Well hello there, friends. Long time no see, huh? I’ve been trying to write this post for almost six months now. Talk about procrastination—that’s not like me at all, so that tells you how hard this post was for me to write. I know I have some explaining to do about why I put this blog on an unplanned hiatus, because I have a story to tell that I never expected to tell. (By the way, the irony that my last post was about ghosting does not escape me. lol)
If you know me IRL, you may not know this, so here’s the news: Yes, you read the title right. I left my husband and moved from Oahu back to San Diego in May. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. Absolutely gut-wrenching. But it was also exactly what I needed to do.
I had to save myself.
The year or so that I spent living on Oahu was one of the most painful years of my life. And one of the biggest reasons why was that I fought my own gut and intuition and tried to convince myself that I was happy when I was not. I berated myself and dismissed my unhappiness as symptoms of my own shortcomings and mental illnesses (I have a longstanding relationship with anxiety and depression) rather than true signs that something was out of alignment in my life.
I’d been fighting that nagging feeling for a while, but over the course of my year in Hawaii it became impossible to ignore. I kept feeling like I had to leave my marriage.
So I turned against myself. I told myself I was crazy to question my relationship, and kept trying to silence that voice in the back of my mind that said it was time to end it.
I struggle with accepting that something isn’t working and I need to walk away. My instinct is to assume that I’M the problem, that it’s MY fault. Because if it’s my fault, that means I still have some control over the situation, and that means that maybe I CAN force things to turn out exactly the way I want them to (not that I’m aware of this line of thinking when I’m caught up in it).
I wanted so badly to make my marriage work. I was so sure I could change the way I felt.
So I worked really hard to try to save it. What made it especially difficult is that my husband was/is my best friend and honestly probably one of the best human beings alive. Like, truly, he’s an incredible person, and he treated me like a queen. I’ve never met anyone else with a soul as pure and good as his. He loved me well, and I’ll forever be grateful to him and for our time together. I know he’ll read this, so Matt—thank you. He’s also a gifted chef and created all my favorite vegan recipes, including those on this blog, so hopefully he’ll continue to share his secrets!
For the longest time, I looked at all the good things about my marriage (like I said, there were a lot) and told myself I had nothing to complain about, and therefore could not be unhappy. But I was. There were a lot of things about the marriage that weren’t working. But I couldn’t point a finger at one horrible thing and say THIS! see! this is a reason to leave!
There were no glaring alarms telling me to get out.
Instead it was a slow burn out, the culmination of years of disappointments and tiny heartbreaks and major life stressors on both sides that neither one of us could help, despite our love for each other.
In fact, much about my life probably seemed pretty ideal, from the outside. I felt like a fraud, starting my blog about living your best life at a time where I didn’t really feel whole. I knew I was sad about leaving San Diego and living in a new home in Hawaii. I had a lot to be unhappy about… but I also did have a lot to be happy about. I lived in a gorgeous, spacious house on Oahu, had a loving husband that supported me (emotionally and yes, financially), had the free time to comfortably launch this blog and pursue it with Matt as my willing photographer. Things should have been able to be okay. But instead I felt alone and trapped, like I was living someone else’s life. My husband and I slowly drifted apart over the course of our time there.
I spent a lot of afternoons lying on the floor, staring out the window at the plumeria trees, having endless debates with myself about what I felt and what to do. If I left, would I be making the worst decision of my entire life? (cue evil voice: yes) Did I ever make good decisions, really? (no you’re the worst) Would I be alone forever? (obviously) What exactly did I expect to find that I didn’t have? Was the feeling I was searching for a fantasy? Was I selfish? Did I want too much? Why couldn’t the good parts be enough?
I felt guilty, like I somehow was just not appreciating the gifts I’d been given. After all, aren’t good men impossible to come by? I even had a few people in my life try to tell me that I wasn’t thinking clearly.
But your intuition never lies.
Thankfully the universe got tired of my mental pacing and started sending me messages that gave me the confidence to trust my gut. The first sign I noticed was a yogi that I follow on Instagram who opened up about how she had ended her marriage, after only a few months, because she wasn’t happy… even though he was a great guy and she had no specific complaints. She just knew it wasn’t right. Then I heard a podcast interview with a woman who could not stop talking about how leaving her stable marriage (again, to a wonderful man who was completely devoted to her), was the best decision she’d ever made.
Then one night while walking my dogs, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Dear Sugars. Seriously, if you haven’t listened to it, it’s a must (it just ended and I’m so sad about it). Cheryl Strayed (you know, who wrote Wild) and Steve Almond, two brilliant authors, give advice like they used to in their old Dear Sugar advice column (which you can get a taste of in Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things, a must-read). Anyway, Cheryl and Steve were giving advice to a letter writer who wasn’t sure if she should leave her relationship, because she didn’t have a specific reason to leave, but still she kept thinking about it. And Cheryl offered this piece of wisdom:
Wanting to leave is enough.
Your intuition is never wrong. If it’s telling you to go, you must listen.
My biggest wake-up call from the universe (I mean, as blunt as they come) came when I saw a therapist in a last-ditch effort to help me understand my feelings about my marriage. (Prolly should have done that long before then, but you live and learn, right?) I spent the first session talking nonstop for the full 60 minutes. The therapist didn’t get to speak until she interrupted me to tell me my time was up. When I returned for my second visit, she simply looked down at her notepad, then looked up at me, and said, “I’m not sure what you want from me. A permission slip? Because you already know what you need to do.”
Then she smiled and said, “I’m going to close your file. You don’t need me.” And sent me out.
Clearly the universe had to shout at me a little before I fully got the message. But I did.
It’s easy to see everything clearly with the perspective of passed time, but while I was trying to decide what to do I was so depressed I could barely remember to wash my face, much less realize that I was fighting my own intuition and knew the right answer the entire time. I was terrified to have to mourn my love …and my entire life, and my idea of my future. Leaving felt absolutely impossible, but also like the only option.
That’s what I mean when I say I had to save myself. I HAD to listen to that voice in my gut.
Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It felt like ripping myself in two. The voice of fear in the back of my head was screaming at me that I was making the worst decision of my life.
Of course, the worst part was having to hurt someone else, someone I loved, who didn’t deserve to feel any pain. I had to break my husband’s heart. It will take me a long time to let go of the guilt.
But as soon as it hit me that I was on my own, I felt… relief. Clarity. And certainty that the fear was just that: fear.
Now, don’t get me wrong—I felt a lot of overwhelming loneliness and grief, too. I sobbed the entire flight from Honolulu to California. I also threw up twice in the bathroom on the plane. I woke up dry heaving every single morning after that for months, like the realization upon waking of what my life had become was too much for my body to handle. It still hits me some days, a hole burrowing into my chest, right at the base of my sternum. The emotional experience of any relationship ending is no joke, and this was a relationship of almost 10 years. A third of my life.
It’s been impossibly hard, but again, it’s also all been absolutely necessary. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Your intuition keeps reminding you that you made the right choice, once you learn how to listen to it. I feel lighter with each day. I feel more ME with each day. And I definitely am happier with each day, which is the opposite direction of how I was moving a year ago. So I know I’m finally going the right way.
My hope is that if you’re reading this right now and have been ignoring your intuition (about anything, really) that this can help be one of your wakeup calls to listen. Sure, stuffing down your feelings is an option. But that little voice will keep calling to you; it will just get fainter. And it will eventually find another outlet—in the form of sickness or injury in your body. So, do yourself a favor. Learn to listen to your intuition sooner rather than later. That twist you feel in your stomach, or that wash of calming energy. That voice in the back of your mind that you know is right but you may try to ignore, out of habit.
It takes some serious self-love to put yourself first and listen to your intuition. But you must. You deserve to.
I now have to put myself through my own test, so to speak. When I started this blog a year ago, I wanted to share the message that you can always rise up out of any darkness, any setback, any injury, any pain.
So… well… here I go.
UPDATE: You can read about my experience healing from divorce one year later here.
» Song Vibes «
(and yes, the blog is BACK, baby)