I stood in my kitchen and cried to one of the last people that I thought I’d be pouring my heart out to- my dad. It’s not like we have a poor relationship; it’s just that at the time, we didn’t have the type of relationship here where you’d normally find yourself vomiting out all your hurt feelings and problems about your marriage.

I cried and told him that I couldn’t do it anymore. I divulged everything – all the things I had kept from my family for years. I can still put myself in that same position, leaning against the counter, arms crossed, tears streaming down my face, and telling him that I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but within the year, I’d be divorced.

Having only ever been a stay-at-home mom and/or working part-time doesn’t ensure a welcoming future when you’ve been financially dependent on someone for 13 years – since I was 23 years old.

That was in June 2025, and in July 2025, I told my husband I wanted a divorce. The second that I told him that I’m separating from him, I felt a weight lift off of me. A freedom I’d never felt washed over me, and I felt lighter than I had in years, even though I had just taken the first terrifying step of a much more terrifying journey.

I know now that I’d been faking it for years. That I hadn’t loved him in years. But when you’re in the trenches trying to survive life, you don’t realize, you don’t see, you aren’t able to open your eyes wide enough and truly see the path that your life is on. Or maybe you do see the path you’re on, but only because you’re looking down at your feet, trying to make sure you won’t trip and stumble. But when you’re looking down, you don’t see where the path is actually leading. You don’t see the environment that surrounds you. You don’t see the red flags waving.

You don’t see life passing you by.

There were times for a few years leading up to my realizations that I remember sitting and looking around the house, thinking that it just felt off. Like the energy in the house was sick or poisoned. I remember thinking about all the experiences we weren’t having, which meant my kids weren’t having them either. We weren’t living life – just going through the motions. Why? Why were we doing that? Why couldn’t I pull us out of it?

Well, it’s because the foundation of our home had crumbled. The foundation of our family had rotted away. I just hadn’t known it yet.

I remember thinking that we were never going to move further ahead financially, never take the kids to the places we wanted to go, never get the house up to the standard we wanted and had planned. I was giving up one dream right after another – hopeless and lost and alone.

We didn’t work well as a team. At least not anymore. Not enough to build a life past where we were, and, really, where can you go if the foundation is so brittle and weak?

I have more hope for a brighter future now than I did back then. Blew up my whole life, sitting on a mountain of debt from this divorce, with near-empty bank accounts, and the future still looks brighter. And it’s sad, really. How I got here, why I got here. It’s nothing to celebrate – the pain and loss.

But a forest still grows silently after a fire.
Flowers still bloom after a flood.
The sun still rises after the darkest nights.
And without permission, without consent, life still moves—and I’m choosing to live the next chapters of my life how life has always meant to be lived. Full and colorful. Rich with purpose. And with the courage to never settle.

“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional” – Haruki Murakami