Finding the Courage to Let Go
By: Wendy Miller
Tags: Divorce, Strength, Self, Coaching, Self Love

When I married my ex-husband, there was a part of me that knew the marriage wasn’t going to last. We separated twice before the third and final separation that ended in divorce. The few years that we spent together were filled with infidelity (on his part), arguments, stress, fear, and a ton of other negative emotions.

And yet, I stayed. I stayed far longer than I should have. I stayed despite knowing it was over. I stayed despite a very real fear that he would one day bring home an STD or abuse me in a way I couldn’t hide from family, friends, or my child.

I stayed because marriage had always been my lifelong dream. With grandparents who were married nearly 70 years when my grandfather passed, and parents who have been married for more than 40 years, a lasting marriage was a given — or so I thought.

The story I told myself was that I came from a family of people who got married and stayed married. The story I told myself was that if I just stuck with it and kept trying, eventually my husband and I would figure it out and someday celebrate 60 or 70 years of wedded bliss. We’d look back on those early years and be proud we’d made it through.

Stories are nothing more than that

We tell ourselves a lot of stories. About ourselves, about other people, about situations we face and the way we handle them. And we believe those stories even when there’s no evidence they’re true. We hold onto those stories because we know how they go, how they end — and it’s much more comforting to think we know how things will turn out than to step into the unknown of a new story that we don’t yet know.

Clinging to those stories is what keeps us trapped in unhappy, unhealthy relationships. Refusing to let go of those stories is how we convince ourselves that a toxic person isn’t really toxic. And repeating those stories to ourselves is how we persuade ourselves, and others, we’re happy even when we’re not getting anything we want.

But stories are just that: stories. They’re ideas and plots we’ve made up and convinced ourselves we are or will be living them. And just as we made up one story, we can make up another that’s different.

Photo by Analise Benevides on Unsplash

You can’t let fear hold you back

Fear is a powerful emotion. It triggers memories of past situations and other stories we once told ourselves. It brings up other stories we don’t even realize we’re telling ourselves — stories in which we are in pain or in danger because of the thing we fear — and uses those stories to make us think our only option is to stay where we are.

Fear convinces you that no matter how bad, dangerous, or unhealthy a situation is, it’s safer than the alternative. It leads you to believe that it’s better to live with the certainty of this bad situation than to seek out the uncertainty of a new life beyond this situation.

But fear strips you of any freedom. When you live in fear, you aren’t free to make your own decisions. You make decisions based on fear and most of the time, fear-based decisions don’t look anything like what you’d decide if you truly felt free to decide.

When I was struggling with the decision to stay or get divorced, there were so many things I was afraid of. I was afraid of not being able to support and take care of my children financially. I was afraid of not being able to find a job. I was afraid of what my family and friends would think. I was afraid of how my ex would react if I said I wanted a divorce.

I was afraid I’d never find another relationship or fall in love again. I was afraid my children would blame me for not having a traditional family. I was afraid people who didn’t even know me would judge me.

But here’s the funny thing about all those fears: in the end, none of them bore fruit.

Fear isn’t about what will happen, just what might

Despite how very real my fears felt, none of them ever saw the light of reality.

I went back to school, found a job, and took care of my children. My family and friends were supportive of my decision. My ex wasn’t thrilled, of course, but he was never in a position to hurt me over my decision.

My children are older and they understand that I made the best decision I could for us. They don’t blame me. They even acknowledge that it’s made them better in some ways because they didn’t have to grow up in an unhappy, unhealthy home.

I found love. It didn’t always last, but it’s still out there.

And the people I didn’t even know that I worried would judge me? One day, I woke up and realized that their opinions didn’t matter. Even if they did judge me, it had no impact on my life.

Fear is not about what will definitely happen. It’s about what might happen. Fear is meant to stop you from going out of the dark cave at night because a sabretooth tiger might eat you. You might go out every night for a month and never even see a sabretooth, but fear is what stops you from going out there and dancing around while waving a steak to attract the tiger.

But since we no longer live in caveman days, fear now tries to stop us from anything it perceives as dangerous — and it often gets a little overzealous.

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Divorce is scary but that doesn’t mean it’s bad

When you first start to seriously contemplate divorce, it’s scary. No matter how bad the marriage is, it’s scary to think about leaving it behind you. Leaving the security of a second (or the only) income, a partner in parenting, a relationship you’ve spent years or even decades nurturing and growing.

Even when there’s abuse, infidelity, or other serious issues that just about anyone would agree you should get away from, there’s security in knowing what you’re facing. There’s comfort in knowing what to expect — even when that comes with its own kind of insecurity and uncertainty about what’s coming.

When you decide to end your marriage, there are so many uncertainties. Who will have custody of the kids? Who gets the house or will you sell it? How will the kids react? How will your spouse react? What kinds of relationships will you have with your former in-laws? Where will you live? How will you survive with the loss of income? Should you ask for child support? What about alimony?

The questions can feel endless and definitely frightening. Particularly because so many of them can’t be answered until the divorce is over. There is no magical crystal ball that will let you see what life will be like post-divorce.

You have to make the decision on faith. Faith that you can make it. Faith that you’ll figure it all out. Faith that people you care about will stand by you and the people who love your children will always put them first, no matter what they think of your decision. Faith that you and your spouse will find a way to work together and raise your children in a new kind of partnership.

It’s not the easy way out

People will tell you that divorce is the easy way out. It’s not.

On the heels of my divorce, I had to move back in with my parents. They had to help me financially while I went back to school (to become a phlebotomist) and found employment after being a stay-at-home mom for three years. They had to help me with childcare while I was in school and then help me pay for it when I first returned to work.

I had to return to court multiple times to get child support ordered and then enforced. I had to fight with my ex to get him to help with childcare. When he took my kids off his health insurance, I had to battle both him and his employer to get the documentation I needed so I could put the kids on my own.

There is nothing easy about choosing divorce. In all honesty, I think staying in an unhappy, unhealthy marriage is probably what’s easy. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable even if it’s miserable.

It takes courage to admit that your marriage isn’t working. It takes bravery to decide to strike out on your own. It takes fortitude to stop believing the stories you’ve been telling yourself and be willing to write new ones.

It takes strength to be willing to start over. It takes guts to admit that what you have isn’t working and to want something better for yourself, for your kids, and even for your spouse.

There is nothing easy about choosing divorce but there is something powerful about it. When you can finally admit that your marriage isn’t working and that you’ve done all you can to change that, it can feel almost daring to free yourself with divorce.

Letting go can be the hardest thing you ever do

Letting go of my marriage and filing for divorce was one of the hardest things I ever did. It required me to let go of the story that I would be married once and for the rest of my life. It required me to let go of the story that my kids would grow up with two loving, happy parents. It insisted I let go of the story that I would be a stay-at-home mom until my kids were grown and no longer needed me.

But in letting go of those stories, I didn’t have to just drop them. I got to rewrite them. And in rewriting them, I was able to discover not just new stories but a new me.

I found parts of myself that I hadn’t known existed before then. Parts that enabled me to raise my kids as a single mom, to go back to school while caring for a toddler and newborn, to look inside myself and find what allowed me to marry a man I didn’t really want to be with and then stay with him for years despite knowing we were destroying each other.

Nothing about it was easy. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. As hard as it all was, it was also the best thing in the world for me and for my kids. It lifted a weight off me that I hadn’t fully realized was there. I felt lighter, freer, happier — despite the struggles.

Finding the courage to let go of all the old stories and write new ones gave me a life I had never imagined. And it’s a life I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Wendy Miller is a Divorce Coach, freelance writer & meditation teacher. After years of settling for abusive and otherwise toxic relationships, she got fed up. Using meditation and other tools, she got to work on healing herself, setting boundaries, and only engaging in relationships (romantic and otherwise) that bring her joy. She wants to help other single parents find the love & happiness they seek, including and going beyond romantic love. She lives in Florida with her two sons, where she homeschools while solo parenting, while surrounded by what feels like a zooful of animals.

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