When did you know your marriage was over?
When did you know your marriage was over? For me, it was a sunny August morning. We had just finalised the details of a month’s holiday, the trip of a lifetime to celebrate our 20th anniversary, my son was getting ready to start university and life seemed to be on track. And my husband walked into the kitchen and said ‘I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be with you. I love you but I'm not in love with you,” and, just like that, he wiped out 20 years of marriage and pulled my whole life from underneath me.
And yet, my marriage didn’t end in August. We officially separated the following March, and between those two dates were seven months of hell. Seven months of only a handful of friends and family knowing what was going on. Seven months of him moving out. Moving back. Moving out. Seven months of me going through the motions of life like the walking dead.
So, why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we allow people to treat us so badly when we know it’s destroying our very essence?
I pride myself on being a strong, confident woman. In the past I had taken whatever life had thrown at me and thrown it back again. So, what was different this time?
Science has an explanation for this behaviour. It’s encoded in our 2 million year old physiology. It’s that whole thing of belonging, because, if you were cast out of the tribe and left to fend for yourself, it meant certain death. And so, we stay even though we know it’s time to go.
In the end, I called time. Looking back at that hellish period, I would rather face a sabre tooth tiger than go through that again. Just as well we humans are also programmed to learn from our experiences so I never have to.
What are you putting up with, or settling for, because you are scared of being alone or terrified of rejection? These days, being alone no longer means certain death. In fact, talking from my own experience and from the many stories of my fellow women who have come out the other side, a fresh start can mean the difference between surviving and thriving. It all depends on how you change your thinking and change your outlook.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”