Divorce can take a real toll on your self-esteem. You feel that sting of rejection more strongly than ever. You may feel like nobody will ever want you again. For me, I felt like I had failed at marriage. Being a master perfectionist this didn’t sit well with me. I’ve always expected a lot of myself. I felt like there must be something wrong with me because my marriage had failed. In my head I knew I had done everything I could do to keep things together and to make it work, but I just didn’t feel it. I was disappointed in myself, in this situation I had found myself in.
I moved on and started working through some of my self-esteem issues. I had been so beaten down, that I hardly knew who I was anymore. I got to where I was feeling alright about myself again. I started dating again and then all of the sudden I was struck with the intense fear of failure again. My first marriage had failed, what if the next one did too? In fact I was so afraid of failure that I strongly considered staying single forever. That way I would never have to worry about failing at another marriage because there wouldn’t be another marriage to fail at.
Many hours have been spent trying to work through this deep fear of mine. Many tears have been shed trying to figure things out for myself, but I have come to the conclusion that I didn’t fail, my marriage did. Sometimes you don’t have control over the situations you find yourself in. You can’t control what other people do; you can only control what you do. They have their agency and sometimes their choices are going to affect you in ways that don’t always seem the most fair. At this point, I can look back at my marriage and honestly say I have no regrets. I know that I did everything that I could do, but in the end it takes two. One can only go so far. So while you’re right, my marriage did fail, I know that I didn’t because I did my best. Success isn’t always measured by the end result, sometimes it’s the things you did along the way that make all the difference.