Divorce Diaries
Leaving My Marriage Had Less Bombs Than I Imagined
Throwing a Bomb On It All
It was October 2022 and I knew I needed to leave my marriage. It was a knowing so deep and so painful, I didn’t even know how to start whatever was the next step. Writing this now, over 2 years after this truth clung to my bones and wouldn’t let go, I can make sense of the initial pain and realization. I thought the process of blowing up my life would be a lot different than how it has turned out.
I say “blowing up” because that’s exactly what I imagined I had to do. I thought I would be dropping an atomic bomb on everything I had known, built and loved up to that point. Not just my marriage, but the beautiful friendship we had before we even got married. Because that’s what bombs do, they destroy. They annihilate everything in its path. There is no precision. Nothing is spared. The wreckage is complete and only black scars are left behind.
This is what I thought would happen to my life. My kids. My security. My sense of home. My very identity. My entire life I was told my one true purpose and key to living with God for eternity was to really nail this whole wife and mother role. Of course by 2022, I didn’t believe that anymore (I had deconstructed Mormonism years prior) but that didn’t mean the framework and skeletal structure of my life wasn’t built on this idea, and I had no clue how my life might look without it.
I had made every major decision my entire life through the lens of Mormonism. Now I was no longer a believer, and soon I would no longer be someone’s wife. Who even was I? The idea of divorce was so scary. The unknown.
Who would also be harmed when I hit that red launch button on my bomb?
But I can tell you now, it wasn’t a bomb.
A New Garden
When I took that first initial step, I realized this process is going to be what I make it. I didn’t want to nuke everything lovely and beautiful and real from these 20 years of my life. Of course I had no control over how my ex-husband would handle his side of the street, but I knew on my side, I didn’t want to explode it all and let shrapnel land amidst the chaos.
My process of leaving my marriage, and reconciling my choices and protecting my children in the process wasn’t a bomb, it felt more like tearing down a garden, and planting a new one in its place.
My old garden was lovely. I cherished so many things about it. But there were also so many things I knew I couldn’t tolerate and the essence of my soul would not survive if I kept tending to it. So I pruned, and weeded, and burned a few things.
I kept a few seeds of memories I knew were real and genuine. But also, the tree of our family. Our four kids. I knew that would stay rooted. I wanted to give them a sense of security and home, even though it would be very different from what it was. And the twenty years I spent with this man were not always full of reasons to start over. I wanted to honor that. It was a long and painful process to figure out what was what that I did mostly alone.
I say mostly, because no one should experience such gut wrenching loss alone. I went to therapy. I leaned on dear friends. But for the most part, it was me, in my garden, pulling old plants and deciding which new ones to grow.
Protecting My Children
These four shining children of mine. There was no need for them to experience a bomb blast. Could I save them from heartache altogether? Of course not. That was a hard day. The moment we told them we were getting divorced, and I witnessed the heartbreak in real time. It was unbearable. But also unavoidable.
But from that moment on, I could show them I was not throwing away our entire garden that they had grown up in. Mom was simply starting her own, and of course she would keep and carry over some of the proverbial family plants we had all come to know and love. And the roots of who they were? Those would stay firmly planted.
Honoring What Was And Still Starting Over
I knew I couldn’t blow it all up, leaving a scorched earth that needed years to recover. I saw a way I could leave, separate, get divorced, protect my peace, protect my security, protect my children and their sense of self, and honor the life I had lived for 20 years without a blast.
No explosions. But I did have quiet, moonlit fires by myself. Quietly mourning the flowers and plants I wouldn’t see in spring. Burning the invasive growth that had sprung up the last few years from no attention being paid to the toxicity that was growing. That I burned.
It was these dark, quiet moments where I shed the most tears. Mourned the deepest. But every gardener knows that getting rid of what isn’t working in your garden is just as important as the flowers you want to thrive. A few close friends and family were sometimes witness to these intimate fires and pain. I’ll be forever grateful for their sentry.
In the end, I wanted to thrive. I wanted to honor the roots of where it all started. I knew I could do both. So it wasn’t a bomb. It wasn’t easy and some days I really did want to chuck a grenade and walk away slow motion style like you see in the movies. But my heart was telling me to be patient with myself and the process. I had learned to trust my intuition a little deeper in the process of leaving my faith and finding a new path to spirituality. Forging my own road wasn’t completely unfamiliar.
I also knew it would be a waste of time and energy to try to understand or manage how others make their own road. My former partner and husband was experiencing the very same loss, but we didn’t have the very same approach to forging a new life. He had his way. I had mine. This would also be challenging, but necessary to embrace for my own growth.
The only truth I clung to was our origins sprung from deep and lovely roots, and for me, it was ok to keep those anchored. It’s not the type of roots I rely on for the rest of my garden to grow, but more like a memoriam and a remembering that it’s ok to change. It’s ok to leave a situation, institution, relationship that is just not working for your highest good anymore.
New Growth
You can start a new garden and you can also keep that one lovely tree standing from your old one. I realized that my kids might need that tree from time to time. They might need to sit under its shade and feel relief when things get too hot, or maybe the leaves that turn golden every fall are a lovely reminder that they were all created in love.
I already have new growth in my new garden. This very essay you’re reading and the fact that you’ve subscribed to hear more is proof of that. I have only just begun to shape my new life.
But that proverbial tree you’ll see in the vestiges of my family life, the one that’s full of shade in the summer and golden in the fall, in the same plot of land as the new blossoms you’ll see in the coming years, let it be a beautiful reminder that your life, your garden, your choices are yours alone and you can make your own backyard into anything you want.
Beautiful gardens take time. And bombs, my dear reader, are rarely the answer.
I love this piece. As a divorced mom, with two children, this sentence resonates so much with me: Could I save them from heartache altogether? And you're right, of course not. Good luck with your beautiful garden - just subscribed!
Kara, this touched a nerve I didn’t expect. I divorced in 2018, and back then I too braced for a full detonation—my own version of scorched earth. What I found instead was something quieter, more complex. It wasn’t a bomb, but a series of small, necessary goodbyes. Like you, I sifted through memories, grief, and identity loss with care, trying to salvage what still had roots while letting the rest return to soil.
The metaphor of the garden resonated deeply. I didn't think of it that way at the time, but looking back, I was also replanting. Some of the seeds came from pain, others from resilience I didn’t know I had. The tree—the shared love for our daughter—is still there, steady and true. Thank you for writing this. It reminded me that the soft, slow work of healing is just as valid as any grand escape.