When a defining moment comes along, embrace it

Editor’s Note: This column marks the debut of “All We Never Knew,” about starting over and the lessons we learn along the way.

One thing I learned in my 13 years of marriage is that it’s a lot harder to say ‘goodbye’ than it is to say ‘I do.’

In fact, to be perfectly honest, I pondered leaving my husband for more years than I was actually happily married. That is a criticism or rather a reflection on me and not a reference to my husband. I stopped blaming him years ago – I stopped doing a lot of things in my marriage a long time ago. I got married young and realize now that I got wrapped up more in getting engaged and planning the ceremony than our life together. With age comes wisdom, followed by overdue growing pains.

Everyone wants to know…what was the reason you broke up? There wasn’t one for sure. I wish there was a simple reason. I do know there were plenty of moments that added up. Losing our baby was a very tough moment, but trying to get pregnant for years unsuccessfully also ate away at us. I wouldn’t say having children would have made us, but I think it would have saved us.

We never were a strong couple on our own, because it required too much one-on-one communication and effort. We were always better in a group, a family, and gradually found it easier to just shut down. I do remember one defining moment in my decision to leave – when I chose not to try and get pregnant anymore, even though the medical problems had been cleared up. Yeah, having a baby could have saved us, but being born into this world is hard enough without having that much responsibility. Children are blessings, not saviors.

I realized thereafter that I had to find what I was looking for in myself instead of in others, to stop putting my needs second behind the need to please and feel important in someone else’s eyes. Who was I, for instance, if I wasn’t the woman trying to save my marriage? I find myself still answering that question or rather defining what I want to give to the world, instead of what the world wants from me.

A stranger who I recently met behind a makeup counter had a defining moment, too. As with hair stylists and bartenders, I tend to strike up somewhat intimate conversations with many service people quickly. Call it that random connection. Just as I was thinking how haggard I looked in the mirror, she said I looked a bit tired. I responded that it had been a rough few weeks. We then had our moment.

“For me too,” she said. “I recently left my fiancé after five years together.”

“I just left my husband after 13 years.”

She continued, “I left after we lost two babies – both stillborns.”

The intimate words flowed out of us without hesitation, as though we were old friends.

I asked her how she knew it was time to say goodbye after so many years together. She said, “I just knew. There wasn’t one reason.”

My closest friend also had several moments that added up to one final punch – literally. After years of looking past what she recognizes now as physical abuse and controlling behavior, she left her husband right before Christmas a year ago. I mention the relevance of the holiday because I can’t think of a tougher time than one with family events planned. You can’t hide from the truth any longer, and people in your life need to know no matter how bad the timing is. I strongly believe that things not only happen to us for a reason, they also happen at just the right time.

My friend woke up that day as she had after many similar fights involving too much drinking by her husband: She tried to put it out of her mind. She was always good at that or, as she says, good at overlooking that 10 percent of him. For the most part, he was a very good and loving husband. But during those outbreaks, he was emotionally controlling and hurting her, inside and out. That morning – that moment – she could not ignore the bruise on her face or the crushing blow to her marriage. She had had enough. She left that day. She’s been stringing strong moments together ever since, evolving into the person she is today, one who I am proud to call my friend.

All of us have very different, yet very defining similar truths in our stories. All the people we left hurt us, just as we hurt them. Nothing is ever black and white, and when a marriage or long-term relationship is finally over, it’s no one’s fault. It’s simply painful. We can’t blame someone else for our choices, including our own choice not to leave sooner.

There wasn’t one reason for any of us, but we all had one defining moment: A moment of truth – a choice to start all over on our own. And one reason to finally do it – to grow.