Fan,
Marriage is a wicked game. Love is dangerous poison. I’m intoxicated and chained to the impasse. Help me out…
- Allysa
Dear Allysa,
It broke my heart seeing you fettered in the quagmire of sorrow, slashing yourself with remorse and memories from the past. I believe that when unfortunate things happen, the only way to get yourself back on track is by breaking the tragedies apart and understanding the rationale in retrospect. I want to give you different perspectives to approach the essence of your past experiences and help you reach for opportunities. You are the key to unlock your chain and you are just one step away from your impending growth. I know you can do it just like how you reached for freedom in your marriage and broke yourself free.
When you are in your twenties, you are on the journey of finding yourself, both in this society and in the sense of belonging. Most of the time, the search was achieved by living up to others expectations or following mainstream norms, mixed with your own insecurity, fear, and uncertainty.
As a young woman in your twenties, that self-searching path was like a mountain with rocky outcroppings fraught with harsh lessons. The culture you grew up with did not give you permission to explore romance before adulthood, so you’d have to be brave enough to take that adventure for yourself at a later age. You were told that if you found someone “decent”, preferably a marriage material, the rest of your life would be stable, happy and assured. You were expected to stretch your femaleness to its maximum in preparation to be a good wife, that means taking all the housework by yourself and considering other people’s feelings and needs before your own. Some women followed through and they did well. You were not part of them.
I’ve always thought that there were three main paradoxes before the age of 30 in the culture you grew up with:
- Age 16–18: Being asked to pick a major in college when you know nothing about any domain knowledge and what it means to the rest of your life.
- Age 22–25: Being forced to find a job in the society when you have no idea of the politics and rules in the professional world.
- Age 25–28: Being urged to commit to one person when you are still grappling with all of the complexities of intimacy and interpersonal relationships.
People make major life decisions without seeing the full picture and knowing the risks, because everyone else does the same and that seems to be the right thing to do. In consequence, they followed the rules, did everything right, but screwed up because they were not happy with the choices they’ve made. Allysa, you are just one of those people who found out what seemed to be right was wrong. That is completely normal because we call them life lessons. Through those trial-and-error experiences, our tears transformed from grief to relief because what pained us before would pain less now. We became stronger, smarter, and free.
It’s time to unclench the stronghold of the blame on yourself. You did nothing wrong and I’m proud of your realization: you were too young to commit yourself to one person that wasn’t as compatible as you initially seemed and you walked away. That was the most ratified decision you’ve ever made in your life because you lived out your true self who was fighting for freedom. Even after a year, I can still feel your yearnings back then, so visceral and fresh that its power gives me shudders every time I recall it: “I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t live in your dreams. I can’t drain myself up in the financial burdens beyond my own desires and capabilities. Even though I love you, I can’t and I will not. Because doing so is ruining me and us.”
Allysa, the ending of this relationship was your greatest gift in your life. I want you to receive it and let it be your most profound revelation of how far your love can take you and how adamant your love has always been. Try to peel back the memories in your marriage, good times or bad, things you’ve done or you wish you’d done differently, at the center of that is your unassailable love that is stronger than anything: the love for the moments you’ve created, the bond you’ve established, the path you’ve chosen, and the home you’ve manifested. No one can take that away and they belong only to you. This is how much you’ve loved this connection that was built by you, for you, and in you. All of these deep emotions boil down to one simple truth: you love yourself, and you are the sower and reaper of a complete love story, filled with monstrous beauty and glimmering light.
Sweetheart, why not throw off the yoke and celebrate a closed cycle? You are a better person because you left your marriage, accept that fact and let it be the strongest salve to your sorrow. See the thickness from the lesson of grief, for showing you shades and hues you couldn’t have otherwise seen. Appreciate the generosity of an ended marriage, for teaching you self love and compelling you to reach for light.
Life is an ongoing journey of learning. Marriage is a complex lesson you were insufficiently prepared with unrealistic expectations. That is okay. You’ve learned as you went along the way. You considered love as a poison so dangerous that you crawled back to the hole of darkness for safety. I don’t think love was trying to kill you. I think it actually saved you, even doing so was not easy. The poet Kahlil Gibran put it in a good way:
“Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity.
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen.”
Among all of the pains you’ve gone through, the unifying theme is trust and resilience. Trust the inner physician that resides in the tenderness of your tears. Heal from the potion of love and reborn from the ashes of grief. You are the key and the chain. Unlock yourself and be my wing to rove in the fathomless ether of freedom.
X.O.X.O.
Fan
