Finding Strength Part IV: Contemplating Divorce, Self-Care, Open Endings by Anonymous
A week before Valentine’s Day of this year I realized that I couldn’t keep pretending to be in a happy marriage when both of us were extremely unhappy. I also realized that there was no way I could leave my marriage and find happiness if I didn’t work on myself first. I made a plan and set it into motion. I decided I was going to embark on a healing journey and allow my life to unfold however it needed to. I started doing many things that forced me out of my comfort zone. I joined a non-profit organization and began to donate my time once a week. I began seeing a therapist twice a week to work through my past trauma and learn to forgive myself. I enrolled in college again and began dreaming of a career path in psychology. I was excited to be working towards a career where I not only could learn more about how to heal myself but could eventually help others heal as well. I began reaching out to old friends and reconnecting with them. Most importantly, in May I accepted an invitation from an acquaintance to join her for a yoga class.
I was terrified beyond measure the night that I walked into the yoga studio. I was 100 pounds overweight and extremely self-conscious about the shape and size of my body. I did not trust my body at all and was worried about what everyone else in the class would think of me. I set up my mat next to this acquaintance of mine, and anxiously awaited the instructor to enter and begin the class. To my surprise, when the instructor came into the room, he turned off all of the lights and set up 3 small candles. I could no longer see myself in the mirror and could only vaguely make out the figures of the other people in the room. He instructed us to close our eyes and set an intention for the class. I wasn’t sure what I intended for this class, and he must have sensed that. He offered a few suggestions, and I landed on “During this class I will love and appreciate my body”. This simple intention setting exercise allowed me to get into the right frame of mind. Every movement in the class was a struggle. I was sweating from every pore of my body and my legs were shaking from weakness just minutes into the class. However, when the class ended, I felt nothing but pure ecstasy.
That simple intention setting exercise at the start of the class stretched far beyond that hour. It penetrated my entire life. I started to attend yoga regularly chasing that feeling of love and compassion towards my body. I eventually found myself loving yoga so much that I confidently showed up for fully lit classes.
During every class I attended I felt myself getting stronger and more flexible. This strength and flexibility reached far beyond my yoga mat as well and began helping me find the confidence to transform my entire life. I realized in September that I was living my dream life. I had a job I loved, I was making many wonderful friendships and had a thriving social life, I was performing well at school and maintaining a 4.0 G.P.A., and without even trying I began to lose weight.
After years of desperately trying everything I could, once I surrendered, my life transformed in front of my eyes. I have been effortlessly releasing everything that isn’t serving me, including 70 pounds of excess weight. While I still have a little bit left to lose before I am at a healthy weight, I am incredibly proud of my journey. My life feels almost too good to be true sometimes. Unfortunately, the one thing that’s missing for me is a happy marriage.
As predicted, as I started to lose weight things did start to improve in my marriage. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that this has been hurtful. While I have been glad to see my husband put in more effort, it has also reiterated the negative beliefs in my head that have told me that I am only worth loving if my body is smaller. This has been a pesky belief system that I’ve had to navigate around throughout my entire life. While it’s still there, my confidence is growing daily and I am able to challenge these beliefs more than ever before.
So now what? My marriage seems to be improving slightly, but is it enough? Maybe not. This past weekend I had a realization that we are no longer on the same path. I’ve healed myself, forgiven my past self for her many mistakes, and have moved on from them. However, there’s still a lot of issues that remain unresolved in my marriage. If I am being completely honest, things between us have never felt right. However, he remains the most important person in my life. He’s been there for me regardless of how awful I was to him. He’s provided me the stability I needed to find myself and heal my past wounds. He’s been my best friend for 6 years and because of that I can’t help but feel that I owe him full commitment to this marriage for the rest of my life. At the same time, I find myself craving more. I want to feel swept off my feet and hopelessly in love. I want to feel wanted and desired. I want a love that is unconditional.
Up until this past weekend, it had been almost an entire year since we had talked about the fact that he didn’t love me. I have been walking on eggshells in my own home this entire time and decided that I can no longer live with that discomfort. Saturday night I broke down the walls I had built. I opened up to my husband and let him know that I am no longer terrified of living alone, because I have learned to love myself and know that I can find happiness within. It was not received well at first. It broke both of our hearts to have this discussion, but he reluctantly agreed that we may not be compatible. I reminded him of the rocky start to our marriage, and how the last 6 years we have been building upon an unstable foundation. We were both desperate children who craved love and family. Now that we are older and our brains are fully developed, maybe we owe it to ourselves to explore a little and find better matches. But maybe we have made it through all that we have to show us how strong our love can be. There are still so many unanswered questions.
It’s Monday night now. 2 days since our hard conversation and my eyes are still swollen from crying. I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose the future we’ve dreamed up together. I don’t want to fight over our assets and decide who gets to keep our two precious dogs. I don’t want to say goodbye to my best friend. The easiest solution would be for us to fall madly in love all over again, and to never let it die. The problem is that through these last 6 years we have both gone through major personality changes and our lives continue to diverge.
It seems like an impossible feat, but we haven’t given up all hope yet. We are calling therapist offices this week and have both agreed that if there’s anything we can do to salvage this marriage, we owe it to each other to try.
No matter what happens, I will always be grateful for the man that I married. He helped me find the strength to do the hard things I needed to do to begin my healing journey and find myself. Without his love and patience, I am not sure I would have made it to this beautiful point in my life. If our marriage does end, it will be another major obstacle in my life. However, I am stronger now and I know that I have the tools to survive this, whatever the outcome may be.