Why My Marriage Carries Divorce As An Option
June 7, 2020
I never really imagined myself to be a face of divorce.
I wanted it to be a thing that happened, that would sweep itself under the rug of my history and I would go onto a new life, a new chapter.
The fact that I still brace for impact every time I speak about it, reminds me that it’s important that I do.
Married at 19, I worked off the ground rules we’d created that “divorce was not an option”.
Problem with that belief system is it stole freedom of choice.
Marriage was an expectation.
Marriage was the reality, like it or not.
Marriage was normalized as “hard”, with no measurement to what “too hard” was.
It sounded like stability, it felt like a cage.
So when I remarried at 33, we worked off of a new ground rule:
Divorce is ABSOLUTELY an option.
Meaning, marriage was also absolutely an option.
Ah, choice, freedom and the focus it gives to not take things for granted.
I thought the option of divorce was cynical, giving a feeling of instability. The reality is, it’s incredibly beautiful, peaceful and an everyday ask, an everyday commitment.
My relationships now are valued not by a length of time but by a quality of health.
A time in unity, not a time of mere endurance.
For we do not take this for granted.
We do not expect this.
We take advantage, not of each other, but of the time we have together, as we choose to be together everyday in hopes of all days.
Divorce talks don’t often get called a love story.
It’s a shame, really.
Because this will forever be MY love story,
of a woman and her choices.
