I never realized how much power my husband had over me until we began our divorce.

I started to understand that he was like a “God” to me.

I believed that if I made my God happy… I would be rewarded. If I made my God angry… I would be punished.

I had put him up on a pedestal and because of this, I could not look at things clearly during our divorce.

My perception of what he was had caused my thinking to become skewed and clouded.

I started to believe that he had not been at fault in any way. I started doubting his part in the downfall of our marriage.

It didn’t seem to matter that he had become unwilling to work on our relationship…

that he had moved out and left me with our children…

that his behavior towards me after our separation had been “less than kind.”

I couldn’t seem to remember how bad things had been before our break-up.

I started to believe that if I had behaved differently, none of this would have happened…

If I had worked harder, initiated counseling sooner, given him more space, anything, we would still be together and things would be fine.

People outside of our marriage, who were close to us, couldn’t understand where I was coming from.

Friends who were mutual to us kept reminding me of everything that had gone wrong.

No one can truly know for sure what transpires between two people in a relationship except for those two people, but often, people outside of the emotional turmoil can lead a “clearer” perspective.

They kept asking me, “Why do you take every word he says as the gospel truth?”

“Why do you give him so much power over you?”

“Have you forgotten that he has a part in this? Have you forgotten that?”

I started to see that we both had contributed to the downfall of our marriage and that a lot of my part in it had been putting my husband in the position of my Higher Power.

I had sacrificed myself believing it would make him happy and when it didn’t… I felt betrayed and used.

I had made him into a punishing God and I bought into believing that I should be punished.

I allowed him to punish me but now, I didn’t want to be punished anymore.

I had to remind myself that I did the best that I could in our relationship.

I had to remind myself that I had been willing to work on our relationship up until the day he said that he was unwilling.

I had to remember that I had allowed myself to believe that by worshipping his needs that I would be loved and cared for in return.

Putting my husband in a the position of Higher Power over my life had left me feeling powerless.

I had to look to a new Higher Power, one that was not human, one that could lift me spiritually and protect me from harm:

A kind and loving Higher Power instead of a punishing, benevolent, human one.

“Dear God, help me to walk with you. Help me to see that we are all equals on this Earth. No man or woman has power over another.”