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If I had left my husband when I thought I wanted to, I would have missed a unique opportunity to learn about myself through the mirror of my partner.

I’d have not grown in awareness. I’d have not become who I am today.

It is popular to end a relationship when you are unhappy. I used to think so, too.

Today, I find that many people leave their relationships too soon and do not take advantage of the lessons that could be learned from their partner and the relationship.

I also believe that we attract exactly the partners we need to get to the next level of self-awareness, to see the discarded parts of ourselves, to access our power through self-discovery.

We are coming up on the season of end-of-year holidays, a time of notoriously high pressure for relationships.

Statistically, January is considered the peak month for divorce filings, which is why this period is sometimes called “Divorce Season.”
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The pressure of the holidays, the stress of overstretched finances, and being with family in concentrated bursts can drive people to breaking points.

I remember years ago sitting at the table during New Year’s celebration in a chic restaurant in Vienna, crying.
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My husband and girls were dressed up, like the rest of the family and other guests, as the occasion dictated. The fact of dressing up made the girls behave differently, more appropriate to the event and the setting. They were already playing the game: such polite and well-behaved young ladies.
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I barely looked at myself in the mirror before we went out. I couldn’t hide my misery. I couldn’t stop crying. I no longer cared what I looked like or who would say what. Maybe it was my way of rebelling against my own life.
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I felt so disconnected from everyone. I hated that my husband was pretending and smiling and chatting as if he were perfectly happy. I just could no longer pretend. Even for the girls’ sake.
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Looking around at the social scene bubbling around me, champagne glasses clicking, exaggerated laughter, music, I couldn’t understand how I could continue living among this fakery for the rest of my life.
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I wanted to scream something hurtful, call people ugly names, throw an elegant glass filled with expensive liquid against a wall—something, anything, to force them to interrupt their merriment and notice me, notice my pain.
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That was years ago, a time when I still viewed others and their behavior as responsible for my pain. I thought if I could only make them see what I see, view life from my perspective, they’d want to change too, so I could feel more understood, more seen.
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But family and friends held on to their own reality, as they have the right to do. I continued feeling unseen and unheard, and wanted to leave—this man, this family, this society, this life.

I did not know then that wherever I go, I bring myself and my patterns with me.

I also did not know that I was responsible for my unhappiness (and my happiness) and the only one who needed to change perspective and wake up was me.
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I’ve come a long way.

By cleaning house in my own consciousness, healing my attachment wounds, learning that I am the one my inner child needed to be seen and understood, I have completely transformed how I experience myself, my life, and my relationships.

If you want to end your relationship because you think you have fallen out of love or passion, found someone new who looks better, do not like the patterns that showed up once the honeymoon period was over and reality set in, do not like some of your partner’s traits, married too young, or just feel like you made the wrong choice—I understand you.​
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​And: I invite you to reconsider.

Many people want a divorce to get away from their partner, believing that their problems will disappear. Many people who have chosen divorce and remarried, find it did not solve all their problems.

As stated in an article in Forbes in October of this year, second and third marriages far surpass the 43-percent divorce rate of first marriages: 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce, while 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce.

Rather than escape in a divorce, we can learn to transform the relationship we are already in, that is assuming it is not physically abusive or destroying your spirit.

After considering growing within your relationship, if you decide to leave, you will do it with awareness and from a place of completion, not avoidance. Once you build awareness and heal a lot of your own issues, you can better evaluate the choices you have.

As I always say, relationships are laboratories for growth—the perfect environment in which to learn about yourself, to heal, and to grow in awareness.

Divorce may either be an escape from an unpleasant situation or a successful completion of relationship with a partner where the two of you have gone as far as you can in learning lessons together.

Then you will truly have the power of choice. You can either move out of the relationship, confident that you will not repeat the destructive patterns you experienced when you were unaware, or you can stay in the relationship, transforming it as it unfolds to new and different horizons.
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I personally am still learning about myself with and through my husband.

For me staying has become a creative process to heal my past, to gain in emotional maturity and wisdom, and to self-actualize.

By staying, I completely transformed my life.

If you feel badly that you may have left a relationship prematurely in the past to get away from confronting your problems and fears, know that we always do our best with the level of our awareness.

It serves no purpose to regret the past. You have plenty of opportunities to face your fears and problems in the present, as they will surely show up again and again, until metabolized. Issues and patterns of thinking and behaving that we’ve avoided in the past will continue repeating, whether with different people or your own ex, especially if you co-parent.

You cannot have a fulfilling relationship with anyone else if you do not have a fulfilling relationship with yourself.

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