I Wasn't Sad

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with an old friend. I have been friends with her for over a decade. We have had our fair share of ups and downs, just like most friendships do. But despite the lows (and, oh, there have been lows) she still remains a dear friend whom I will care for always.

Our most recent conversation really hit home for me, though. She said that though her and her husband had only recently separated, she had been mourning her marriage for six months. She wasn't sure if she wanted to move on, or even if she was quite ready. But she had done her mourning, even while he was still living at home.

After a period of reflection over the course of several days I came to realize why this statement had struck a chord with me. It's because I, too, had done my mourning for a love lost while I was still existing in my marriage. I was stuck in a routine, doing what I had to do to get through each day, just taking the verbal and emotional abuse because I didn't feel as though I had any other option. But I wasn't invested in my marriage the way that I should have been.

For three years I supported him, I encouraged him, I challenged him, I saw potential in him, I believed in him, and I sacrificed for him.

I did all of these things for him, only to find out he wouldn't do the same for me. Over time it became abundantly clear that I was not going to receive from him what I was giving. I loved someone who didn't love me back in the same way.

Maybe I was a comfortable life. Maybe I was an easy way out. Maybe I was a get out of jail free card of sorts. I'm not sure what exactly what I was to him. But I know I wasn't someone to love.

I knew all of these things a year ago. And, honestly, that should have been the end of us. It almost was. We had an awful fight the night before I flew home from Arizona and he threatened to leave me if I didn't give up some of my friends. And I gave in because I wanted so badly for this to work. And at that moment, as well as others before then, he asked me to give up a part of who I was.

And I did it.

I probably shouldn’t have done that. Because it made him think that it was okay to continue to ask me to give up pieces of myself. And it made me believe that was my only option.

That night I began mourning my marriage and what I had wanted, hoped, and prayed it would be. But I continued to exist in my marriage, living in mourning, resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t have what I had wished for- my happily ever after.

I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t in love. I wasn’t excited for our future.

I just existed.

So, eight months later, when I finally reached my breaking point, I wasn’t really sad.

I was angry with things that I had learned, I was hurt by words he had said, I was upset that I had let it go on for so long.

But I wasn’t sad.  

Even though I put on a smiling face for those eight months and pretended all was well and tried to look forward to a future, it was all just an act. I was pretending. I was lying to myself and to everyone around me, family and friends alike.

I know there are people out there who will take this and twist my words. I can almost even predict what they will say.

But it doesn’t change the fact that this is my reality. I was a broken spirit, living inside a human shell. I was mourning a relationship I still existed in. So when my marriage ended, and it has ended, I wasn’t sad.

I was relieved. I was unburdened. I was relaxed.

But I wasn’t sad.

I had done my mourning.

And it was time to move on.

Whatever that meant.