The Day I Finally Said the D Word

Four Years Ago Today

I thought about this when I woke up on this Monday morning — how four years ago today was a Wednesday. And the reason I remember that is because it was the day I told my husband I wanted a divorce.

After 17 years together and using every single tool we could possibly find to try to patch the holes in our sinking ship, I was done. 

There was nothing he’d be able to do this time to convince me otherwise. No matter how hard he tried, it just wasn’t going to work. In fact, I had never really said I wanted a divorce before. I’d asked him to move out a few years ago, but this was the first and only time I used the D word.

Throughout my marriage, I always promised myself that I would only ever say it if I actually meant it. And I was right.

My husband, on the other hand — he threw that word around like it was confetti in almost every fight we got into.

Our wedding was on St. Patrick’s Day 2007, and by July, he told me that all he wanted for his birthday was a divorce.

That was the beginning of what became our years-long tradition of me convincing him not to divorce me every few months or so. It seemed like every summer and fall were the worst, and then we would patch things up for “the holidays” and get our fresh new year start, do some big romantic thing for Valentine’s Day, followed by our anniversary… and then things would start to crumble again.

It seemed like as the temperature got hotter, so did his temper.

I tracked this “seasonal” notion of mine for the last few years we were together — which also happened to be the best years of our marriage, actually.

We went to marriage counseling. He got better at controlling his anger, stopped yelling so much.I started standing up for myself.We both lost weight through gastric sleeve surgery.

It looked as if things were going to work out.

We spent COVID lockdown sipping wine and watching Tiger King, enjoying all of the downtime we’d never really gotten to spend with each other when the world was so busy. We did home improvement projects, went for walks and bike rides with the kids, played video games together — so many video games — and binge-watched shows to our hearts’ content.

This was a far cry from what it would’ve been a few years before, when the verbal and emotional abuse was at its all-time high.Instead, sharing the experience of having weight loss surgery on the same day in 2018 really became a bonding point for us.

We shared food everywhere we went, we could commiserate about how it sucked to not be able to eat as much as we wanted to — and we could also rejoice in the weight loss together.

And then my own personal journey of therapy and coaching solo really helped me in 2019 to see my own part in things — and to be more patient with him (and myself, too).

I was able to start to letting my guard down.I pulled back the one foot that I’d had out the door for years.And I started to once again envision spending my future with him.

That’s why, in the summer of 2020, I took out my IUD so that we could try for a third baby.

He had asked me for the past few years to have another one, and I knew it was his attempt to try to keep us together.So whenever I decided, “OK, fine. I will stay with him. Why not have one more?” — I made the choice to remove my birth control device and let fate decide.

And in a grocery store bathroom in September 2020, I found out that it worked.I was indeed pregnant.

I surprised Jason with a few little baby items in a box that I gave him that afternoon.He seemed so excited — only, not ready to share the news with everyone just yet.

Which was weird, because the first two times he was immediately telling everyone we knew.I’m not sure why this time he did it differently, but whatever it was that made him hold back from sharing the news right away turned out to be right.

Almost as quickly as I found out, I lost it.

It was very, very early — and not physically traumatic.But emotionally… it really sucked.

I know I’d had miscarriages before, but this one just seemed extra cruel.

The baby he had wanted for so long… the one I’d fought to bring into existence… and now I only had it for one momentary glimpse in time.Only a few days before it was confirmed that I was miscarrying.

And a few weeks later, the cruelty continued — when my husband’s emotional and verbal abuse finally turned physical for the first time.

Long story short, we had canceled the trip to see his brother, and the stress of that — plus losing the baby — plus one million other things that were stressful in the fall of 2020, as I’m sure you can imagine, had really piled up on him.

He followed me into the kitchen that morning, and I was excited because I thought he was joining me in my morning routine.Instead, he just wanted to pick a fight.

This new, empowered version of me — who was used to him being less angry and not yelling — clapped back to his comments and told him how I really felt.

Next thing I know he shoved me into the kitchen counter, the cold marble pressed against my back, and as I slid down to the floor, I realize that the future that I wanted was never gonna happen.

That was the day that I knew I could never stay.No matter how much “better” it had been.No matter how much “worse” it used to be.That was my line.And he crossed it.

I am not going to be married to someone who physically hurts me.

If this is who he is after all of the counseling and all of the “change”, then this is not who I wanna be with.

It took a few more months of self-reflection and me reading a copy of ‘untamed’ followed by loads of my own therapy and coaching to be able to get to May 19, 2021 when I actually said the D word…. But I actually did it this time.

I actually chose myself, chose to walk away, knowing how dangerous and difficult it would be. I decided my kids deserved better than to be raised in a home like that.

I knew that we all deserved a calm, peaceful, safe kind of love. I’d journaled and prepared and talked to friends and mentors, carefully choosing what to say to him and how to respond to his questions/concerns/feelings, no matter how rational they were (or weren’t).

“Would you agree to date me again in six months? That’s only fair.” His tear stained eyes searched mine, desperately hoping for some kind of future promise of access to me.

“That’s not fair to either one of us to make that promise. And I’m not divorcing you because I want to date you again in the future.”

Why couldn’t he see that he could be okay without me? Why couldn’t he accept that I loved him I just didn’t want to-COULDN’T- be married to him any longer.

“We are never going to be the people we are meant to be as long as we’re together,” I told him, trying to reiterate that he had a future to look forward to without me in it. One where he could fully be himself and be loved for it, just not by me.

What I really meant to say, was that:

I was never going to be the person I was meant to be as long as we’re together.

And if the last 4 years have taught me anything, I was right. In his absence I’ve become the most like myself I have ever been. I’ve embraced so many truths I was afraid to speak up about while he was around.

I’ve learned to live the skin that I’m in, I’ve grown as a mother because I’m able to be fully myself and speak truthfully to them without him here to sabotage it.

I’m pretty sure he would hate the person I am today. My beliefs, my lifestyle, my relationships and my parenting are so far from what they were while he was alive.

And that was kind of the whole point. In being myself and embracing who I am, I became someone different, someone he wasn’t going to be able to love.

And something else I haven’t talked much about — is this:

That baby I didn’t end up having?

Would’ve been due that same week in May. The very week I told him I wanted a divorce. And just two days later…He took his own life.

Today, four years later, the grief still lives in my body—twisting itself around memories I didn’t ask for and moments I’ll never get back. There’s sorrow for the baby I lost, for the version of me who stayed too long, and even for the man who couldn’t find his way out of his own pain.

But there’s also deep, grounded pride—for the woman I’ve become, for the peace I’ve created, and for the path I carved through fire.

I wrote 23 Ways to Leave for the woman I used to be—for anyone who’s sitting in their car or crying in their closet, whispering “I can’t do this anymore” but not knowing what to do next. It’s not a manual. It’s a map. One that offers compassion instead of pressure, clarity instead of shame, and hope instead of judgment.

Because I know what it’s like to want out—and I also know how brave it is to take the first step toward freedom.

And you can download the first four chapters — completely free — right here:➡️ [23 Ways To Leave - EBook]

Thanks for reading this far, for supporting this journey, and for being there for future you as well. I’m already proud of you.

Love you mean it,

-Mindy