The Year I Stood Between Us
From The Healing Series
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How I stopped pulling her forward and started standing in my truth
In June 2020, I had an epiphany.
Not a breakdown. Not a confrontation. Not a loud, crashing moment.
A quiet, steady truth that landed like a weight on my chest and stayed:
“I am done with this version of our marriage.”
That didn’t mean I was leaving.
I didn’t want to leave.
I wanted to stay—but in my wholeness.
I wanted to build something new—together.
But I knew I couldn’t keep building alone.
By that point, I had been doing 13 years of deep work. Therapy. Reflection. Growth.
And while I was changing, the relationship wasn’t.
The gap between us was growing—and I was the only one stretching.
I made a choice that day.
I chose not to pull anymore.
Not to beg. Not to buffer.
Not to contort myself to make the marriage feel functional.
Instead, I chose:
To protect my daughters from the emotional volatility they were absorbing
To protect myself from the pain I kept tolerating
To create a space where we could all thrive—whether together or apart
I stayed.
I stayed in the house. I stayed in the work. I stayed near.
But I also stood apart.
Rooted in truth.
Rooted in boundaries.
Rooted in a version of myself I refused to lose again.
It took almost exactly one year before I told her we were separating.
A full year of watching. Waiting. Witnessing.
Hoping she’d meet me in the work.
Hoping she’d rise too.
She didn’t.
And when she did change, it wasn’t in a direction I could follow.
She wasn’t becoming someone I could build a future with—
She was becoming someone I couldn’t stay beside.
The years that followed were hard.
Three years of separation.
Three years of grieving what never was.
Three years of reclaiming what I almost gave up to stay.
But something sacred happened in that space:
I stopped living on the edge of someone else’s choices.
I stopped building a life around someone else’s refusal to grow.And I became a man I’m proud to be—
not because I left,
but because I finally stayed with myself.
This is what standing between looks like.
Not blaming.
Not abandoning.
Not rescuing.
But standing.
Rooted.
Present.
Clear.
Because the space between who we were and who we’re becoming—
that space is holy.
And sometimes, standing alone in that space is the most loving thing we can ever do.
NEXT - I’m Allowed to Take Up Space
I used to think smallness kept me safe. Now I live in my full presence.
