This post was originally drafted in 2017. I have not read it since and I’m choosing to publish it as is, no edits.
For anyone going through a separation or divorce, I hope you find peace on your path, love in your heart and forgiveness to both yourself and your past mate.
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This post is not about weight loss. While I may share it under the vein of my journey, there will be nothing about calories expended, my PR for a deadlift or a new found recipe I tried. This post is heavy, sad and one that has, in a way, been writing itself for a number of years.
Over the years on the blog, I have dabbled in some mental work that has hovered around relationships, career decisions and the battle between eating the cake and not. What I have never shared was any insight about my personal life including my children and marriage. Today, I am writing about both and will not write about either again.
Two years ago my marriage suffered a blow (it has now been more than 6 years). For the first time in a 17 year relationship, there was hurt, sadness, anger and finally a desperate need to finally communicate – a shortfall many relationships face. To respect both my privacy and that of my family, I will not divulge any of the circumstances leading up to that blow (or blows). But, my marriage was broken and I was lost.
Through two different therapists and a lot of reading and talking, we came to realize it was mostly on me. And when I say ‘on me’, I mean the battle that was going through my head almost daily – which popular opinion would agree, I had it pretty good. A caring husband and providing father. A beautiful home in the suburbs of one the country’s top ranked towns. Two extraordinary children that were both beautiful and amazing. Why would I even consider my life other than enormously perfect?
Truth was, I was lost for a long time. Not happy for even longer. I was blinded by the “even better ifs”. As I started making changes, taking risks and living through my heart and not my head, I felt like something was amiss.
It was this quote that so poignantly described the exact thing I was experiencing. To put this in context, this writer lost a lot of weight, did a lot of work on themselves and it was only after ‘the work’ was done, that they came to this realization, clarity unfolded and the truth was revealed:
The truth is that even amidst overwhelming success, sometimes there is a failure in the backdrop. I repaired myself physically and found that wasn’t the problem with everything. I repaired myself emotionally and that didn’t help either. I repaired myself mentally through meditation, revelation and introspection and found that clarity only made the problem easier to see. In fact, mindfulness made the problem impossible to miss. We weren’t unhappy because I was fat, we were simply unhappy and I was fat. Correlation as it turns out, is not causation.
I had been living a life of expectation. And my partner was not in the wrong. I was. It was me. I was accepting our life as it was, while getting buried further, with the feeling of not knowing how to get out. I loved my kids. I loved our family. I loved the fun we experienced. But sometimes, the failure in the backdrop becomes so apparent, the distractions of a seemingly happy life need to be stripped away to face the stark reality.
You can’t fix your struggles with over eating, and self-hate if you ignore a big part of your life that needs more repair than your stretch-marked mid section and painful joints.
Now, I don’t know the best way to write about this because there will be many casualties along the way. Family, friends, neighbours and strangers to me or him that will learn to cut me out of their lives. I have talked with people and read a lot about the right way to do this and after struggling for so long in a relationship that I had absolutely lost myself in, I just want to take the next step in my life.
I held back from making this change because of one thing – fear. It was nothing but that. I was scared. I was afraid of how much he would hurt. I was scared that my kids would never forgive me. I was worried I would be living in a cardboard box because that’s what I could afford. It was fear of not knowing how this would end that prevented me from acting. And as I write that, it is so absolutely ridiculous. I couldn’t guarantee anything in this – not one thing, other than the only thing I could possibly control – ME. The very same reason I needed to move forward in my decision. Because of ME. Not because of him, or my babies, or my extended family or what the bank may tell me or my kids’ friends’ parents. This entire ‘thing’ had to do with one person and one person only. Me. And it was time to whole-heartedly (and not half-assedly) to do for me.
I have talked a lot about doing for you/me. And I have felt ‘held back’ for so long in where I need to be in life because of the feeling of absolute helplessness in where my life has been. I have cried and confided and sought guidance and defiled my body and ignored my feelings and am tired of letting myself down. I knew I wasn’t happy, but I also struggled as I knew there wasn’t any ONE thing that needed fixing. Sometime, and maybe more often then people would like to recognize, partners change (and some stay the same). I was no longer the girl I was at 19. I was finally finding my voice and learning tp live a life of purpose and spark and passion and while I had acknowledged I would lose some people along the way, I never once thought that person would be the man I married.
The thing is, we’re are both good people. Our relationship was perfect in many people’s eyes. The funny couple that always seemed happy. Sometimes we all put on an act because it is much easier than dealing with the reality that is presented to us daily.
I now need to learn to be me, for me, and just me. For the first time in my 38 years of living, I am just me. And while I am scared shitless of how I will get through, I am confident in the power of positive thinking, good karma and the support of my family and friends that will be by side, regardless.
I can’t help but think of my mom, who at 37 years old, left a marriage of almost 20 years, with two kids and not much on the horizon. But followed her heart to be with her soul mate. My sister, who after much deliberation on her broken relationship, made the decision to leave a marriage that everyone around her thought was a match made in heaven. To later find happiness with a man across the pond (England that is)… And here I am, faced with the same questions of self strength, risk and possible heart ache. Not looking to fall in love with any one else but me. Knowing that these strong women did for themselves when they must have felt they had nothing at all to get them through, still acted.
And, reader, it is only the hope that I will land on my feet that is getting me through.
I don’t look for empathy, sympathy or regret. All I need right now is the unconditional love of myself and maybe a friend or two to get me through the next little while. Because, asking for a hand when you are down, is an okay thing.
I hope to see you back again.
Axo
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