Breaking My Own Silence

Let's start here...I always thought I'd start my story by sharing a moment I knew the marriage was over, some compelling reason why I left, born out of a need for people to be on my side. But the truth of it is my story, our story, started with love. We were barely adults, both in our early twenties, and thought we already had the world figured out. We held the same Christian values, made each other laugh, enjoyed deep philosophical conversations, loved to travel and try new foods. We both wanted kids and a life that felt free. Come what may, we'd figure it all out together.

When I allow myself, I can still feel my hand in his and remember how safe I felt. His presence was strong and sturdy. I can close my eyes and go right back to moments without much significance other than the fact that we were happy. A touch here, a smile there, a windows-down, music up car ride where our world felt sure. The peace that comes with knowing you are right where you are meant to be. Before everything starts to crumble.

I have to remind myself sometimes that we loved each other the best way we knew how. The problem was that, the best way we knew how was not the way to love at all. We both went into marriage looking for the other person to fix us and resenting them when they couldn't. I wanted him to show me that I was good enough, pretty enough, smart enough...I'd finally know my worth because he'd help me see it. The work in me was his to do. Likewise, he never felt good enough growing up, in part because of a very complicated relationship with his dad and partly because he struggled with a wide pendulum swing of hard-to-manage emotions that he never sought tools to handle.

He looked to me to be the safety net of unconditional love without regard to unmet expectations. The work in him was mine to do.

And the truth is, neither of us recognized the burden we were placing on the other. If there's one thing we did really well together, it was taking these resentments and frustrations and shoving them down as if ignoring the little things would make the big things go away. But that's the thing with unhealed wounds...until you sit with the discomfort out in the open and allow others to witness the struggle (and love you anyway), it never goes away. It can't.

Healing requires a witness. A bearing of ourselves to another. And when you aren't equipped to really know and love yourself, it's impossible to truly love someone else and in turn let them see you fully enough to love you back.

So we spent much of our marriage circling around the same old dilapidated barn: "If you really loved me you would ______" (touch me more, do the laundry, get a job, let me sleep)." Fill in the blank with any number of things that weren't the actual problem but a symptom of something we both were leaving unhealed and wanting the other to validate.

My story winds through marriage and divorce, joy and heartache, trauma and healing...learning to love and be loved, forgive and be forgiven. A story I never wanted, but one I'm learning to navigate with grace for the mistakes I've made and joy for the lessons I've learned. Life is messy and complicated and throws curveballs we don't think we can handle (spoiler alert, WE CAN). But right in the middle of the complicated mess is beauty. And one thing I know to be true is when I unclench my fists and turn my open palms upward, beauty shows up and invites me to grab hold.

I'm learning to love myself, and trust my story to unfold in exactly the way it's supposed to. It's a story of coming back to myself, giving God space in my life again, and realizing that the story I never wanted is the exact one I needed. My hope is that through sharing my story I create space for others to feel less alone and more loved as we walk through this life together.

Cheers to not feeling prepared but doing the dang thing anyway!