What Didn’t Work Between Us

“It takes two” is such a common refrain, but it’s true. As much as I did things to ruin our marriage, the blame doesn’t fall solely on me. There are, obviously, things that just didn’t work between my ex-wife and I.

Here’s a reminder to myself about a few of them:

1. Divorce being on the table. I was very, VERY clear about my views on divorce: I only wanted to be married once and only once in my lifetime. Making a single lifelong commitment is one of my most sacred values, and she knew that going in. I’m still angry at her never revealing to me how much me our views on divorce differed. I’d rather she’d never married me at all than marry and divorce me later like she did. For me, this is indicative of the way I’d often find out important information long after the fact.
2. She’s co-dependent. She has the most amazing, beautiful, loving heart out of any human being I’ve ever met, but in relationships she bases her self-esteem on the other person. There were countless times where we’d have a fight and she’d literally think I was going to break up with her because of it. That level of co-dependency makes any kind of relationship inherently unstable, and brings about a lot of unfair expectations into a relationship. She asked me once, “What could I have done differently?” and at the time, I didn’t have an answer for her. Looking back, this was the main source of most of my confusion and unhappiness in our relationship. I needed her to be okay with her own independence while respecting my own.
3. Our divorce was a surprise to me. In my eyes, there are only two reasons why a divorce should ever be a surprise: 1) You’re either such a self-absorbed narcissist that you literally cannot imagine the other person living without you or 2) A major communication breakdown occurred over feelings, priorities, and the current state of the relationship. I’m pretty certain I’m not a raging narcissist. Our failure to communicate was what ultimately doomed us.
4. She resented me for things I didn’t do, and repeatedly forgave then took back her forgiveness for things I did. It’s honestly hard to tell which one hurts more: repeatedly having to argue that no, you never did the thing she thinks you did, showing her the proof of it, then still not having her believe you, or making a mistake and having it thrown back into your face for years, even after she’s told you she’s forgiven you for it multiple times and wants to put it in your past, especially when you feel like you’ve done everything possible to make amends.
5. I put so much work into our relationship that she never recognized, and probably never will, probably due to her own relationship inexperience (I was her first major one). When she needed changes, I made them. When we clashed heads, I searched for compromises. There are some key examples where we both agree I just acted like an unrepentant asshole, but those moments were very rare in our relationship, and I took responsibility for them every time. If I were an outside observer, I’d describe myself as the type of husband who loved his wife very much and put his marriage first before anything.
6. I never stopped working on myself, both to be a better person and to be a better husband. There is a lot wrong with me. I suffer from severe mental health issues, an abusive/loveless childhood, and multiple life-changing traumas. After we separated, I could’ve said, “Ah well, that’s over.” Instead, my focus was, “How can I fix this? How do I be the man she needs me to be so we can work?” And I learned how to open my heart even more to love.
7. She never understood the pain I carry inside. I don’t blame her for this. Unless you’ve had similar traumas, it’s hard to understand just how much it affects a person. For example, she knew that I had issues with healthy boundaries because I was never taught them growing up, but whereas I saw myself struggling to learn and do better, she saw any missteps as signs I didn’t care about our relationship, which was never true.
8. She couldn’t escape her fears. That’s not me saying “She was afraid, she was bad.” There was a time when she was afraid and had every right to feel that fear and worry. But there was also a time, several years in fact, where her worries were groundless. The things she was worried about were not happening, but the fear persisted, and she chose to continue living in fear rather than accepting a transition. I know she felt like she had no choice, that her fears were so powerful they were inescapable, but that’s simply not true. Fear is a strong, traumatic emotion, but it’s just an emotion. She bottled it up and pretended everything was fine rather than working on it.
9. She never gave me a chance to win her back. If you truly don’t want to divorce, truly love the other person, you should try to work it out. That doesn’t mean getting back together overnight or pretending like nothing’s wrong, but it means talking about what your future looks like, where you’re going, and what each person needs in order to reconcile. Practical conversations. Where do you live. What are the boundaries. What specifically needs to happen. We never had those conversations. In the end, our “irreconcilable differences” were that she wanted to get a divorce and I didn’t. In my head, I still have this alternate reality where, after I show her how fully dedicated I am to to us, she moves closer to me and we find our way back together, stronger than ever. Instead, our roller coaster ended with paperwork.