What I Learned From My Dead Marriage

While I was processing and healing following my divorce, I learned about Gina Hatzis and her brilliant Relationship Autopsy as a tool to dissect past relationships (and heal moving forward). Her process is long and involved — and very worthwhile — and requires total honesty and transparency with yourself.

When you do this, you’re asked to think of the ways you contributed to the relationship’s demise (as well as your ex’s contributions), what you could have said or done differently, and how the words and actions taken may have impacted the trajectory of your relationship. Her autopsy process is much lengthier and more involved than the simplified way I’ve presented it, but I found it to be a wonderful method to appreciate the positive traits my ex embodied that I had enjoyed in my marriage, where we brought out the best in each other, where we brought out the worst, and where we were aligned (and not). It helped me both take ownership of my role in the loneliness I felt, as well as absolve me from some of my guilt that I couldn’t just hold the marriage together through sheer force of will. Though I certainly tried.

A well-meaning romantic reader commented on an older piece I had written, suggesting that people are far too quick to throw away marriages — myself included, they said — and that every marriage gets lonely. Everyone feels unloved, they said. Everyone finds it hard to love their spouse. And if everyone tossed out their marriage, as easily as they suggested I did, then no one would ever get or stay married.

I appreciate the alternate perspective from this person, though from their comments, it’s clear that they had stumbled across this piece and have not read anything of my experiences in the marriage. And too, in all my writing, I’ve held back some of the more hurtful things my Was-band said, in part because I’m not deliberately trying to paint him as a “bad guy,” and in part because it sounds way more abusive and cruel than I think he intended to be. He always chided me to ignore his words, and assume good intentions, so even though his words gutted me to the core, I’m trying to do just that. But perhaps I’m just gaslighting myself.

Anyway, I recently dug out my journal with the relationship autopsy and reread what I’d written. While I have never once been tempted to reconnect with my ex, my journaling highlighted to me some of my more toxic traits: I was not very forthcoming and honest in that relationship about communicating my feelings and my needs. I tried to shield him from what was stressing me out or causing me to feel anxious (as much as I could) because I didn’t want to further burden him. This shifted our relationship from one of partners to…something else.

I could have communicated from a place of authentic vulnerability, instead of trying to protect myself. I could have enforced my boundaries better, and stopped trying to play the people pleaser. I could have remained vulnerable with my communication, and stopped trying to rescue him. But I also learned that I can trust myself and how I’m feeling to guide me. I learned that I’d rather change everything about my life and jump out of that comfort zone than suffer a life of meh and mediocrity. That, if I have to choose one over the other, I prefer emotional fulfillment to financial stability.

When I feel emotionally unsafe, my natural inclination is to withdraw or run away, but I’m working on overcoming that and communicating that that’s what I want to do to self-soothe, while also recognizing that those coping mechanisms don’t necessarily serve my highest good.

I had a moment with my boyfriend a few months in our relationship when I was feeling especially vulnerable and wanted to run and hide. I wasn’t sure how things stood between us, and laid out how I was feeling and what I wanted from our partnership, and then immediately felt emotionally hungover with the regret of wondering if I’d shared too much. Thanks to Gina’s Relationship Autopsy, I was able to communicate with him that my tendency was to run away, and my boyfriend immediately came over, wrapped his arms around me while I sobbed into his shirt with my eyes nearly swollen shut, and told me he hoped I wouldn’t run, and that while he’s not as practiced at sharing and being open, his goals for our relationship were the same.

At a time when our world feels crazy, chaotic, and unpredictable, I am grateful to my failed marriage (and The Relationship Autopsy) for helping bring my awareness to what I can and can’t tolerate in a partnership, my best and worst traits (and how to amplify my best, while mitigating my worst), and my partner’s steadfast reserve of patience.

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Previously Published on medium

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