evolved or grown enough to recognize this is who they always were. In other words, you haven’t necessarily outgrown them because you both aren’t evolving at the same emotional maturity.

One of you hasn’t been stunted while the other grew.

You are both who you always were.

Only you’ve matured enough to recognize you’ve outgrown your spouse.

I’m not gonna lie, even as a relationship expert it’s a lot to take in.

I’d have to say I agree with the latter. My husband and I weren’t moving through life and marriage together with one of us suddenly stunting our growth.

We weren’t both suddenly becoming different people.

We were both who we had always been.

I just recognized I married someone who wasn’t fully an adult.

He was childlike if he didn’t get his way. He hadn’t evolved into full maturity. It appeared he had because he was professionally successful but he didn’t take accountability for all aspects of his life.

My husband was never going to move forward with me.

We were 40 years old.

It wasn’t my responsibility to tell him to be responsible.

Sadly, once I realized I had emotionally outgrown my husband I remained in our marriage for too long. It’s an unhealthy relationship phenomenon that the longer we stay in an unhealthy marriage the more difficult it is to get out.

We get worn down.

We make excuses and we nobly (supposedly) attempt to rescue our marriage.

I wish my twenty-something newlywed self had listened more intently.

The day my sister shared some undeniable wisdom.