This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
I have listened to many people complain about their marriages. I know marriage isn’t easy; it takes a lot of dedication from both parties to make it work, but in my opinion, there should come a point when you realize you are not happy at all. I’m not saying that the first time you have a little difference with your spouse and you feel unhappy you should call a lawyer, but I think we need to check on ourselves from time to time to make sure that overall we feel good.
Marriage is super complex for lots of reasons. First of all, sharing the same space with others is not an easy task. We might have even had huge differences with our own parents. If you’re able to feel completely comfortable with the whole sharing the same air/roof thing, there’s still the next level of complexity: managing it for the long term. If you think about it, in the average family, children leave the house at some point. So even though the relationship with our parents never ends, it is designed to take a different path eventually. However, marriage—in theory—is supposed to last forever. So we must be prepared to put in the work it takes to manage all the complexities within it.
Marriage involves sharing and/or respecting every single aspect of life: values, beliefs, family structure, feelings, finances, intimacy, growth, fulfillment … you name it. That’s the reason it’s so complex, and that’s also the reason there is such a high rate of divorce. People try to make it work in the beginning, but if they get to a point where some of the life aspects they’re sharing are making them suffer in unsustainable ways, it’s understandable that they would get divorced. The question is: when do people usually reach that point? Or how do we know we can’t keep fighting to save the marriage?
The answers to those questions are very unique and depend on each couple. What might be easy for some people to tolerate could be a nightmare for others. There’s no set of defined rules, which is the reason I think it’s extremely important to check on yourself from time to time. It’s your obligation to be honest with yourself and make sure your inner peace is not at risk. Now that the tendency is to show the world how perfect your life is on social media, it’s more important than ever before to deeply check on yourself. It’s easy to fake happiness on social media, but who are we really fooling by doing that?
I feel great that I did all I could to save my marriage. I don’t feel like a coward for stopping the fight, because I actually did everything possible to keep my marriage alive. However, I finally got to a point where I knew my inner peace was more valuable than the relationship. Life has a way of showing us when the time is right to make a change. Making the decision to get divorced was not an overnight process for us. We went through several stages before God hugged me and told me it was enough.
When things started getting really tough between us, we were living with my mom. I suggested that he move by himself to a new apartment so we could try to reconnect by adding some space. I know it sounds contradictory, but when you are fighting to keep a relationship alive, many things don’t make sense. I let him have his space. I respected his desire to find a way to start missing me. We didn’t talk much for weeks. Then one day he sent me a text that said, “book a trip.” He told me he was missing me, but he wanted to have a fun trip to start the transition to getting back together. Since we both wanted to see the snow, I booked a trip to Denver CO. It was really exciting to plan the trip. I was in charge of booking the hotel, and he was in charge of booking the fun things to do. In writing, it looked perfect. But in reality?
To make the story short, the two fun things he booked for us to do were a total disaster for me. The first one was snowmobiling. He rented two snowmobiles for us, and I couldn’t even operate mine. So they gave us the option to ride the one for two people. They were very specific about telling us what not to do on the snow to avoid any incidents. What did my ex-husband do? Everything they said not to do. He got stuck in the snow, and we had to wait for more than three hours to get rescued. I cried, I laughed, I froze, and in the end I felt really disappointed.
The next day, we were supposed to go sledding, but when I went to the restroom he got us tickets for skiing. We were on one of the highest mountains there, and it was my first-time skiing. We went to the top, and I fell down three times on the flat surface. When I saw the steep incline that was the way down, I became paralyzed with fear. I told him I was going back using the same lift we’d used to get up. He tried to ski the whole mountain, but he ended up calling for help. While waiting for him to finish his skiing attempt, I knew my marriage was over. I saw everything clear. We were in such different paths in life that it did not make any sense to fix something that simply did not exist anymore. I cried a lot, but this time I was crying in relief. That night was the first time I told him I wanted to get a divorce.
There is no ‘right time’ to make the decision to get your inner peace back, but God will show you and guide you through the process. As I have mentioned before, I am pro marriage and I believe in love and beautiful relationships. But I know from my own experience that our comfort zone is not the happiest place to live in. So much more exists outside of it. I know it’s scary, but if you keep checking on yourself and realize your life feels incomplete, lonely, and empty, maybe you need to take a “vacation,” step out of your fears, and decide you want to be happy and feel fulfilled on your own terms.
Love,
Irene
