Practicing Self-Grace in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Today/tonight I feel down. And it is entirely due to the divorce. And typically, I would be upset at myself about that. Because the depression related to the divorce is (very honestly) A LOT LESS PAINFUL than the depression and issues I was feeling during the marriage. The pain during the marriage was like someone leaning on a bruise not letting it heal… forever. Like… that was what the marriage was. The pain from the divorce is more like what you feel after surgery… where the problem has been removed but there is healing that is still needed. Because that is obviously what it is. So… I’m allowing myself to feel that small bout of depression. And by so allowing it, sitting with it… I learn. Sort of. My depression isn’t because I miss Nancy. My depression is because I knew what I needed to do and didn’t do it FOR SO LONG. After 3 years married with no sex, in addition to the awful treatment, and the first couple’s counselor laying it all out? I really should have walked away then. I should have cut my losses. But… I couldn’t. It was my marriage, y’know? It was my spiritual and ethical responsibility to keep working at it until there were no other options. But then… we got to that place in 2018. And I still couldn’t do the right thing… the right thing for both of us. I mean hell, I experience constant physical pain as it is… what’s constant emotional pain on top of that?

So I’m feeling depressed because a relationship ended. I am depressed because I didn’t end it sooner. And I am depressed because I am still definitely feeling many of the same concerns and fears that prevented me from ending it sooner.