I'm not interested in saving my marriage
I was a codependent when I got married.
I got married for a lot of reasons, one of those being to escape myself. I'm really good at handing control of my life over to other people and getting married felt like the next step. I'm not saying I didn't get married for love or that my marriage is a mistake but I knew before I even said I do that I didn't. I knew it wasn't supposed to feel like this. Something inside me knew I wasn't supposed to get married. But I thought if I pushed past the feeling long enough it would go away.
It didn't go away.
I got married and did everything I was supposed to do and then looked back on my textbook perfect life and wondered why it wasn't working.
Even when I was planning my wedding I carefully manipulated each decision so it didn't feel like a wedding. I wondered why the whole thing felt to me like a mockery of love rather than a celebration of it.
This is not going to be a post on how I saved my marriage.
Because the marriage I entered into no longer exists. I think somewhere after our first anniversary we realized that this was really fucking hard and we both realized we needed to get sober and real and stop pretending like our Band-Aid fixes were working. our marriage looked great on the outside but the inside was a different story.
We're still in the deep trenches of sobering up and realizing things are beyond our control and starting over, not with the masks and the illusions like we wore in the beginning but with our real selves. I can't tell you the ending of that story. But I can tell you I am not in this to save my marriage. I'm not going to attempt to put back together a thing that was so fragmented and broken and corrupt to begin with. It's either going to be an entirely new thing or not at all.
But, like I said, this isn't a story about the redemption of my marriage.
This is a story about the redemption of my soul.
Because when we got honest and real and looked at each other for the first time with sober eyes it was a terrifying, painful experience and we took pause. Not just for the day and we would revisit in the morning but for 30 days we put pause on this idyllic picture we painted of the life we thought we were supposed to have to get real and honest and look at what we had when all the masks fell away.
And in those first days, as I spent hours staring at myself in the mirror and journaling and wondering what the fuck happened to my fairy tale I realized something. A few things actually. I realized how quick I am to push the escape button in my life when things get hard, how I panic and hand over control and throw my hands up instead of taking a deep breath and re-navigating the course. And I started listening to my inner wisdom.
It felt like the same deep knowing that told me not to get married, the one I ignored. And she didn't give me a clear answer (I would have loved a clear stay or go) but simply said "Just breathe."
So while I was panicking and slamming the escape button and messaging friends saying "What should I do?" there was this inner feminine wisdom saying "Just breathe."
I poured over books and researched statistics on codependent marriages and recovery and what other people had done and the practical steps we needed to make this work. And then I got the message from someone I didn't even personally know basically saying "Everything you're doing, don't do that! if you do that your marriage is destined to fail and you are going to be alone and its going to be all your fault." Not encouraging advice. I immediately deleted the message and once the panic had passed, I came to a conclusion. Not that my marriage was ending. And not that I was going to be happily married until I died. But that I already knew what to do.
What was I doing asking people who didn't even personally know me and my story what to do about my marriage?
I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I was doing was the right thing and no amount of googling or researching what this other person in an entirely different situation did would help me. None of those women were living in my marriage.
And I'm all for sharing stories and talking about the hard parts and starting the conversation but I also believe you already know the right thing. Maybe you are like I was and hope if you ignore it long enough it will go away. Or maybe you just haven't been still long enough to hear it.
So I've been trusting my inner wisdom and I don't have that picture perfect life anymore. I have a marriage where we're honest about how hard it is and the struggles we're going through, with each other but more importantly with other people we trust. I'm not making nearly as much money as I used to because I decided it was more important to spend my days doing stuff I loved.
I can't tell you what the future is going to be like but I know I'm happier than I've been in a long time.
Glennon Doyle has a quote where she says "If you have a choice between saving your marriage and saving your soul, save your soul."
I'm committed to saving myself. I'm committed to listening to that inner wisdom and healing and never again abandoning myself to have the life I think I should have because it never makes me happy anyway. If that means my life and my career and my marriage grow and change with me that's great. But I'm not going back. I'm not putting all my energy and time into saving something that was broken and draining to begin with anyway. I'm interested in creating new things, creating magic and opportunity and love.
Life can begin again. Love can begin again. I keep believing there is always a second chance and I'm so grateful for mine and the opportunity I have to create something new that aligns with my authentic self.
So no, I'm not interested in saving my marriage. Let's build something new, something real and honest and worth having.
I got married for a lot of reasons, one of those being to escape myself. I'm really good at handing control of my life over to other people and getting married felt like the next step. I'm not saying I didn't get married for love or that my marriage is a mistake but I knew before I even said I do that I didn't. I knew it wasn't supposed to feel like this. Something inside me knew I wasn't supposed to get married. But I thought if I pushed past the feeling long enough it would go away.
It didn't go away.
I got married and did everything I was supposed to do and then looked back on my textbook perfect life and wondered why it wasn't working.
Even when I was planning my wedding I carefully manipulated each decision so it didn't feel like a wedding. I wondered why the whole thing felt to me like a mockery of love rather than a celebration of it.
This is not going to be a post on how I saved my marriage.
Because the marriage I entered into no longer exists. I think somewhere after our first anniversary we realized that this was really fucking hard and we both realized we needed to get sober and real and stop pretending like our Band-Aid fixes were working. our marriage looked great on the outside but the inside was a different story.
We're still in the deep trenches of sobering up and realizing things are beyond our control and starting over, not with the masks and the illusions like we wore in the beginning but with our real selves. I can't tell you the ending of that story. But I can tell you I am not in this to save my marriage. I'm not going to attempt to put back together a thing that was so fragmented and broken and corrupt to begin with. It's either going to be an entirely new thing or not at all.
But, like I said, this isn't a story about the redemption of my marriage.
This is a story about the redemption of my soul.
Because when we got honest and real and looked at each other for the first time with sober eyes it was a terrifying, painful experience and we took pause. Not just for the day and we would revisit in the morning but for 30 days we put pause on this idyllic picture we painted of the life we thought we were supposed to have to get real and honest and look at what we had when all the masks fell away.
And in those first days, as I spent hours staring at myself in the mirror and journaling and wondering what the fuck happened to my fairy tale I realized something. A few things actually. I realized how quick I am to push the escape button in my life when things get hard, how I panic and hand over control and throw my hands up instead of taking a deep breath and re-navigating the course. And I started listening to my inner wisdom.
It felt like the same deep knowing that told me not to get married, the one I ignored. And she didn't give me a clear answer (I would have loved a clear stay or go) but simply said "Just breathe."
So while I was panicking and slamming the escape button and messaging friends saying "What should I do?" there was this inner feminine wisdom saying "Just breathe."
I poured over books and researched statistics on codependent marriages and recovery and what other people had done and the practical steps we needed to make this work. And then I got the message from someone I didn't even personally know basically saying "Everything you're doing, don't do that! if you do that your marriage is destined to fail and you are going to be alone and its going to be all your fault." Not encouraging advice. I immediately deleted the message and once the panic had passed, I came to a conclusion. Not that my marriage was ending. And not that I was going to be happily married until I died. But that I already knew what to do.
What was I doing asking people who didn't even personally know me and my story what to do about my marriage?
I knew what I needed to do. I knew what I was doing was the right thing and no amount of googling or researching what this other person in an entirely different situation did would help me. None of those women were living in my marriage.
And I'm all for sharing stories and talking about the hard parts and starting the conversation but I also believe you already know the right thing. Maybe you are like I was and hope if you ignore it long enough it will go away. Or maybe you just haven't been still long enough to hear it.
So I've been trusting my inner wisdom and I don't have that picture perfect life anymore. I have a marriage where we're honest about how hard it is and the struggles we're going through, with each other but more importantly with other people we trust. I'm not making nearly as much money as I used to because I decided it was more important to spend my days doing stuff I loved.
I can't tell you what the future is going to be like but I know I'm happier than I've been in a long time.
Glennon Doyle has a quote where she says "If you have a choice between saving your marriage and saving your soul, save your soul."
I'm committed to saving myself. I'm committed to listening to that inner wisdom and healing and never again abandoning myself to have the life I think I should have because it never makes me happy anyway. If that means my life and my career and my marriage grow and change with me that's great. But I'm not going back. I'm not putting all my energy and time into saving something that was broken and draining to begin with anyway. I'm interested in creating new things, creating magic and opportunity and love.
Life can begin again. Love can begin again. I keep believing there is always a second chance and I'm so grateful for mine and the opportunity I have to create something new that aligns with my authentic self.
So no, I'm not interested in saving my marriage. Let's build something new, something real and honest and worth having.
Comments
Post a Comment