There Are Many Things I Miss About Being Married

It has been three months since my husband did an about-face and refused to continue marriage counseling. Since he told me I was the cause of all his problems. Three months since the last time we slept in the same bed, or shared a kiss, or touched each other at all.

It has been two months since I removed my wedding band and burned the vision board we created to guide us through this year. It has been a month since the night he didn’t come home because he was with another woman. It has been two weeks since I moved out of our home and into my own.

All of these events are relatively recent, and sometimes it’s still hard to believe that so much has happened so quickly. Only five months ago we were in Mexico for my birthday with a group of friends. Only eight months ago we were in Switzerland eating way too much cheese and chocolate.

It has been nearly nineteen years since I last considered myself single. It has been nearly eighteen years since my husband and I recited our vows to each other on a beautiful spring day with the Ohio River flowing in the background. We have been parents together for seventeen years. Years of history and habit do not disappear overnight. I have no idea how long it will take before we untangle all the threads that have been woven into the fabric of our lives together. We will likely never be completely free.

But yesterday I read an article on Medium that changed my perspective on what I have and haven’t lost with the end of my relationship. In What is Enough, Ross McCammon asks some simple questions that are surprisingly revealing about our perceived and true priorities. Questions that I needed to ask myself about my former marriage. Questions that I assumed I knew the answer to, but actually didn’t.

What do I miss? What don’t I miss? And why?

I have spent much time mulling over what went wrong with my relationship. I have dissected conversations in my mind, talked to my friends until I’m sick of hearing myself, and looked for clues in the recent and far-flung past. I have asked myself and others all kinds of questions. What could we have done differently? What could I have done to make it work? Why the hell didn’t I leave years ago?

But until yesterday, I had not yet asked myself what I missed about being married to my husband. I hadn’t asked myself what specifically was missing now that I truly needed. What did I need to feel complete?

As it turns out, I miss many things about being married. I miss the quiet confidence of knowing that someone loves me above all others, that I belong in one particular set of arms. I miss having a confidante there for me when I want to share good news, when I want to make plans, when I need a shoulder to cry on. I miss the ease of always having a date for a party, of always having someone to help me fasten my necklace or zip up my dress. I miss having a regular sex partner. I miss having sex period. I miss having someone who knows my body nearly as well as I know it myself. I miss spooning on weekend mornings before the kids wake us. I miss living in the same house with my kids day in and day out.

I miss having someone to help with the house, change the furnace filter, and mow the yard. I miss the slight pressure of my wedding band against my finger. I miss the feel of my husband’s slightly calloused hand in mine. I miss the feel of his hair right after a haircut.

But with everything that I do miss about my marriage, there is one thing I do not miss. I do not miss my husband.

That is to say, I do not spend days wishing I could see him. I do not make excuses to call him so that I can hear his voice. I do not stalk his social media feeds or drive past the house we used to share. I do not daydream about getting back together or imagine a scenario in which we might work out our differences. I do not pine for him. I do not specifically miss my husband as the individual he is, because long ago, I stopped seeing him as the man I loved more than anything in the world. Somewhere along the way, he morphed into my husband and not much else.

He became an idea, a comfort, a helper, a hindrance, a child, a project, an antagonist, and eventually, a lost cause. And when that happened, he stopped being someone real and became more of a caricature of a husband. He became someone that I could get over easily. He stopped being someone that I could miss.

Maybe it happened when our oldest daughter was born and became the focus of my life. Maybe it happened when he stopped caring about my opinion or stopped respecting my wishes. Maybe it happened slowly, after years of being left alone at night while he went out drinking to ease a pain that he had no words to explain. Maybe it happened when we stopped turning to each other in times of need, or when we both thought we knew what was best for the other.

Maybe it happened before we even met, during a break-up so hard for me, that I was determined never to need anyone like that again. What matters now is that I know. And by knowing what I do and don’t miss from my marriage, I know what I need and don’t need from a relationship.

I don’t need my husband, but I do need companionship. I don’t need perfection, just a willingness to keep trying. I don’t need financial support but I do need emotional support. I don’t need someone by my side 24/7, but I do need someone who is happy to spend weekends and holidays with me. I don’t need big gestures or extravagant trips, but rather the shared silence of mutual respect and contentment.

Knowing that I don’t miss my husband allows me to let go of the dream of what might have been. It allows me to let go of my anger toward him for giving up on us and our family. It frees my mind and allows me to re-imagine my future. Knowing that I don’t miss my husband eliminates the need for me to replay our last months together over and over again in my mind trying to find the very moment it ended, or the moment we still could have saved it. It eliminates my desire to make him pay for what he has done. Because he hasn’t really done anything at all to me. I’m fine.

It’s sort of like that tree in the forest riddle. If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a person leaves and no one misses them, was there ever even a relationship at all? Or were we just fooling ourselves? Did we just take an instant physical attraction and ride it out for far too long?

No, I don’t miss my husband and I don’t care whether or not he misses me. In fact, for his sake and the sake of our children, I hope he doesn’t. That would make it so much easier for us both to move past this point into our new normal, and find the people, the places, and the activities that we truly cannot live without.