
After 31 years, I am ending my marriage with the man that I love and it is by far the hardest thing I have ever chosen to do. It requires me to trust what I know, have faith in what I believe and to surrender to the unknown.
Over the years I have worked diligently towards creating a healthy and beautiful marriage. I’ve participated in marriage retreats, non-violent communication training, counseling, personal development and healing childhood wounds. I became more awakened and aware of who I am, how I affect others, and I was able to bring more honesty, appreciation, love and respect to the relationship.
I was not, however, able to make my marriage the marriage I craved to be a part of. Nor was I able to create the family life I hoped for and dreamt about for my children.
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I was not successful in creating the marriage I wanted because I married someone that I was not supposed to. I knew the relationship was not the right one for me, and judging by his participation in it, it was not the right one for him either, but we went along with it anyway. Looking back it is clear that neither of us had the awareness or maturity to confront the truth and move on accordingly.
I didn't believe I could change Stephen as many people go into relationships thinking. I thought I could change me into what he needed in a wife. I wasn't conscious of this at the time. I just believed that he was a good person and my dissatisfaction in the relationship was because something was wrong with me, not him.
I was coming from an abusive childhood, so for me it didn’t register yet that Stephen wasn't able to converse with me and didn’t seem to have any interest in doing so. What registered is that he did not call me names or hit me, was a gentle lover and genuinely cared for me, and for those reasons I believed I was extremely lucky to be in a relationship with him. The absence of outward aggression in Stephen made him a Saint in my mind, reinforcing that anything wrong with our marriage must be my fault.
So I spent many years in therapy, reading books, anything that could help me fix me so that I could need less and appreciate this silent but safe man in my life. I loved Stephen; I could not have been more in love with him. I thought he was the most beautiful man in the world. And I still do.