Now while this feeling of relief and clarity may not last, I had a sort of epiphany tonight after listening to the Separation Roadmap - 4 Stages Between Marriage & Divorce podcast on Spotify (the host has a website as well called Husband Help Haven - promise I’m not a shill).

I’ve been struggling immensely in dealing with my separation. My wife kicked me out of the house two and a half months ago due to controlling and jealous actions on my part, culminating in emotionally abusive outbursts and threats on my end.

I spent the first month/month and a half pleading her to come back, still caught up in jealousy, and overall going from depression to anger to denial, all while struggling to moderate my hope and expectations for the future. We have a young child that I’ve painfully distanced myself from (not entirely, mind you) in order to make her feel the pain of being alone even further.

I received a ton of good advice that I was able to heed at times and forget at others. I found a support group of friends and family that was genuinely there for me and encountered empathy even from strangers. This podcast, however, really spoke to me in terms of what I needed to hear in this moment. Some of the things that stood out to me from the first three episodes:

  • Focus only on what you can control. Begging and pleading against a storm will lead nowhere. What’s happened has happened and there’s no stopping it or going back.
  • Focus on improving yourself as a man. Not so you can convince her to take you back, but so you can become a better person and - no matter the outcome - you can look back at this time a few years down the road and be proud of who you became during this phase.
  • Working on yourself only to convince her you’ve changed will mean you will CRUMBLE when she eventually rejects you.
  • There’s no point in holding finances, children, or potential hardships over her head to convince her to come back. She already knows the cost of divorce and has decided that it may very well be worth it.
  • Love cannot be forced. It has to come back and reform organically.

There are some other valuable lessons in there but this is what really spoke to me tonight and gave me hope, not for the relationship or this trial separation, but for myself. We recently started marriage counseling and this has shifted what my “approach” would have been during our next appointment.

I hope this sort of stuff can help someone else in my situation.