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I left my kid’s father a year ago and I’ve never really figured out how I wanted to talk about the truth in why I left, but I’m going to try to share my honest thoughts about getting a divorce & why I left because more than anything, I hope the right person hears it.
Honest Thoughts About Getting a Divorce
So, you hear about divorce your whole life.
Right?
Friends, family, maybe even your own parents are divorced. You understand what it means at a surface level.
But there is so. Much. More.
The Truth About Leaving Your Marriage
I read for a long time before leaving. I can clearly remember conversations with myself knowing I needed to leave in order to save myself and make for some kind of future even though I didn’t know if I wanted a future at all.
I knew I needed to leave in order to have a future with my kids.
I can also clearly remember the many, many fights. Screaming. Angry. Things said that no one should ever say to another person. Reacting while simultaneously flinching away from him. Him locking me in our room or bathroom or outside of our car. Anything to hold some kind of power. Throwing my phone across the room. Telling me not to tell anyone. Getting so close that I’m shaking because I think he’s going to hurt me again.
I remember those feelings. I remember those feelings making me feel certain I had fallen out of love and was ready to leave and would be okay.
But quickly after the “high” of finally leaving an abusive marriage subsided, I learned what getting a divorce truly is.
It’s earth shattering.
It’s not just leaving & getting a divorce, or breaking free from your abuser should you have been/are in a situation similar to mine.
It’s so much more.
Everything. E v e r y t h i n g you knew is no more. Nothing is the same. Every single day is new. And everything will break your heart.
Walking past their favorite snacks at the grocery store.
The first time you fill out a form and have a new emergency contact.
The first time your kids beg for you to get in the car with dad to go home.
Now I notice that every family our kids will see on tv growing up doesn’t look like theirs. They’re three and asking why they split their time between mommy and daddy’s houses. They spend half of their lives away from me. It makes me feel like I’m not a parent anymore. Just a babysitter. Temporary.
All of the bad slowly fades from your mind after leaving an abusive marriage and getting a divorce, though, and you’re left with the good memories and wondering why that good couldn’t work. At least it did for me.
When I Wrote a Letter to Myself After Leaving An Abusive Marriage
One day after battling the “what could have been’s” to a point of tears that wouldn’t stop pouring out of my eyes, I wrote this note to myself:
“I’m tired of breaking my heart. I’m tired of having to break it over and over and over. He broke it enough. Standing up for myself and walking away and knowing I’m better fit somewhere else in life should be okay. Leaving an abusive marriage should be okay. It shouldn’t bug me that after eight years of swearing and screaming and confessing every deep amount of love he had for me suddenly stopped and within weeks he was building a life for himself that I always wondered why he couldn’t build with me. HOW. HOW. Fucking HOW. I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want to be alone but I don’t want to do this. I would not be able to live through getting a divorce again. I wouldn’t be able to. How can he be doing this? How can he be walking through life knowing that I left to save my life without even trying to save it himself? I feel so alone. And I kind of want to sit here. I don’t want to put effort into anyone or anything. I don’t want to die but I don’t want to live just replays and replays. How am I supposed to work and support myself and the twins and make things work? I feel so dumb.
I’m in a really weird space. I know there is more to life and more for me to do. But I don’t know how to be a person that wants to live. Wanting to die is comfortable. Being miserable is comfortable. Being in my abusive relationship was comfortable. Scary. But what I knew. And being uncomfortable is fucking scary and being uncomfortable means a solid life without him and having to see him every few days. As much as we grew apart as best friends, he has always been my person. Always. He wasn’t always in my corner as we clearly know, so I don’t know why I feel this way. I don’t want to do this with anyone else. I don’t want to live a life with anyone else.”
Looking back on that now, I can assure you that my honest thoughts about getting a divorce after leaving an abusive marriage have shifted drastically since that point.
Struggling with Being an Abuse Survivor
Inside of that note to myself, I was crumbling. I knew leaving was what was best, but I couldn’t understand how he could treat me the way he did and just let me go & go forward with getting a divorce.
I have since found that those complicated emotions towards abusers are very common & thankfully have worked through a lot of the pain that came with the end of my marriage.
But the road is long and I still have a long way to go.
I struggle with accepting that I am not to blame for the actions of others, especially the actions of my kid’s father.
Being part of and leaving an abusive relationship comes with a lot of shame.
You’re told that you’re crazy enough times that you believe it. That you’re wrong enough times that you assume you are stupid.
It’s being gaslit to a point of questioning everything about your reality. It’s breaking you past your breaking point. And then past that breaking point. Over and over and over. Until you don’t even have a thought of being worth anything more.
It’s thinking that your reactions to their words and actions are why you are treated that way. It’s thinking that nothing you ever do will be enough. And then being told exactly that. And being blamed for not being enough for them because you can’t simply change x, y & z.
I haven’t really known how I want to talk about these things, but I do know in the pit of my soul that I need to. I need to for every person sitting inside of what I sat in.
For every person locked in a room, or out of their home, or talked down to until they feel like a fragment of a human being.
For the person who continually owns their mistakes & tries, but isn’t met with the same and the cycles continue.
For the person who is convinced that they cannot speak up because they are terrified of what might happen if they do.
For the person who is so far past their breaking point that they are considering the worst.
And most importantly, for the person who continually apologizes to their abuser for making them react the way they did.
The Breaking Point in my Marriage
I hit the breaking point that set me free this time last year after asking my kid’s father to drive me to the hospital because I was ready to take my life.
I was scared as hell that my mind had ventured to such a dark place. But he told me to drive myself. That is what it took for me to truly see if I wanted to save myself, I couldn’t do so beside him.
I hate that THAT of all things is what it took for me to truly see it was time to leave for good.
I wish I would have seen the truth before then. Before I found myself inside of the lowest point in my life.
I’ve shared plenty about my lows before, but this was a low I have been scared to open up about because of the circumstances.
I’ve been bullied into not talking about that low and sharing the truth about leaving an abusive marriage.
But I think I’m ready to open up about getting a divorce after leaving an abusive marriage. I suppose that is why I am sharing this now.
I don’t know where I want to go with this. How deep I want to go. Or what I’ll share next. But I do know that I want to do what I can to help at least one person on this earth not walk through what I did without the hope of things getting better & that they are worthy of a life they don’t want to run away from.
I have a very long way to go and honestly do not know if I will ever be able to trust someone enough to consider a true relationship, let alone marriage, but I have found my worth. And my voice. And most importantly, my strength to keep moving forward.
Out of the many honest thoughts about getting a divorce I have shared, I want to leave you with one that is much more positive.
Something that I am very grateful for.
As awful as walking away and trying to start a new life was in the beginning, I am now grateful for it.
For if those things hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Found my voice.
Found my courage. Confidence. And value.
I wouldn’t have fallen in love with myself and the life ahead of me.
I wouldn’t have been able to share with my peers that we can truly make it through the darkest points in our lives and come out on the other side with hope.
And maybe even happy.
I walked a path that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
If you are walking that same path, first of all, please know how strong you are.
They are wrong. You are worth more.
You are worth happiness.
And I know in my heart that you know that as well.
Sending you love, strength, and courage beautiful.
I shared a bit of my story with Love What Matters and you can see that post here.
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