Chapters of a Relationship - Part 2
So where did the unravelling start with my marriage? Did I know this chapter of my life wouldn’t end well? Was there a straw that broke the camel’s back?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly: the problems were like onion layers. It wasn’t just one thing, it was a lot of little things over the years that built up to create this massive web of problems. So when we tried to deal with one problem it was sometimes impossible to separate it from another. And so this post would be ten times as long if I was to recount every single detail that led to the eventual decision to leave, but if I had to define a time where things started to change, it was probably about two or two and a half years before the actual break up.
Following an intense argument, it dawned on me that my ex-husband was no longer growing as a person and that he had actually regressed since my move to the UK: He was never going to “snap out of” the negative attitude, he was never going to become disciplined with money, he was always be jealous and undermining, he was never going to hold himself to a high standard of character and habit, and he was never going to be the adult that I needed him to be.
It dawned on me that this wasn’t right and this wasn’t the marriage I had signed up to. He had changed the terms and conditions without me agreeing to them.
Until I came across Esther Perel’s TED Talk about desire in long term relationships that some of my angst became validated: that while I loved my ex-husband very much at the time, I felt no desire. As she had so succinctly described from 13:00 onwards, what created love also stifled desire, with taking care of someone being the biggest factor to stifling to the desire.
My eyes were opened to a whole new set of ideas, ideas that I thought could help reinvigorate my relationship and help reconnect me with my ex. The reaction I got after he watched it was so earth shatteringly disappointing that the single thread from the fabric of our relationship that had already unravelled from our argument pulled a little more. His reply after watching Esther Perel’s TED Talk was, “So you want more sex.”
Like, what was I even supposed to do with that reply.
For the next two years I would lower my expectations for him and my relationship, only for him to continue to disappoint me. I actually didn’t know how much lower I could set the bar so that one day I wouldn’t feel so crushed. The worst part though? That he insisted that I was crazy and had unrealistic expectations.
I didn’t know what gaslighting was at the time, but now I do.
What Esther Perel’s first TED Talk did for me was open the flood gates. It was like I had permission to explore more ideas about relationships, expectations and dynamics, social and cultural constructs, and just reflect on mine in the small amount of free time that I had. Esther Perel obviously had more videos and interviews floating around the internet that I lapped up, but there were other TED Talks and YouTubers that touched on relationships. In a more personal context, one of my closest friends is polyamorous, and didn’t shy away from the questions I asked in order to understand polyamory.
Not that I was exploring polyamory at the time per se, but I did want to explore the ideas in order to better understand myself and my relationship with my ex-husband. Instead of welcoming the exploration, it caused more tension in that relationship. I’m speculating, but it appeared that he became fearful of this exploration, felt like our relationship was threatened, and the result was that he held on tighter and tighter to what a marriage looked like in the 1970’s.
He became more suspicious and jealous when I wasn’t giving him all my attention, he kept trying to shame me for thinking outside the box, and to prevent me from thinking or exploring, he stopped being an adult all together and I bore the burden of all household responsibilities: cooking, cleaning, paying the bills, organizing appointments, managing our social life, etc etc.
It was suffocating, I felt like I was drowning, and it was cruel on his behalf.
It was cruel that I had to forgo everything that made me, me because he was insecure. It was disappointing in equal measure that what he had found attractive and interesting when we met was what he ended up resenting 10 years later.
That thought that you didn’t want this life anymore because it wasn’t right or healthy grew and grew until it burst at the seams. And my thinking did a 180 degree turn: I just needed to leave. I just needed this marriage to end.
When I finally told him that I didn’t want to be with him anymore, that I didn’t want to be married to him anymore I thought that chapter of my life was going to end quietly. Peacefully. Civilly. We didn’t have any children, and my name wasn’t on anything, and I was going to move forward without any debt. Theoretically I should have started the next chapter with equal measure of peace and civility.
I was wrong.
At first he couldn’t let me go. Didn’t want to let me go. I mentioned previously that he was driving a narrative that made him look like a victim throughout our social circles, but simultaneously wanted to “work things out” with me. He started doing and paying for things that he thought I was interested in to try and buy back my love. He would show up to the places he thought I would be to try and talk. He would corner me when he had the chance and I would be left alone with him.
When I did start seeing someone else, he no longer had any patience for me. He didn’t want to see me anymore. Before I couldn’t talk to him logically because he was so fixated on “winning me back”, and now there was no way to have a civil conversation with him because he was so bitter and out to get me. I had no money, but he was convinced I had a lot stashed away and wanted to rinse me for everything I had. He scrutinized my every move, my every purchase, and this scrutinization was included in his narrative when he got the chance.
Clearly, I had only been with him for the money. Which is massively ironic.
The other irony is that as we still shared a joint bank account for a period of time following our break up, I could see the charges that went out and it was hilariously for new clothes, dating apps, and the associated costs of dating.
I was spending money on living costs, and later on, lawyer fees.
The 18 months following our breakup was such a rollercoaster ride of thoughts and emotions that I couldn’t wait for that chapter to end. Between being smothered, then attacked, to having my mom get diagnosed with cancer, entering into a new relationship, and constantly struggling for money, I almost didn’t notice when my divorce was finalized in the UK family court.
It wasn’t that I was onto the next chapter of my life when the e-mail came through. It’s hard to describe where my head was at: I was in Canada holding my mom’s hand during her first round of chemo. I mentioned it to her in a passing comment and both of us had left it at that. The excitement of finally being free wasn’t there. The people I thought I would celebrate the transition into my new life didn’t want to come with me, and step by step, more parts of my old life were left behind.
It was only after the divorce was finalized that I allowed myself to grieve for my old life, for the life I could have had, was promised I was going to have, and for the life I was never going to have anymore. There were brief moments over those 18 months, wondering if I had made the right decision to leave, wondering if I was ready to start that new relationship.
Even after those 18 months I wondered what I was doing, and it was difficult to put that relationship behind me. After all, I had invested 11 years of my life, one-third of my life, into it. I had to heal and rediscover who I was after all this time of being suffocated.
I left that relationship before I could become embittered, and I now can say that I’ve healed from it, I can never stop talking about it. It changed the course of my life and led me to where I am now, and that’s totally fine. Even though life isn’t what I expected it to be, or would have hoped it would be, it’s pretty OK at the moment because I know I have the tools and the drive to work and make it better.
To make life what I want it to be.
