Lessons From 21 Years of Love and Loss

I was with my husband for 21 years. We experienced everything—from incredible passion, deep love, and higher consciousness to betrayal, jealousy, and loss. There was support and compassion, but also manipulation, mistrust, and control.

The loss was unbearable, but in the end, the marriage became clearly irretrievable. Ego and an unwillingness to face the shadow sides of ourselves stood in the way. I could sit here and write all day about covert manipulation and abuse tactics. I could blame him, call him names, or dissect our attachment styles—my disorganised, his anxious-avoidant. I could write a play on the dynamic between a narcissist and a borderline. I could make excuses about childhood trauma and neurodivergence. I could do the work—or not.

For years, I emphasised the need for growth, to change patterns of behaviour and align with something far greater. I used to get so frustrated because no matter how much I argued, protested, or tried to exert control, it still wasn’t working.

It frightened me to lose him. I became jealous and bitter about other women. I resented his different work ethic. No matter what I did, nothing seemed to work. We both hurt, and we stopped growing.

Still, I would rather have stayed in a stagnant relationship than face the truth. And here it is: if you don’t like something, you must accept it, change it, or leave it.

There were parts of us that were never going to change, and I couldn’t accept them. I wasted years trying to force change. In the end, others had to intervene to keep me from returning. I went numb, I lied to him and myself that I no longer wanted it.

I hated myself. I punished myself and destroyed everything I had built. I cut myself off and became a version of myself I never dreamed I’d be. For years, I couldn’t let go or forgive myself. I kept attracting people and situations that mirrored my decay and regret. I had given my whole heart, body, mind, and soul to my husband, and when he left, fragments of me stayed behind.

I hurt him in profound and destructive ways. I was selfish. I wanted more because I couldn’t give him what he needed, and because I was trying to preserve myself. I couldn’t allow myself to have a good life, to feel love again, to be happy or fulfilled.

Our relationship spanned 21 years. For the last seven years, we were separated, living on different continents. We still spoke all the time, until the very end. Slowly, I began piecing things together, realising the person I thought I knew was never truly there.

I don’t know what the truth is, and I guess I never will. All I can offer is my experience, observations, and the logic I’ve wrestled with. I forced myself to stop loving him, to let go of dreams, because the stark truth of his actions and inactions stared me in the face. I tried to ignore it, just as I had for years, but I could no longer. I wish I had respected myself and him sooner.

I wish I had acknowledged earlier that I couldn’t accept what was happening, that I had no power to change it, and that leaving was the healthiest course of action. I once thought jealousy was love, that control was natural, and that fighting meant passion.

But now I realise that jealousy, anger, control, manipulation, and deceit have no place in genuine love. These things may be common, even expected, but they do not belong in a loving environment.

The truth is this: our marriage was built on flimsy foundations of illusion and lies. We tried to build a tower to the sky on top of them, and inevitably it collapsed. When we tried to explore what love truly meant—unbounded, unconditional, out of our control—we were taken to the darkest places within ourselves. But instead of meeting that journey with honesty and trust, we got stuck in ego. That’s why it all came tumbling down.