I Checked Out Of My Marriage 6 Years Before It Was Over

I had been married for 11 years when I realized I didn’t know what was happening within it. I knew I didn’t want to have sex with my then- husband, and I told myself I had a low libido from having so many kids so close together. I knew it was more though. A lot more.

My ex and I fell into our routine and stopped seeing each other. I think we both thought it was a phase — something that we could get back when things settled down. The thing is, when you have a family and a home and bills and careers, things don’t slow down. So we kept letting it slip.

I “nagged” him and he tried a little, but I didn't think it was hard enough. He resented me because I didn’t want to have sex with him and I resented him because he didn’t help around the house or care to make things like my birthday special.

I started to get so angry and annoyed with him I began to imagine a life without him in it. I felt like it would be easier to run the household on my own instead of constantly asking him to help. I felt touched out and had no desire to be intimate. We were co-existing, and I had completely checked out on all levels. And once I did that I couldn’t get it back.

I tried. I did. But mentally I wasn’t married any longer.

I kept hoping and wishing that life would get back to the way it was before. Before things got so hard. It wasn’t just his fault and it wasn’t just my fault, but looking back I do own something: my ex was more willing to work through things than I was. He was more flexible and I truly believe he wanted us more than I did. It had been years since I felt like I wanted to be his partner and once I was done, that was it.

That was no way to live. He deserved to have someone who wanted to be with him. So we parted ways and when we announced six years later that we were separating, our friends and family were shocked. They wanted to know why we weren’t trying harder. They told us they thought everything seemed fine.

But the truth was it hadn’t been fine for so long; I was almost used to it. So when things became final, I didn’t fall apart because I had already processed everything and imagined a life without him.

I’ve talked to so many women since then who have said that they checked out of their marriage long before it was over. They had thoughts and daydreams of moving on without their husband and starting over long before they signed divorce papers. Some even said that their husbands were blindsided even though they had told them over and over what they needed.

Divorce isn’t black and white, and I’ve never talked to anyone who said one day they wanted to be married, then the next day they didn’t.

It can be a long, painful process and more often than not, couples will stay together for a long time before they decide to divorce. It happens in the small, quiet moments that you don’t know how to fix. Signing the divorce papers is just the official acknowledgement of something you’ve been grieving for a long time.

And for many of us, we are finally catching up to a decision our heart made years before.

Diana Park is a writer who finds solitude in a good book, the ocean, and eating fast food with her kids.