Why It Took Me So Long To End My Miserable Marriage
The ending I avoided was actually the beginning I needed.
Kameleon007, Anatoli Idetov, Timur Weber | Canva Pro Revelations come to me in the strangest of places; this one would be no different. It would eventually turn my life upside down, crumple it up, and toss it out the window.
I’d spent 90 minutes fighting through bumper-to-bumper traffic to get home. It had been another late day at work, and the drive that usually took an hour was now verging on two. I was staring at the wall of brake lights when the revelation arrived. It immediately twisted my stomach into knots and caused a solid lump to form in my throat.
My marriage was over.
Sure, on the surface everything was going well enough. There were no blow-out fights or outward signs of anything being terribly off. But inside, I couldn’t shake my unhappiness. Not only that, I could sense my wife was also trying to tuck away her sadness. Maybe that was the problem. We couldn’t even admit we were unhappy, let alone have a meaningful conversation about it.
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I’d married young and had been married for over a decade. As I sat gridlocked in traffic with that terrible, life-altering thought, there was no shortage of places I wanted to point a finger at. Maybe it was my time away from home and the long work hours. Maybe it was my lack of empathy, a not uncommon trait among police officers. Perhaps we were too different, and what we wanted out of life didn’t align.
As terrible as the thought of my marriage ending was, what came next was even worse. I knew it was over, but I did nothing.
For the next two years, I’d stumble through the motions, trying to find bright spots in other places. I’d work even more than before because I hoped more money and another promotion would fix the brokenness. Yet, each day, I died a bit more inside.
I tried new hobbies. We even moved from an apartment to a small rancher near the base of the mountains. I love the mountains. Perhaps I could count on the new scenery to fix what was broken. Time passed, and the mountains failed to work their magic. The new hobbies also didn’t chase away the emptiness. We even tried couples therapy to no avail. What was I doing?
I was fixing it, of course. Fixing things is in my nature, handed down from my father as far as I can tell. It doesn’t matter what it is; my mind sees everything as a problem to be solved. My work as a detective suited my brain because everything was a puzzle just waiting to be solved. All I needed was to find the right piece. Once I did, it would come together. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fix this.
Eventually, it came to me. It was so painfully obvious; I have no idea how I missed it. Roughly two years after that dreadful revelation, I found the missing piece. Some things aren’t meant to be fixed.
Humans live by the law of nature. We are born, we live, and eventually we die. Relationships can also abide by this law. Hanging onto dead things doesn’t bring them back. It only serves to keep us stuck in place, wishing we could return to how things once were.
My marriage died, and it wouldn’t be coming back.
When I finally summoned the courage to tell my wife, it caused a tsunami of pain for us both. I moved home with my parents. I felt sick when I looked at my bank account and saw I was down to my last $800. Not $800 in checking, but to my name. Court hearings came and went. I was never suicidal, but I went to bed many nights not caring whether or not I woke up.
So why did it take me so long to end it? Especially since I knew it was over sitting in that traffic jam two years prior. Fear, ego, and ignorance.
There were two sides to my fear. One side was the fear of the present. If I accepted it was over, I’d have to end it. I would need to move out, and working out our finances would be a nightmare. The other side of that fear was the future. I feared the possibility of being alone.
My ego had a gigantic role to play. Ending the marriage was to admit to myself, and the world, that I had failed. Seeing myself as a failure was unbearable.
Ignorance also had a part to play. My parents had drilled into my brain that marriage was forever regardless of circumstance. It was a part of their faith and I picked their belief up without questioning it. Divorce was not an option. I believed that even if you were unhappy, you just stuck it out.
What no one tells you is sometimes honesty takes an absurd amount of bravery. A level of bravery that took me two years to find. A level of bravery we sometimes find only when the alternative to bravery is even scarier.
All of this doesn’t mean that you can’t work out a broken marriage. You absolutely can and should try. There are plenty of people who have done just that. What I am saying is that deep down, you know when it’s over. When that feeling arrives, it’s time to take action.
The cost of my fear was high. My inaction kept me in an unhappy relationship for two more years, followed by a divorce that took another full year and a half. It was the darkest period of my life. As it turns out, all of my fears were overblown. I went on to find the person I was meant to be with. I went on to have a family, an option I thought had passed me by. I’m happier at this moment than I’ve ever been. Those aren’t thoughts my brain had even allowed me to entertain when I was going through the dark times.
The divorce that I was so afraid of was the best thing I could have ever done. Moving forward, I don’t expect that I’ll have all the answers to the trials life throws at me. But I do know that never again will fear be in the driver’s seat.
Joshua Mason is a former police detective and public safety leader turned writer. His weekly stories on Medium are dedicated to change, leadership, and life lessons.