I’m Allowed to Mourn the Marriage I left

Thanks to Zoriana Stakhniv for making this photo available freely on @unsplash 🎁

When I run into people from my past, they find it hard to believe that I got married, let alone that I also got divorced. Nobody gets married thinking of the day that it will end. Wearing that white dress and shiny rings, you feel like that day could last forever. But it doesn’t. Statistics Canada stopped collecting marital status data as of 2008 due to funding cuts. But the numbers that exist from the 2004/2005 study state that almost 40% of first marriages end in divorce. I’m not alone. So why do I feel so lonely?

There are rippling consequences to leaving a marriage. I lost my financial security and so many people I thought were my friends. More drastically, I lost my best friend and all the plans we made. We could talk about blame and fault and where it all went wrong. But tossing around accusations just blemishes the love that was and the tragedy it became.

This month should mark my fifth wedding anniversary. Instead, it marks the month where I fully assume the mortgage of the house we bought together. Even though I was the one who requested this separation, it still makes me sad to think of what could have been. I do not miss what my relationship had become, but I do miss the way we were and the future we could have had.