I Told Him I Filed for Divorce.

It just happened this evening.

I think I’m still feeling numb, relieved, too. I hate keeping things from people, and even though I filed for divorce a couple of weeks ago, I waited to tell him until tonight.

He was bringing the kids home from his weekend with them, and I asked if he could hang back so I could talk to him. My stomach was in knots I was sick over what I was about to say.

I sat him down and explained that I needed to give him context before we met with our therapist to discuss parenting later in the week. Then I just said it:

“I filed for divorce.”

He was quiet. I watched as he took it in. I had no idea how he would respond. Eventually, he told me he had been thinking about it, too.

Rejection washed over me.

Who was this man?
How could he be so willing to walk away from me—and from our family?

I wanted him to fight for me. To tell me he didn’t want to lose me.
But he didn’t.

Filing for divorce wasn’t a power play.

It was a Hail Mary. An opening. A chance for us to admit we didn’t want this and choose a different path together. Now that I say that out loud, I realize I was living in a different world than he was. My hope wasn’t aligned with reality.

That night, doubt crept in. I started questioning everything.
Was I doing the right thing?
Why did I feel so crushed when, just two weeks ago, I knew this was what God was leading me to?

The dark pit of grief opened up and swallowed me whole.

I was home alone when the sobbing started. Loud, guttural crying that left me trembling.
I cried out to God to fix this. To undo it all. To restore my marriage.
I lay in bed, unable to move, shaking from the sheer weight of despair.

“Why???!”

I begged God for comfort, but it didn’t come.

That’s the thing about grief I hate the most: there’s no shortcut. You have to feel it.

My therapist’s words echoed in my ears:
“Just sit with what you’re feeling.”

So I did.

I sat up, back straight and legs crossed, hugged myself, and checked in.
I felt abandoned. And that feeling was real, no matter how much I wished I could make it go away.

I was abandoned... by a man.
But that’s when the clarity came:

God never promised me the marriage I envisioned.
God promised not to forsake me.

It’s normal to feel alone. David wrote so many Psalms pleading for God’s presence.
That night, I felt like I was in the wilderness with him.

After a while, I noticed something else creeping in: a victim mentality.

The looping thought: “Why me?”

And then, slowly, “Why not me?”

That shift was small but powerful.

That whole week was brutal. I had another breakdown when I saw his Facebook relationship status change.
I felt silly for how much that hurt, but it did.
Seeing our marriage vanish from a place it had lived for so many years felt like another loss.
"Surreal" doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I felt like I was floating adrift in the clouds, being carried somewhere I didn’t want to go.
There was nothing to grab onto.
No ground beneath my feet.

All I could do was pray.

All I could do was let go.
Let God tuck me under His wing and let the tears flow, watering seeds of self-discovery that had been dormant for so long.

I longed to see myself the way God saw me.
And this moment, this unraveling, was the beginning of that growth.