The equation I give friends when they're thinking of leaving their marriage

"What I had been minimising for years, normalising, was much more significant than I allowed  myself to admit."

If you're thinking about leaving, this mum has a maths equation that could help. 

“He just won’t leave, he says it’s his house, too,” a friend once told me.

“You may just need to move out temporarily,” I suggested because it was what I'd had to do a few years before.

You see, this friend was coming to me about her marriage for two reasons other than that we were friends.

I've been divorced for 11 years (six years, back then) and I also used to be a lawyer. I guess that gave me some experience and knowledge. This is why she wasn’t the first friend to come to me for advice when they felt they were at the end of their tether with their relationship.

Straight after I separated from my husband and the father of my son, I noticed that friends and acquaintances began confiding in me about their marriages.

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Nama and her son now. Source: supplied

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They all wanted answers

They felt I’d be able to relate to their problems and even answer some practical questions about divorce logistics. Of course, I ended up becoming somewhat of a counsellor as people shared their problems.

“He wants sex every day and I just can’t do it after three kids,” someone told me. 

“I can’t live like this anymore, we fight about it constantly.”

I’ve been cornered more than once at a social event by people desperately seeking advice.

“I know he’s cheating but I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to be a single mum,” one friend told me with tears in her eyes at a 5th birthday party we were at.

And then there was the mum of one of my son’s classmates, who revealed, “We still have sex once a week because I have needs, but I hate him. He’s a bully. His tantrums after work are horrible and he doesn’t care if the kids see.

“But he’s a good provider. I don’t know what to do.”

And that’s the problem that many of those in miserable – and abusive - marriages face - figuring out how much is too much to live with.

What’s the threshold? What’s the dealbreaker? Do you stay for the kids, the assets, the life you’ve built together over 20 years?

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‘A $20 Target kids’ dress is my most commented on outfit ever'

Sometimes you have to walk away. Source: supplied.

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Do you do that even though your soul is destroyed?

I get it. 

I’ve been through it – I’ve had a miserable end to a marriage. I’ve had the six months leading up to it – and even over the decade before – questioning how I’m being treated, what I’m tolerating, rationalising everything.

This was how I felt for years – I loved him. He was a great gift-giver. Always respectful to my family. A loving dad to the kids he already had. We had a great time together. A great life together.

Did it really matter what happened between us 10 percent of the time? The words said, the things done?

But finally, I realised it did.

In fact, it mattered more than the 90 percent

What I had been minimising to myself for years, normalising, was much more significant than I would allow myself to admit.

So when anyone has come to me when deciding about the end of their marriage, I say this.

"Look at it this way. It might only be 10 percent of the time that you're unhappy but what is happening in that time? What is happening to you during that 10 percent?"

Like me, they may not even realise the significance of that 10 percent because the incidents are fleeting. I understand. You let them go – and most of the time, things are OK. The problem is, chances are, it will eventually catch up with you.

My experience was that over time, the 10 percent becomes increasingly more burdensome and insufferable because each incidence chips away at your happiness, confidence, and trust in the other person.

Until nothing is left.

For a long time, I pushed aside the fact there's no such thing as acceptable "sometimes" abusive behaviours. That it is possible to live a life without being confronted with it in your own home on a daily basis.

Some of the people I’ve spoken to decide there is too much at stake, and the 10 percent is the price to pay. Some people can work on it, and try to fix their marriage. 

I did both.

But eventually, I decided that spending 10 percent of the time living like that was not really living at all.

Originally published as The equation I give friends when they're thinking of leaving their marriage