Pregnancy is one HUGE wrong reason to get married!
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August 20, 2015, the day I got married. February 10, 2017, the day I filed for divorce. It took me a year and a half to come to terms with the current state of my life. At that time, I was unemployed with a brand new baby and bound to a man, I knew I didn’t love. I take responsibility for the demise of my marriage, not all of the responsibility but I own my part. Had I followed my intuition and stayed true to myself, I probably could have avoided a bitter husband and a lengthy divorce process.
I grew up in the South, Memphis, Tennessee, a part of the Bible belt. There I was eight months pregnant by a man, four years my junior; my first child, his second. Having earned my Bachelor’s degree and done some traveling at 27 years old I was not overjoyed about my pregnancy but I accepted the fact that maybe this was my time. I could be a mom. Having to accept becoming a wife, didn’t come so easily.
I could say a lot of negative things about my ex, but in my journey and telling my story I never want to take on the victim mentality. He wasn’t ready, and neither was I. I had more control than I chose to exercise at the time. I could have said “no.” I could have chosen to be a single parent. However, in my mind, I was “doing the right thing” Whatever that means. I was giving my daughter a chance to grow up in a two-parent home; at the expense of my happiness.
My ex-husband and I were never meant to be. I folded under pressure, I got married because “hey, why not?” “It was the right thing to do.” Marriage is what society deems “right.” You go to school, graduate, get married and raise a family. Society fails to tell you, you are in control of your own happiness.
I wasn’t in love. I made an adult decision to be legally bound to a man I knew only three months before I found out I was pregnant. I settled for help and a form of what I thought stability and love looked like. That decision made me miserable every day of my year and a half long marriage.
I wasn’t being true to myself. I relinquished all power to someone else and I stayed as long as I could. Mentally, physically, emotionally I was depleted.
Was this life?
Was being a wife worth sacrificing the 20 plus years I’d spent learning who I was?
Was there a rule that I had to give up all of myself to someone who didn’t know themselves?
Marriage is more than love, I knew that. However, we didn’t have love, trust, respect or even a plan for our marriage. My marriage was going nowhere fast. Fast and with a damaging force that left me feeling drained, incomplete, doubtful and insecure; I couldn’t live another year under that much duress. We played happy but we were toxic for each other.
I’ve felt extremely liberated since filing for divorce and moving back home with my parents. It hasn’t been easy but I can say it was a decision that I made on my own, without the pressure of society and of my family. It is a decision that I own knowing my daughter will see a strong version of her mommy. It takes a lot of courage to say “I got married for the wrong reasons.” At this point in my life, I am learning to live my own truth and nobody else’s.
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