When We Leave a Marriage

Why do we think of it as wasted years?

I’m watching television. A young girl is brutally attacked and left for dead. Years later, she speaks to a reporter. I am speechless when I hear the words she utters to him.

“I’ve had 38 great years,” she says. “And one bad day.”

I’m not gonna lie.

I could learn something from her. We all could, especially those of us who have divorced and mourn the loss of time and the years we spent building a world that fell apart.

Come on, you’ve thought it, haven’t you?

It’s fairly universal.

We leave a marriage after a few decades and we think of it as lost time. We mourn our wasted years. It can become an emotional handicap. A sense of greater loss than the spouse we left behind.

Why don’t we see it as the journey to our badass inner selves? The reclaiming of a younger rebel. One who has been clamoring to be set free with wild abandon.

It’s a hard sell, especially for women.

There’s a sense our investment in ourselves failed.

If it was simply the relationship, I don’t think we would hold onto the sense of loss for so long. It’s connected more to our inner being. The hopes, dreams, aspirations, and accomplishments we have for ourselves.

Women tend to speak of lost time in divorce.

Men seem to reference divorce more as a failure.

These are broad generalizations but they tend to be true. It may give a greater insight into why our marriages don’t succeed, to begin with. Is it because generally speaking women tend to make greater emotional investments? And men see marriage as a bigger part of their life infrastructure.

Regardless, women have to discard the notion of wasted years.

Men need to abandon the notion of failure.

And if you are a woman who sees it as a failure and a man who sees it as wasted years, likewise. We are young and make mistakes. We are human. We are good-intentioned.

Sometimes we don’t succeed because love is simple…

But relationships are complicated.

My divorce was emotionally and financially abusive and lasted for so many years, it gave me a greater sense of loss.

I felt every aspect of my life had been dissected. I was no longer a wife. I was no longer a community leader and volunteer. I was no longer a homeowner. I no longer had savings or retirement.

My husband put my children through so much it altered our relationship.

I no longer felt exactly like the mother I had always been.

My ex-husband left no stone unturned. He was one of the bad guys. The men who don’t want to divorce you but destroy you. And for absolutely no other reason but I chose to leave him. It was my punishment and his need for control when he could no longer control me.

It took a very long time to abandon the sense of wasted years.

It became my worldview.

I couldn’t escape it. My trauma, sense of loss, and abandoned dreams fed the fury. There didn’t seem to be a way to recoup enough of my past to make sense of the cost.

But I had been paying a price by staying.

It only came due when I left.

I can’t fight the feeling of squandered years any longer. I have to choose to see that my cup did runneth over. I had a good run with a man I thought my young heart loved. I was blessed with the three greatest gifts in my life. I got to spend each day raising them with joy, laughter, love, and lessons.

I grew.

My life didn’t take the shape I wanted.

It spit me out in a new direction.

I won’t find my way until I’m no longer homesick for an old route.

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