Tales from a divorcée: Why I shouldn’t have married him.
I left my husband shortly after we married. Even as I walked down the aisle in my designer gown and bouffant hair, I knew he wasn’t my person. I recall clutching my two best friends moments before the ceremony began, asking for reassurance that everything would be ok, even if I knew I would divorce. The looks on their faces were of pity, sympathy, and most fortunately, unconditional love.
Our engagement was tumultuous and stressful for myriad reasons including an out-of-state move, the death of grandparents, and major depression (mine). My fiancé was an amazing man; he always scraped my windshield when it snowed, he cleaned up my puke when I had too much to drink, and he let me choose the music in the car EVERY SINGLE TIME. Yeah, I know, he sounds perfect. And he was. Just not for me. I don’t want to travel too far down the road of excuses as to why we didn’t work out, despite how easy it is for me to go on for hours and hours about the pain I felt and how difficult it was to maintain the tiniest shred of sanity. That is what I pay my therapist for. However, I’d like to explain how shame stricken I was when I made the decision to leave. The guilt was so intense that it suffocated me for months, nearly killing me on more than one occasion, and has changed me at a cellular level.
