Disillusion of Marriage.
{Photo: womenworld.org}
By Liza Baritt.
Disillusion: to free or deprive of illusion; to destroy the ideals, illusions, or false ideas of.
Gradually, and then all at once: That is the way my marriage, and life as I knew it, unraveled. Things were never perfect. I am far from a perfectionist, so this was never the issue. There was a longing, a hunch, sometimes big and sometimes small, that there was more.
Years of studying psychology, Yoga philosophy and Buddhism crystallized into a perspective of mindful acceptance and the belief that every relationship challenge is an opportunity to grow and expand one’s heart and mind. This served me well and gave me great satisfaction.
I was proud of my ability to embrace and work with with the challenges of a difficult relationship.
There were pangs of disappointment, moments of unworthiness spurred by inconsiderate actions, distance, or simple disregard.
I would rush to work through the hurt feelings and tug of resentment, declaring that I loved myself and my partner enough to practice letting go and make the choice to focus on the good.
There was plenty of good to focus on: generous doses of laughter and play, some true adventure and volumes of shared history, camaraderie and the safest form of companionship. I avoided the trap of feeling like a disempowered victim, full of repressed anger.
I devoured books on happiness, heartfelt positivity, vulnerability, resilience and finding comfort in uncertainty.
I fought the suspicion that perhaps I made the wrong choice in knowingly accepting a relationship where I did most of the loving, carrying the full burden of making it work because it was so much more critical to my identity and my survival.
One of my many helpful mantras was that I aspired to Be Love. For me, that meant embodying tolerance and forgiveness.
I wove a lovely narrative and cast myself as the saintly heroine — one part Dalai Lama, one part bohemian momma and a liberal dose of wise, fun-loving (and just a touch sexy and irreverent) therapist/friend. This was my role and I was rather pleased with my performance.
And then, for no apparent reason, on an otherwise unremarkable Easter Sunday, there was a rumble, and then a crack, and then the bottom fell out. I started saying things out loud that I had been thinking for years.
I admitted to myself and to my beloved that I had desires, preferences, wants and needs that were not being met. I expressed that just because I could be okay and go on with my happy little life in the absence of these things, I no longer wanted to.
I rocked the boat in a big way and it felt authentic — powerful and vulnerable at the same time. I was trying to rewrite my own story and yet the script seemed to be changing without the writer’s permission.
I felt as though I were tearing through the pages, desperately trying to see how it would end while holding on to a runaway train. I was begging for something that I could not even describe, at least not very well.
Far from being a perfectionist, I aim for a life of simple pleasures and manageable expectations with ample compassion for inadequacies in myself and others. My mantra could well be, “Good enough is good enough.”
On the day things fell apart, the ache of having my heart shattered open by another disappointment, one that I knew I could opt to heal for myself, was overwhelmed by the longing for a life where instead of learning to cope with the hurt and exposure of sometimes feeling unloved and unknown, I could actually create a life where I knew for sure that I was enough.
In the months since my world cracked open, I have screamed, cried, grieved, entertained the spiral of shame and blame, and profoundly grown. The dust is settling and I am working to evaluate, accept and act with pure intention.
I have tuned in to the wisdom of many fine teachers while also listening deeply to my own heart’s desires. I don’t like everything I hear and I admit that I still don’t trust myself.
In fact, the more I allow my suffering to take as much space as it needs, the more I realize how much I have created and nourished that suffering. In my marriage, suffering took the form of feeling small and unloved. I felt shut-down and neglected; a martyr.
I accommodated and deferred with the unconscious motivation that these behaviors earned me some sort of capital to be cashed in later for reassurance of my value in the world.
I have to own the fact that feeling less than is something that I chose. Now, untethered and unbound, my suffering takes the form of tremendous self-doubt and loneliness at one extreme, and overzealous lust for novelty and emotional intensity at the other.
I see myself shifting between these poles and remembering what it was like so many years ago to be free. It was, and still is, exhilarating and terrifying. I struggle with feeling like I am too much, that this bursting at the seams with desire for something real is more than any one person can handle.
I am grasping for an anchor, and yet drawn to the pure wild of the open sea with my heart wide open and exposed to the elements.
When I was 18, I got a tattoo, and when I was 19, I met my husband. At 36, I began extricating both from my life and learned that the simultaneous processes share some similarities. Falling in love and getting a tattoo both feel kinda reckless and out of control.
There is some discomfort involved, but it is overshadowed by the rush of endorphins or dopamine or whatever neuro-cocktail stimulates one to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. Of course, I thought my ink and my relationship would always be a part of me.
When you inject something beneath your skin with an electric needle or take a legally binding pledge in front of your closest friends and family, it is supposed to be forever. I am amazed at the boldness of my youth.
My need for solid ground and confirmation that I could make adult decisions was too great and my experience of loss too vague to understand the nature of impermanence. I had no understanding of how emotions shift like the weather, and how relationships move like tectonic plates.
Turns out both divorce and laser tattoo removal are significantly more painful, take a lot longer, and cost a hell of a lot more than the fun-for-all free fall from which these things start. Both endings require planning and happen in multiple stages, on a timeline that is determined by forces outside myself.
As in, court dates, mandatory waiting periods, and coming back for physical torture every 6 weeks for 6-9 months.
You mean, I am choosing to subject myself to searing pain over and over and I have little to no control over how and when it will be inflicted? Yes, sign me up!
Oh, and you can automatically charge my credit card each time even though there is no guarantee that the self-inflicted agony will end on a loosely suggested date or offer the anticipated results.
So, you’re saying there is a possibility of permanent scarring and lasting discoloration of my skin and/or my entire concept of love and humanity? Perfect. I’m game.
The decision to officially end a relationship is comparable to ripping off a bandage. There is a definitive moment where one says Enough, and I can’t not do this even though I fully realize that life is going to suck for a while.
Intentionally choosing something that I knew was going to hurt like hell and stepping into the unknown may be the most grown-up decision I have ever made.
The intimation came from deep in my soul and the action formulated directly from a trust that more of what I really needed and wanted was waiting on the other side of the transition.
The tattoo removal has been emblematic of the intense burn followed by a slow fade. It’s a pain so intense that no other sensation or experience can coexist.
After each treatment, there is a small healing process and gradually the color dissipates back into my body, where it is processed and released, toxins and all.
Like the depths of what I can call my divorce moments, where I literally have no choice but to sit with the feelings because all other thoughts, plans and existence have ceased. It is the self-destructive fire that burns, leaving the old life and the old role in a pile of ashes. It does not happen all at once.
If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that change is a slow and steady process. It cannot occur without discomfort. Choosing a path of my own volition gives no protection from pain and no guarantee of results.
The fade to a new normal will happen naturally in time but processing and releasing the toxic residue of my choices is all up to me.
*****
Liza is a positive psychology and neuroscience geek with a passion for destination yoga and a lust for connecting the dots. She studies and advises on relationships: to the body, to the spirit, to each other and to the self. Liza works with women and girls as a counselor and yoga life coach. She uses evidence-based practice and cutting edge research on happiness and mindfulness to help individuals thrive. Understanding individual strengths, what makes life meaningful, and building resilience and personal power are the foundations of her therapeutic approach. She believes books are her friends and her happy place does not have a hammock. Liza has big dreams for expanding connections, promoting authenticity, and living with an attitude of abundance and action. Find Liza exploring positive emotions on Pinterest, Facebook or Email.
{Change is our only constant}
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