In 2017, my now ex-husband fell in love with another woman and asked for a divorce. We had two young children, I was a stay-at-home wife, and I fell apart.
I was in therapy, I stopped drinking, I was looking inward, but I vowed to cling to this trauma to keep the blame on him. Until one day I looked around and realized he actually saved my life.
I grew up with alcoholism in my home
I had grown up in a house with love and laughter and alcoholism, and I was happy, but there was sadness there.
I had parents who loved me and a brother who “brothered” me, but there was dysfunction — like there is in many homes. I didn’t recognize anything as off when I was young, but I’ve learned in therapy how it has shaped my life.
I’d just turned 16 in 1993 when my brother died suddenly, and the crack in my family became a crevice. We tried to fill the crevices with what we could to survive; we all changed forever.
At 17, I began drinking and using drugs to numb, and those things led to more impulsive, riskier choices. I disguised my recklessness as having a good time, just like everyone else was. I was promiscuous; I made bad choices and lived with the consequences. Along the way, I grew up, adding to the invisible weight of all the traumas I didn’t know I had.
I got married and had a seemingly normal life
In 1999, I met my ex-husband while finishing up my B.A. in Writing and running the literary magazine at our college. I looked forward to finding an internship in Manhattan to complete my degree. He was completing his Master’s in Education and planned on going back to his native Long Island to teach science. We fell in love, we grew up and got jobs. And then, in 2004, we got married.
In 2010, I left my publishing career and became a stay-at-home mom to a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old. Even in all the chaos and joy of raising my kids, I was lonely.
I started my blog, “The Mother Octopus,” in 2016 to revive my writing passion. I wrote a lot: funny blog posts, true stories about kids roasting me, and other nonsense. Things were taking off. But I was using humor to mask a dark clinical depression I didn’t know I was suffering from.
I drank socially, like everyone else, but I drank to hide the fact that I didn’t know myself and I didn’t like myself. I was drinking to disappear.
My husband was deeply unhappy. The lack of connection in our relationship had driven him away. I knew this in my heart, but in my head, I convinced myself this was just us. When he announced he wanted a divorce because he was in love with someone else, I was devastated.
But also, this was where the magic happened.
I was angry
I stopped drinking a little over a year after my ex left. I knew it was finally time to get myself out of that neverending cycle of numbing, self-loathing, and shame that I felt when drinking. But just as I pulled myself out of that cycle, I entered a new one.
Among the alleged stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — are most common. My grief did not go in that order.
My grief went like this: denial, ANGER, ANGER, ANGER, ANGER, ANGER, a LOT more ANGER. I was stuck there until my father died in December of 2023, and that cycle ended. My perspective on life, love, and marriage changed, and it finally brought me to acceptance.
That acceptance led me to do the one thing I promised myself I’d never do. I forgave him. And I forgave myself.
When my husband left, I chose to be the victim, and by holding onto my anger, he stayed the one to blame. I stayed angry for a lot of years. But luckily, I was getting to know myself in therapy, I got honest about my parts in the problem. Of course, I was hard to live with. I could no longer lie to myself. I had to take accountability and stop treating myself like a victim.
I’m at peace with not having the perfect family
My life looks different now. The perfect family I planned for is gone — now we’re two families, and sometimes four families, navigating many lives and ups and downs and finding our way. But I’m at peace. My ex and I get along much better now. It’s better for us, and it’s best for our kids.
I know I can’t get back the years I spent choosing anger, but I can do my best to remember that it was all on my own path to finding peace. I’ll always be grateful to my ex-husband for choosing that path for me.
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