divorce infidelity

My ex-husband was a good man, so why did I leave him?

It’s been fifteen months now from the day I decided to listen to my heart, to the many hints it gave me for over a year after marriage. At times my divorce makes me wonder, why am I happy today? Was the decision I made healthier for my relationship with him and the rest of the family members? Was it a quick call or it was something that I would have had done it immediately after six months of my wedding, the day when a thought of my unhappy marriage triggered stress hormones? Was it a good move to end a relationship that caused stress-related long term illness in my body and almost pushed me into depression? Yes, divorce was the right thing to do!

Deciding to leave him was an honorable choice I made, for me and for him because lately though, I realized divorces are a realizations that your soul craved for. Divorces are good for any unhappy marriage!

Life was no less than any fairy tale, perfect was the word with little adjustments and compromises which is a part and parcel of every relationship. Oh no, I did not walk into the marriage in a day, dated him for more than 6 years before the sacred bond. Marrying someone after having dated for years doesn’t mean you will find unending happiness till death departs you from him. Lucky are those who are able to sail the boat together but if you are unable to do so, there’s no harm in taking a break or call it off.

Calling it off I said, but it is not an easy decision to make. Families are knitted with relations and love, responsibilities towards self and others are highly significant, your personal growth is at stake and so could be your career given the fact that any unhappy relationship could disturb you mentally affecting everything that is associated with you. Having said that, it is also immensely important to realize self-care, to understand what makes you the happiest. If you are happy, people around you will also be. It’s like a positive aura that we carry along with us wherever we go. I am sure when you look at yourself in the mirror and smile, it releases the happy hormone. This works similarly, be happy so that your loved ones are. How do we know if you are happy in a marriage with him?

‘The saat vachan’, ‘The vows’, or the holy words of Imam, abides a couple traditionally to begin a new life. Honesty, faithfulness, adjustments, support, obedience, love, care, responsibilities and the list of commitments doesn’t end here, everything mentioned here has to walk in hand in hand to balance the marriage. A mismanagement of a couple of these given pillars and your marriage is headed a wrong way. What causes the imbalance? At times you do everything yet are into an unhealthy marriage, it could be because either you are looking for less, more or something else in your partner completely.

My ex-husband was a good man, so why did I leave him? He was good at socializing with family, friends and other people associated with our lives. He was caring and never abused me physically, so what made me take a huge decision of calling off my marriage? Something that many of us do not think is necessary to give importance to, something that is as painful as a domestic violence and whose cut can cause the internal bleeding without anyone even realizing how agonizing that could be. Unhappy marriage doesn’t mean it has to be visible to everyone, but to him and to you.

After approximately six months of my marriage, I realized I was the only one channelizing this marriage to work. He was there in a marriage just for the social presence, a label that I carried for being married but not so literally otherwise. He made me smile only when he wanted me to smile, those little gestures offered by a husband began to disappear. There was zero intimacy between us, he had put a full stop on my sexual needs. The thoughts of my husband rejecting me would acquire most of my time. It made me think I don’t deserve anything, I look ugly and I have a tendency to repel men and so on. This triggered nothing but no less than stress assisted hormonal imbalance. Heartbreaking it was and so what followed. The mutual decisions began to go self-centered more often than required. My ambitions did not weigh a significant role in his life anymore. Exaggerating every tiny life detail became his habit, which made him lie in an unbreakable chain which in turn gave birth to manipulation and that lifted up the trust between us. The most important spect of any marriage, the transparency had buried itself to death somewhere which I could not find it even after multiple tries. The marriage was not repairable now.

I should have given chances to him. I should have tried to put him on the right track or I should have single-handedly made my marriage work. Oh, wait, yes, I should because I am a woman tied to the cultural rigidity and complexly oriented gender biases. I had been told all these because I was reminded of my duties towards my beloved ex-husband as a wife. I was asked to put clam as mantra and to wait as things would pass. I was given examples of physically abused marriages that managed to survive (I am sure that’s a show put up only for the society), I was asked to get pregnant, as our parents often believe that a baby would get the couple closer. How? I am rolling my eyes!

I gave him chances, so many I couldn’t keep a count. I tried to put together my shattered beads of marriage in every possible way: I tried to change myself for him (no one should ever do that, even the husband shouldn’t), I shared where we are heading to, in a marriage politely, wrote related stories, articles and requested him to read, I fought, I cried, I threw things randomly on the floor out of anger but nothing worked. If the society expects me to wait and watch how I succumb to the typical Indian way of men treating their wives, subordinates? I am sorry! I won’t!

Every woman reading this, your happiness is the most crucial thing to you. Take care of it. If the love of your life is no more able to make you feel important and has let his responsibilities on lose, let him go. Channelize the energy for your self-development, your career and your health. The most important person in your life should always, alwaye you!

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