It would be easy to assign my soon-to-be ex the role of the villain in this story. Those clean lines making clear who is right and who is wrong are much easier for our minds to process. We like stories where there is a winner and a loser. We like to be on the winning side of that story.
But that is not only unfair in this situation, it is also simply not true.
It’s Never Quite that Easy
The choices that have been made over the thirty years we have shared are choices that I have supported. Sometimes that support has been in my active engagement in the process that leads to the outcome — like relocating for a job with him. Sometimes it has been going along with a choice that I didn’t necessarily agree with but determined wasn’t important enough to engage in making things different. Other choices I put up with or perhaps allowed because I simply didn’t want to fight about it.
The bottom line is that I am equally responsible for the failure of our union.
Conflict avoidance is real and a huge part of the underlying issues, because ultimately avoiding something is a choice to accept it and live with the consequences that come along with it.
Growth and Consequences
Several years ago, I started working through my own unhappiness and loss of joy. The most important change was the intentional examination of my own thinking and feelings. This often led to a deep dive to understand how those ideas had become a part of my understanding of self, my relationships, and how I see the world. That exploration helped me to understand the power of my choice.
Deciding to live an authentic life based on my core values of love, joy, and kindness is a gigantic shift from living with the sole intent to avoid conflict. It is impossible to engage in any sort of authenticity without clarity about who you are, what you want, and a good set of boundaries to guide your path. However, once those things are uncovered, there is no going back to the way things were before.
This is not exactly terrific news to a marriage that is decades long with patterns of relating, connecting, and decision-making that are no longer within the necessary boundaries that have come clearly into focus. Change is hard for everyone and though I was growing and learning, my soon-to-be ex has never found the journey of personal growth to be valuable in his own life. He believes you are who you are and that’s all there is.
In spite of our differences of opinions about personal growth, I remained hopeful that the struggles that I experienced with feeling loved and seen in this marriage were because I had not asked for what I needed and wanted in ways that he understood. So I made the decision to make sure my expectations, needs, and wants were clearly stated. In that, however, there is always a risk.
What happens if I identify a need, want, or expectation that he is unwilling or perhaps unable to meet?
Opportunities to Choose
It became clear that it was my choice at each of those intersections how to proceed. The decision at these uncomfortable points was whether or not the item on the table was a deal breaker for me in this marriage. Usually, I decided it wasn’t and found other ways to address whatever I was seeking outside of the marriage. After all, we had three decades of life and a family we created together. I desperately wanted this marriage to work.
Over time, what became problematic to me was not each individual request, but rather the pattern that emerged from the overall journey. It became clear that little to consideration was being given to my needs and wants in this relationship. But the eternal optimist in me failed to recognize that as a huge waving red flag.
Instead, I decided that instead of trying to get him to meet my needs and desires, I would accept love and connection in whatever way he was willing to offer it. After all, I was the one that was changing in all of this and it didn’t seem fair to expect him to move in this relationship in ways he had not previously agreed to or experienced. It seemed like trying to find any sort of common ground to continue this shared journey would likely be found more easily with that approach.
It is not surprising that this was no more successful than my other attempts to build a healthier marriage.
Everyone Gets to Choose
The choices that I have made in my own life are a contributing factor to the demise of this marriage. The unhealthy patterns that I chose to live with for decades rather than address and no more my soon-to-be ex’s fault than they are my own. The desire to have a healthy, growing, connected marriage is mine alone it seems. The hard work of dealing with my own past, wrestling with insecurity and fear, and practicing courageous vulnerability without being able to control the outcome has all been a part of my journey and not his.
It is not possible to make another person change. No matter how much you love them or give them to aid in their growth, each person is ultimately responsible for how they move in this world. When it became clear that there was no way to remain in this marriage and live with authenticity, I had a choice to make. I choose authenticity and love and joy and courage. He is free now to be undisturbed in his complacency and stagnation.
There is no villain here. Our incompatibility has reached a point where there is no pathway forward to be shared. And that is how a decades-long marriage ends.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Damian Siodłak on Unsplash