I had been married for 11 years when I finally admitted to myself that I no longer understood what was happening inside my marriage. I knew I did not want to have sex with my then-husband, and for a long time I told myself it was because I had a low libido after having so many kids so close together. Deep down, though, I knew it was more than that. Much more.
My ex and I had slipped into a routine where we stopped really seeing each other. I think we both believed it was just a phase, something we would find our way back from once life settled down. But when you have kids, a home, bills, careers, and endless responsibilities, life does not magically slow down. So we kept letting us slip further away.
I asked for more help so often that it started to feel like nagging. He tried sometimes, but I never felt like he tried hard enough. He resented me because I did not want to be intimate with him, and I resented him because I felt alone in the housework, the planning, and even the small things that would have made me feel remembered, like my birthday.
Eventually, my anger and frustration grew so big that I started imagining what life would look like without him. I thought it might actually be easier to run the household alone than to keep asking for help and feeling disappointed. I was touched out, exhausted, and completely uninterested in intimacy. We were co-existing, but emotionally, mentally, and physically, I had already checked out.
Once I reached that place, I could not find my way back.
I did try. I really did. But in my mind, I was no longer married in the way a person should be married. I kept hoping life would somehow return to the way it had been before everything got so heavy.
It was not only his fault, and it was not only mine. Looking back, I can own something important: my ex was more willing to work through things than I was. He was more flexible. I truly believe he wanted our marriage more than I did. By then, it had been years since I had felt like I wanted to be his partner, and once I was done, I was done.
That was not a fair way for either of us to live. He deserved to be with someone who wanted to be with him fully. So we eventually parted ways, and when we announced six years later that we were separating, our friends and family were shocked. They asked why we were not trying harder. They told us everything had seemed fine from the outside.
But the truth was that it had not been fine for a very long time. I had almost gotten used to the sadness, the distance, and the quiet acceptance that this was no longer working. So when the separation became final, I did not fall apart in the way people may have expected. I had already grieved the marriage. I had already imagined a life without him.
Since then, I have talked to so many women who told me they checked out of their marriages long before they officially ended. They had imagined moving on, living alone, or starting over long before any divorce papers were signed. Some said their husbands were blindsided, even though they had explained what they needed again and again.
Divorce is rarely black and white. I have never spoken to someone who said they wanted to be married one day and woke up the next day completely done. It usually does not happen that suddenly.
For many couples, divorce is a long and painful process that begins long before anyone says the word out loud. It happens in the small, quiet moments when needs go unmet, resentment builds, and no one knows how to fix what is breaking. Signing divorce papers is often just the official acknowledgement of something that has already been mourned for years.
And for many of us, the end is simply the moment our lives finally catch up to a decision our hearts made a long time ago.
I’m Diana Park, a writer who finds solitude in a good book, the ocean, and eating fast food with my kids.
Inspired by this post on Scary Mom.
