“You’re so brave and strong.”
I’ve been told that many times since I separated from my husband but I rarely see myself that way. I was so incredibly unhappy for so many years and it took me so long to make the decision to leave him that the final step seemed almost an act of conceding to the inevitable rather than an act of defiance. I simply ran out of energy and gave up on trying to make the relationship work.
I don’t feel brave and strong. I often feel weak and exhausted and overwhelmed. I feel like I’m constantly trying to put together a jigsaw where several of the pieces are missing and a couple are substitutes from a completely different puzzle (and one or two have been chewed by the dog). Even in the happy moments (and there are lots of them), I’m usually bracing myself for the next challenge, the next confrontation, the next trigger, the next moment where I go from happiness to feeling worthless and inadequate.
I want to live an authentic life – I’ve always wanted that. I hate lies and pretence and have always emphasised to my children the importance of honesty and sincerity in what they do. The need to maintain the facade of a happy and functional relationship for so many years was painful because I felt like I was betraying myself every time someone made a positive comment about our relationship and every time I made an excuse for my husband’s behaviour. When a girl from a youth group we had been involved with said she’d always hoped to find a relationship just like ours, I think I died a little bit inside. I certainly felt guilty that my efforts to present the image of a happy marriage meant she’d believed that our relationship was one worth striving for.
My struggles with authenticity continue, even though I’ve left the relationship. I’ve found it difficult to socialise over the past 16 months because I feel like I’m a completely different person to who I was in April last year. I feel like trying to connect with people who knew me ‘before’ means bringing a new person into the conversation, one that they may not like or relate to. I feel ashamed that I wasn’t my authentic self with them for so long and sad that the dysfunction of my marriage made it increasingly impossible for me to be myself anywhere.
I considered apologising on my personal Facebook profile recently for the number of links I’ve shared about domestic abuse and DV support services as well as the long, TL;DR-worthy status updates about things that are happening in my life related to the separation and divorce. There are lots of positive things happening as well and I feel like I’m somehow letting everyone down by not focusing on those things and instead talking about a topic that is so difficult and awful.
But talking about this – not just the generalities but the very personal and sustained impact of domestic abuse – is part of how I’m reclaiming myself.
I guess it comes back to being authentic. Currently, I’m often falling down. I stumble and limp my way through the day. After years of putting a happy face on my sadness, I find I just can’t sustain a stream of upbeat posts and updates. Being so open and direct online has been challenging after years of trying to keep the space relatively neutral and impersonal (as part of the facade). I’m gradually feeling more comfortable mentioning my children, my partner and our life and I’m trying to remember to share some of the trivial, entertaining things that catch my attention, but primarily I’m trying to be true to myself. For now, that means acknowledging the hard stuff. Accepting that I’m falling and failing at times is the only way that I can feel that I’m standing tall and truly being myself.
And after two decades of feeling invisible, being myself and (hopefully) encouraging other women who relate to my situation to do the same helps me to feel like falling, stumbling and limping my way through the day might actually be brave and strong after all.