The Weight We Carry: On Leaving a Marriage No One Could See Was Broken
I never thought divorce was an option for me. I had closed my mind to it completely — even as I endured years of emotional and psychological abuse, even as I felt unseen, unliked, and unloved. The word itself felt like a verdict.
Divorce has long been framed as personal failure. You weren't trying hard enough. You're too demanding, too disagreeable. You're breaking up a family. You're selfish. For those who are religious, it compounds into something heavier still — a moral failure, an affront to God. With all of that weight pressing down, who would ever choose to be the one to walk away? Even when your mind and body are quietly breaking down inside a toxic marriage, the message is clear: stay.
This isn't a new story. For most of history, married women had almost no legal standing — upon marriage, a woman's legal identity was absorbed entirely into her husband's. Divorce was rare, ruinously expensive, and socially devastating. The no-fault divorce revolution spread across the United States in the early 1970s, and in that same decade, women finally gained the right to obtain a credit card without their husband's signature. Progress, yes. But the inequities in employment opportunity and earnings persisted — and persist still today. And so women stayed in abusive marriages, and society rewarded them with the word "selfless." A word that sounds like a virtue, but often describes a woman who has simply lost herself.
There is, however, one reason our society has consistently granted women permission to leave: infidelity. The ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. Women who leave because of a cheating spouse still face whispers — that we weren't meeting his needs, that we somehow failed to hold his interest — but at least the exit feels sanctioned. At least there's a story people can understand.
I thought I had my own version of that card. My husband told me he wanted a "different kind of wife" and that our marriage wasn't sustainable. I believed that gave me something — a reason the world might accept. What I didn't anticipate was his ability to rewrite the story. He later claimed he never used the word "divorce," and the narrative quietly shifted: I was the one leaving him. I was the one to blame. He became the victim, and I became the woman who gave up.
So why do we need an excuse at all?
I've had to sit with that question. The honest answer, for me, is that I didn't have the language to name what was happening in my marriage. I had no framework for emotional and psychological abuse — I only knew that what counted as "real" abuse left visible marks. I kept the toxicity hidden so well that everyone around us believed we were a happy family. I feared my children would blame me for dismantling their lives. I didn't want to explain myself, to justify the private suffering that no one had witnessed. And underneath all of it ran a deeper, more corrosive belief: that my own wellbeing simply wasn't part of the equation.
Even as my physical and mental health deteriorated, I never thought to include myself in the calculus of what our family needed. I had been so thoroughly taught to put myself last that I had forgotten I was allowed to matter.
What I know now is this: you don't need a dramatic, socially approved reason to leave a marriage that is destroying you. Quiet suffering is still suffering. Invisible abuse is still abuse. And staying small to keep the peace is not the same as keeping the family together — it's just keeping yourself silent.
You are allowed to leave. Not because they cheated. Not because they gave you permission. Not because you can prove it to everyone's satisfaction. But because you deserve to live a life that doesn't cost you everything you are.
If this feels like a conversation you’d like to focus on, please reach out. Hard conversations in a safe space can help you feel aware, empowered and also provide a sense of direction.
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