How do you sum up twenty years of pain in a single post?
Where do you even begin when your marriage slowly becomes a wound that refuses to heal?

This year, as I turned forty‑three, my birthday came with a gift I never asked for.
A truth that cracked everything open.
He owed money again.
A truth I found out on my own because secrets have a way of rotting through walls.
And instead of taking responsibility like an adult should, he blamed me.
He blamed the kids.
He blamed anyone except the person in the mirror.

After two decades of carrying the weight of his mistakes, I finally felt something inside me snap. A quiet snap. The kind that doesn’t scream or break dishes. The kind that whispers, “No more.”

So I decided to end it.

We sat down to talk. We discussed terms, conditions, arrangements, custody, money, and futures that are no longer intertwined. And somehow, in the middle of all that, I found myself asking for something that shouldn’t have needed asking. I had to request to be “released.”

I wanted to be freed from the burden of a marriage I carried alone.
Released from a bond he broke long ago.
Release from the promises that he never kept.
Released from pain I never deserved.

Why must I ask for that?
Why must I seek permission to leave when I wasn’t the one who betrayed trust?
When I wasn’t the one who lied, lost money, hid debts, or gambled away stability? I did everything I could to keep it together.
How did a marriage become a cage I had to negotiate my way out of?

Maybe love really isn’t always enough.
Maybe vows break long before people do.
Maybe staying together “till death do us part” was never meant to be a lifelong sentence of suffering.

People say you find “the one” and life begins.
I found someone.
And life became exhausting. Life became painful, too painful to breathe.

I am tired.

Tired of being both Mama and Papa to the children.
Tired in the kind of way that sits deep in the bones.
Tired of being loyal to someone who wasn’t loyal.
Tired of being blamed for storms I didn’t create. Tired of being yelled at.
Tired of holding up a marriage by myself while being told I was the problem.
Tired of begging for peace in a home that never felt peaceful.

Love shouldn’t feel like drowning.
Marriage shouldn’t feel like walking on broken glass every day.
Partnership shouldn’t feel like carrying another adult on your back while being accused of not walking fast enough.

So I chose myself.
For the first time in twenty years, I decided to choose me and the kids.

Whatever comes next will not be easy. I am terrified. I am lost. Like a butterfly with broken wings trying to fly again.
But it will be honest.
And it will be mine.

The kids didn’t flinch or bat an eyelid; one said, ”I cannot believe you actually married this kind of person.”

The other said, ”Yay, I can’t wait to move!”

That woke me up.

Maybe “the one” isn’t someone we marry.
Maybe “the one” is the person we become when we finally stop breaking ourselves to stay.

I am learning to smile again.
Not because life is perfect.
But because I am finally free to breathe. I’m free to walk my path.

When will I be able to truly smile from my heart?

A friend’s mother recently passed away.
I watched her father speak about his wife, eyes red and trembling, grief pouring out of him like a river that had lost its shore.
His voice cracked every time he said her name.
And I cried too.
Not just for their loss, but for something I have never experienced.
Something I thought marriage was supposed to be.

Watching him love her even in death made my heart ache in a way I didn’t expect.

Because why didn’t “till death do us part” happen for me?
Why was the day I got married the beginning of a nightmare instead of a fairytale?
Why did love, for me, feel like punishment instead of partnership?

It’s a question that sits in my chest and refuses to leave.
Am I not worthy of a love that lasts?
A love that protects?
A love that doesn’t destroy me slowly from the inside out?

People tell me not to compare, but how can you not, when you see what real love looks like—even in its final moments?
A man crying for his wife as if half of his soul was suddenly gone.
A love that didn’t fade.
A love that didn’t betray.
A love that kept its promise all the way to the end.

And then there’s mine.
A marriage that felt like drowning.
A partner who blamed.
A home that felt more like a storm shelter than a sanctuary.
Two decades of trying to make something work that was never built on truth or tenderness.

Sometimes I ask myself, was I foolish?
Was I blind?
Was I simply unlucky?
Or was I never meant to experience a love like that?

Maybe that’s why my favourite movie has always been Notting Hill.
Not because of the romance itself, but because of what the story whispers gently between the lines:
that sometimes love finds you when you think you’re the least deserving,
that people can choose you simply because they see your heart,
that even the most ordinary girl can be loved in an extraordinary way…
just by being herself.

Maybe I’ve never been loved like that because I spent too long loving through fear.
Too long trying to survive.
Too long convincing myself that crumbs were enough.
Too long believing that pain was part of love.

But I’m learning now.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Honestly.

Not all love hurts.
Not all love breaks.
Not all love leaves you alone in the end.

Perhaps “till death do us part” wasn’t my story because it wasn’t meant to be.
Perhaps my story starts now—
with a woman who survived,
who is rebuilding,
who is finally learning that she deserves a gentle kind of love. Someday.

Even if it comes later.
Even if it comes unexpectedly.
Even if it comes from herself first.

I will learn to love myself first.