Matt! I really appreciate your thoughts. They speak directly to a lot of the things I wrestled with when making the decision to leave, and did for close to a year after.

The hardest part about making the decision to leave and dealing with the aftermath of my divorce was hurting everyone else involved. It was hurting his family (especially his sister whom I was extremely close to), hurting my family, hurting a lot of our close friends, and of course, hurting him. I was both relieved and devastated after leaving. I really hope it didn’t sound like I was flippant about my decision to leave (it’s my life I do what I want!). The reality is that I had to invest thousands of dollars into therapy to make the decision and then deal with the decision

I’d argue the problem wasn’t so much in my leaving, but my decision to get married in the first place. I could write pages about this, but to boil it down, our society does a shit job communicating the realities of marriage, and rather packages it up with a nice bow on top and makes women (especially) feel like it’s some sort of relationship finish-line or goal. And, while it was absolutely my decision, nobody — not even my pre-marital counselor — spoke about some of the hard realities of getting married really young and how to deal with the inevitable exposure and growth that would take place.

I got to a point where I was choosing between everyone else in my life and myself. At some point, I had to choose myself. And while it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I’m so glad I did.