Happily Ever After

20 years ago I was in a not so great marriage.

One night, laying in bed I stayed up crying.

“How is this my happily ever after?”

I was embarrassed for the little girl inside of me who was stuck in a dead end relationship.

She deserved so much more. But I was also scared.

I didn’t want to be a 32 year old divorced person.

The next morning I called my sister to tell her this.

She asked:

Do you want to be a 42 year old divorced person? Or a 52 year old divorced person or a 62 year old divorced person?

See. The truth is that marriage would have come to an end eventually.

I felt stuck because I was afraid of the future.

Looking back, while I didn’t know how I’d feel at 52 for having been divorced, I was mostly scared of uncertainty.

But here’s the kicker.

Being scared of uncertainty makes sense except there was also a certainty I knew:

I was not happy in that marriage.

A kid wouldn’t solve it.

A new home wouldn’t solve it.

Traveling the world wouldn’t solve it.

So if you are stuck in a stage of life and you don’t want to leave a bad situation behind because you are afraid of the unknown, ask yourself:

What about the certainty that your current situation is not where you want to be in 20 years?

I would have never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that this would be my life 20 years after that miserable night, but I promise you had I stayed one more week I would have convinced myself to keep trying.

Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith for our own happiness.

He was NEVER going to ask:

Are you unhappy? Would you like to leave for a better tomorrow?

I had to ask that question.

I’m sharing this with you all to know that if you’re stuck in an unhappy situation that does not serve you, and you have given it your all, sometimes the key to happiness is to walk away.

You have to have the courage to use that key to get out.

No one will give you the permission to do that.