One would think that, if you are an amateur blogger, you probably don’t have many boundaries when it comes to privacy. On the contrary, it is easy to be selective; I choose to share certain aspects of my life through my blog, and every word, every sentence, every paragraph is cathartic in some way. I write now to seal the healing and to officially announce that my marriage is over. We couldn’t make it. We deserve peace.
Now that I’ve reached the half century mark, I’m acutely self-aware: my happiness, my feelings, my peace, and the legitimization of those things is a daily goal. I work hard; I play hard; and at this point in my life, I am deserving of every bit of joy, contentment, love, and respect I can possess. Although it is true that no one marries to divorce, counting the costs of what you deserve versus what your reality serves has been an ongoing battle for me over the past 10-12 years. I am so proud of my evolution as a black woman and while it’s safe to admit that I’m in the second half of my life’s experiences, I’m going to spend this precious time pursuing peace, happiness, and contentment – barring bitterness, undue stress, anxiety, unmet expectations, loneliness, and utter exasperation from my heart and my mind. We deserve love.
It is so easy to reflect on what went wrong – what did he do to get us here – what did I do to get us here – why didn’t our marriage work. As for my part, I take full responsibility. Years and years of detachment, in the name of freedom from full commitment, have led us both to a place where the lumps in our throats wouldn’t go away until we called “it” out…until we admitted that we’re much farther apart than we are together…until we admitted that no amount of self-imposed discussion and finger pointing was going to clear the air…until we admitted that living separately was more invigorating than being trapped together. We deserve affection.
My brief marriage in the late 90’s and its tumultuous ending made me try harder in my second marriage – to be more present, to be more in tune with his needs, to be a nurturer, to be a good wife in all the traditional and modern senses. And while I didn’t always get it right in this marriage, I managed to balance my professional and personal lives pretty well. So much so that it has been surprising to most to hear me say that my marriage is over. I haven’t made a big fuss of it; I carry none of the shame and guilt I felt at the end of my first marriage. I suspect because infidelity was not our issue as it was in my first marriage. Infidelity creeps in like a thief and robs you of your self-esteem and self-assuredness, especially if those are not fully intact. Especially if you have not done the inner work. We deserve joy.
Sure, it’s a lot harder to walk away from a marriage when the “thing” is not as tangible as “a cheating or a beating.” You reconcile, over and over and over again, how this, too, shall pass and the emotional stress you’re feeling, in real time, will go away. And it usually does. You encounter issues, face them head on, and you move forward. But, I didn’t want to recognize that every single time I denied my feelings to keep the peace, to be stronger, to not appear needy, to allow him the space and time to just be…I denied pieces of myself that needed him. I denied myself the opportunity to grow deeper in love. I denied myself the gift of understanding him better. I denied myself the chance to have a taste of what unconditional love might feel like. We deserve understanding.
I see him now, and I’m relieved that we finally have admitted that we can’t fix it; it is beyond our repair. We’re finally at peace with the decision that our love story ends here. We will be much better individuals as friends pursuing our lives separately than we ever were as a married couple struggling to live and love together. I languish in just a bit of sadness because we should have been a beautiful, successful love story. We should have paid more attention to our collective and individual needs. We should have tried harder to listen to each other. We should have sought counseling early on and often to help us communicate our feelings rather than bottle them up until they burst. We both deserve another chance at happiness.
I’ll always honor the beautiful spirit of My Frank. I pray that he finds someone who is completely “sold out” for him and all that he brings with him. I wish him love.
Until next time,
Andi 😘
AndisLocks 