You Aren’t Who You Used to Be: Lessons From a Failed Marriage

“I don’t know who you are anymore!”

These words fell from my soon-to-be ex’s lips like icy daggers.

“You think you know someone for twenty-some years then one day you wake up and realize you have no idea who they are.”

As his verbal assault continued with questions about my integrity sprinkled with a heavy dose of skepticism about my honesty in our up-to-now mediated divorce process.

It’s been a while since we found ourselves on this merry-go-round of misery with its toxic arrows and flaming swords. During the ceasefire, little has been said about my move out which is just a few months away. An upcoming event on his calendar marks the one-year anniversary of his reckless disregard of an agreed-upon boundary that led to our unwinding. This is likely the fuel behind his latest uproar.

The Shift

What happened inside of me as he rambled on has never occurred before. As I listened to him and tried to empathize with how difficult this transition must be for him, nothing happened inside my heart. Those sensations that are so familiar from decades of these heated conversations — the turning stomach, the dry mouth, the shaking and quivering all over — none of that showed up.

I heard his struggle and did not make it my own.

While listening to his words and the subtle accusations and not-so-subtle attacks on my character, a revelation crossed my mind.

He was right. He actually has no idea who I am.

Decades of begging him to see me, pleading with him to engage in this marriage, pouring myself out to him in every way I could think to try — none of that was ever worth his time. None of that was significant enough to warrant his attention.

The truth is that he has never known me.

Perhaps that is unfair. Maybe he did when I was 25. But since that time so long ago, he has been unwilling to engage in the journey of life for himself or with me.

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The truth about the struggle that he is facing is that I have done the work to grow and be healthier in my life. I continue to grow and learn and strive to be the best version of myself. It has been arduous to dance with the demons of my past, to find healing from years of childhood abuse and neglect, and to figure out how to cope with losses that crushed my soul beyond recognition.

And I did it without him.

For most of these 30 years that should have been lived together, I have been utterly alone. I have shown up for him and poured my life into him but was never worthy of that kind of effort and connection from him in return. It was not worth his energy or time to grow together.

Things Have Changed

I am not the lost 25-year-old I once was who longed for anything that felt stable so I could be grounded; who would do anything to keep the peace and not make him angry; who knew he was not trustworthy but turned a blind eye; who cared more about keeping him than being me; and who would sacrifice herself on the alter of his negativity.

Today, I am a woman who knows what she wants. I invited my soon-to-be ex to be an equal partner on this journey with me. I encouraged him to show up in this relationship and in his own life.

For the last several years, I acquiesced to trying to live in the marriage we had rather than the one I wanted. I searched for any glimmer or hope that there was a drop of love for me left inside of him only to find disdain, contempt, and resentment.

While it is completely true that he doesn’t know me anymore or maybe he has never known me, that is not my fault or my problem. This is merely the consequence of thousands of choices that he made in the daily grind of the life we were trying to build together.

I am sad that he is hurting and that his pain causes him to lash out at me. However, it is not my responsibility to save him from the path of his own creation. The 25-year-old me who would have set herself on fire to keep him warm and comfortable has left the building. He’s just going to have to get used to the cold.

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