Divorce is a lonely journey. Compared to the deep bone aching loneliness I felt in my marriage, being alone now feels hopeful. My ex was emotionally unavailable for years, due to addiction and other issues. I prefer being alone to the constant false hope of change, of things getting better.
My marriage was toxic. At the beginning we brought out the worst in each other. We triggered old childhood wounds and traumas, but never worked to heal them. It took becoming a parent for me to face my childhood and fully work on it, on my own. That was gift I gave myself, the first of many and the start of my journey to self-love. Eventually this journey ended the cycle of abuse within my marriage through divorce.
I outsourced validation and emotional regulation instead of going inward.
I can see the wounded children within myself and my ex now. I see the old fights (we always had the same ones; even if the circumstances around them changed, the core turmoil was always the same). We were both struggling for love, and self-acceptance, but we put all the work on the other person instead of owning our own baggage. We outsourced validation and emotional regulation instead of going inward. This outsourcing is known as “codependency.”
When I finally stopped the codependent patterns on my end, things turned downright abusive. I realize now, looking back, it was always abusive. There was a trauma bond that had me trapped in the cycle. Verbal assaults, invalidation, gaslighting, financial abuse, and other issues that I will not go into with this post, were a constant. By the end of my marriage, I was genuinely scared. So scared, I made arrangements for a safe house for myself and child, if it came to that.
Those fears came from a real place
Those fears came from a real place. All the threats and verbal attacks pushed me into survivor mode. I recorded several arguments just to have proof for myself that I wasn’t imagining how bad things were. I had been gaslighted and invalidated to the point I questioned my reality. Thanks to those recordings I found truth. I was experiencing “retroactive abuse.”
Retroactive abuse is when the abuser pushes their victim to the point that the victim lashes out. The abuser gains the upper hand by acting like the rational one. This type of abuse was the baseline of my marriage.
Almost every argument turned into retroactive abuse. Many times I would try to walk out of the room, only to be followed. He would even stand in doorways to block me from leaving. All while arguing at me, often yelling at me, sometimes hitting or kicking the walls.
I was stuck on survive. Stuck in a constant state of over-vigilance. I was a master at walking on egg-shells, a trait I learned in childhood and carried into my marriage.
Thankfully my worst fears never came to fruition
When I finally asked for a divorce, I was so scared, thankfully my worse fears never came to fruition. I am grateful that my imagined fears were greater than the actual physical fear, but I do not for once instance negate those feelings. They came from a feeling of being unsafe. My fear manifested in many ways outside of my ex’s presence.
I recall times when I was driving behind a truck with pipes sticking off the back. I was certain I would sneeze, take my foot off the brake, ram my car, and my eye, into the obtrusion then die. I also feared I would have a seizure while out walking my baby in their stroller, and collapse, pushing the strolling into traffic, killing my child and myself. Those were normal thoughts that were always present in the back of my mind. I was on high alert because of the constant stress of the abuse in my marriage and from my childhood.
A few months after my ex moved out, these fear-filled thoughts abated. I was sitting in traffic behind a truck with things sticking out the back for a full two minutes before I realized I had not thought about my doom. It was a strange, peaceful feeling. The catastrophizing, and vigilance was starting to wear off. Peace felt uncomfortable and foreign at first, but welcomed.
The loneliness was marred with the hope of change that would never come
Divorce is a lonely journey. But I will take this hopeful loneliness, this expectation of a brighter future, over the desperate longing that filled each empty night in my marriage. This loneliness can change and will change as time allows. The loneliness I lived before was endless and marred with the hope of change that would never come. Now I am making changes myself. I am moving forward, one step at a time.
Much like getting on a train to a place you have never been. You can imagine what it will be like at the end, but there are a lot of stops. You go through lots of dark tunnels and wonder if you are doing the right thing. Did you get on the right train? Is this really the right course?
I am alone on the metaphorical divorce train, but I feel hopeful. I am excited about this new adventure. Maybe I will find love again. Even if I don’t, at least I found peace. I think that might be more important than love in the end.
And to quote a famous animated princess: “Yes, I’m alone, but I’m alone and free.”
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