I Realized How Bad My Marriage was Way Too Late
When you’re in the thick of a bad situation, it can be incredibly difficult to see how bad it truly is. You rationalize and justify things in your own mind, afraid of quitting more than anything else. You remind yourself of the good times when all that’s left are the bad.
That’s what happened in my marriage. Now that I’m getting more distance from it, I can see how rough things were for me. I can see how badly I needed it to be over years earlier. And not taking off those rose colored glasses sooner is my biggest and best lesson.
A Bad Scene
When I met my wife, I thought I was the luckiest man on Earth. I found someone who genuinely seemed to care about me and was interested in a lot of the same things as I was. We would go on to spend nearly 20 years building a life and a family together.
What I didn’t know was that she was unhappy for most of it. I would catch glimpses of her real state of her mind, then try to talk to her. She would brush the conversations off, always blaming everything on stress at work or some other outside source. Really, the problem in her life was me, at least from her perspective.
Over the years, she disconnected from me. She talked to me less and less. There was basically no physical intimacy between us for nearly a decade. She left an increasing amount of the housework and childcare to me, though she acted like she did everything. It wasn’t a good scene.
I found myself constantly questioning why I was still in the relationship, then rationalizing staying. I blamed myself for not being good enough for her. I kept telling myself I had to be better, which drove me further into depression. I believed I was a failure in every possible way.
Why Stay?
To be blunt, my marriage was emotionally abusive and I was the victim. My ex-wife didn’t do any of this intentionally. To this day, I don’t believe she has any understanding of what I went through, mainly because she doesn’t want to. That doesn’t change the reality of what happened during that time.
I couldn’t see what was happening. I was raised to believe that no marriage is perfect. You have to put in a lot of effort to make it work. So, I put that effort in. When I could feel her shutting down and drifting away, I took the blame and tortured myself over it.
I locked myself in a self-destructive cycle of blame, pity, and depression. Much like my wife, I shifted blame to my job or other parts of my life. I was broken because I had a bad job. I was broken because my writing career wasn’t where I wanted it to be. That’s what I kept telling myself.
Basically, I looked for any reason to shift the problems away from my marriage. I knew in my heart the only way to fix things was a divorce, and I didn’t want a divorce. I loved her. Love is meaningless without respect, compassion, and dignity, three things she refused to offer to me despite the work I put in to earn them.
Looking Back…
What I refused to see was the fact that it was my marriage was keeping me down. I convinced myself she was the best thing in my life. In truth, she was the worst, a dark cloud of negativity over everything I tried to do. She didn’t try or even want to be that person, but it’s who she became.
The craziest part was that it took a good six months for me to let go after all the lies and cheating came to light. I kept fighting for our relationship, despite the fact that she had moved on to a new life years earlier. I’m not proud of that time but I had to go through it to get where I am.
Now that I’ve gone through that struggle, I will never go through it again. If, against all odds, I end up in another long-term relationship, I won’t allow myself to be emotionally abused like that. I am stronger in a variety of ways now. I see my value and know who I am.
I let my ex take advantage of me because I was afraid of our marriage ending. I’m not afraid of that anymore. I am more than happy to go it alone, secure in a life that is focused on goals that make me happy. I will never allow someone to make me doubt myself again.
