Now that the divorce is behind me, I’ve noticed that there are habits that I need to unlearn.

Habit 1: No buts.

I have become irrationally averse to the word “but”. Ever since Eric said that me saying “yes but” (rather than “yes and”) was a major issue, I fixated on that. I had something concrete, something I could work on! And now I am watching my language all the time, getting anxious whenever I use the word “but”. I rephrase my emails when I see the word. I know it’s ridiculous, but it makes me anxious.

Habit 2: No opinions.

I was conditioned to think that if you love someone, then you don’t voice a different opinion unless your opinion is explicitly asked for.

I stopped voicing opinions. Then I stopped having opinions. One day I realised I didn’t even know if I actually didn’t have an opinion about a question, or had trained myself to suppress it, because it would only lead to hurt.

Adrian has called me out – “well, what if it was just you, what would you choose?” and I am pushing myself to have opinions.

Habit 3: Follow.

If you love someone, you walk half a step behind them. Me walking half a step ahead of him was me “being controlling” and “always needing to set the pace”. I learned to never do that, so now I can’t even walk side-by-side with a friend or colleague; I reflexively hang half a step behind, which makes things awkward.

Habit 4: Books.

There are books I have never dared to read because he admires them. I didn’t dare read them, because I knew that I would for sure not be as enamoured as he was. And he was sure to ask for my opinion afterwards, and I can’t lie and and say I loved the book when I didn’t. So it was safest to just not read them.

Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens was one example. Once he shared some section of the book because it related to what Ingrid was studying in history at school. I was not entirely impressed. I didn’t even say anything particularly harsh, didn’t claim that the author was wrong or stupid, just “that seems a bit simplistic, I’m not sure I agree all the way.” He immediately started defending the book: “Well, that was just a short section!” and sounded hurt. It was very telling, looking back – a mild critique of a small part of something got interpreted as a total rejection of the whole thing, and since he liked the whole thing, he identified himself with it, so a rejection of the thing was a rejection of him.

I can now read books that he likes, and maybe manage it without getting anxious about his reaction to my opinions. Although some, such as Sapiens, are probably tainted forever.

If I ever consider another romantic relationship, then three things must hold true.

We must both see the other as equal, from the start.

We must agree on some fundamental philosophical truths.

They must have a healthy self-esteem that can stand on its own without constant external support.

They must be emotionally mature, aware of themselves, able to give and take feedback and have difficult conversations.

At one point I had a moment of insight.

If everything I do, and all the love I give, is mistrusted and rejected, why should I continue to give?

I am not going to beg him to please accept my love if he doesn’t want it, or is unable to accept it.

I’ve been trying for years to make him see me for real. If I haven’t succeeded by now, then I never will. If by the age of fifty he hasn’t reached the kind of emotional maturity I need from a partner, then he never will.

I don’t want to waste the rest of my life banging my head bloody against this wall.

I learned about the self-expansion model of relationships from Ingrid’s high school psychology course materials. (I haven’t read up any more on it since then, so this is an extremely simplified version.) Very briefly, this model says that we seek out relationships with other people so that we can expand our own selves, through acquiring new experiences, capabilities and knowledge. This model immediately struck me as very relevant to my life.

I want to experience new things. I want to see new places, or old places in new ways. I want to experience new music, art, food, nature. I want to try new things within my hobbies. I’m not an extreme novelty-seeker, and the new experiences don’t need to be exotic or extreme, but it is important to me to experience the world.

He and I used to do so many things together, especially before the kids – concerts, movies, museums, walks, road trips. Then he stopped.

I took all the initiative, and even then he rarely joined. I did more and more on my own. Concerts, walks, restaurants. His life was work + home + screens.

I want to experience the world for real, not just read about it on screens. I want my relationships to enrich my life. Not only that, of course, but that is an important part of relationships.

I want to share experiences, to experience things together, and then later remember them together.

If I’m doing everything on my own anyway, and he only expresses polite interest afterwards, what is the point? Do we even have a relationship, or do we just happen to exist near each other?

I wonder if he even liked me. It was pretty clear that towards the end he didn’t like spending time with me. Whenever I asked if he wanted to join me for [whatever] the answer was almost invariably “no”.

We used to have fun together, ages ago. I naïvely lived in the dream that we could still have that if we made a bit of an effort.

I remember our 12th (?) wedding anniversary. I’m not sure about the exact year, but Adrian could speak clearly enough that he could be understood by others than us, and could thus be left with others. I had arranged for my mum to babysit, so we could have a date night. Eric came home after work and I told him that we could go out, just the two of us, thinking that it would be a positive surprise. He said something like “unless you have an actual plan, I’d rather not”.

I covered up my hurt. “Of course I have a plan,” I told him, because I did. I had a restaurant booking and everything. Looking back after the fact, I couldn’t help thinking that his response showed how much he valued spending time with me. I didn’t make any more attempts at an obvious date night after that.

It was always me buying flowers for our anniversaries. It was always me finding things for us to do together. Ballet evenings were the exception, he made those happen. But for him the ballet was the important part and I was also there, rather than the opposite. When we did go out for a concert or something, he switched to reading his work email as soon as we got on the train home. I was just… also there, in the background.

When the kids were old enough to be safely left to their own devices for longer stretches of time, I suggested a few times that we could set aside a regular time for just us. Something low-key, like a Sunday afternoon fika, to just talk. He wasn’t interested at all.

When we were discussing divorce, he claimed that we never focused on our relationship and the kids were always the focus. Well, speak for yourself.

Our relationship was unequal from the start.

When we met, I was 19 and he was 27. He had about ten times more experience of adult life than I did.

I was mature for my age, taking more responsibility than most people my age, and was generally not impressed by boys my age. I liked that he was more mature than them.

(Looking back, I can’t help but wonder what he saw from his side. What could a twenty-seven-year-old see in a teenager?)

He took on the role of “the authority”, and at the time that worked out well for both of us. It was nice to live with someone who had all kinds of life skills that I hadn’t had time to acquire yet.

Over time, though, it became an unhealthy dynamic. Or maybe it was unhealthy from the start? In any case, this initial dynamic set the tone for our relationship forever. Him expecting to be the authority, whom I am expected to look up to.

The thing is, I have learned and I have grown. Grown past him in some areas. I no longer want to be the subordinate partner.

I’m guessing that this is why our relationship worked in the past but no longer does: that unbalanced relationship fit his needs, and it doesn’t fit mine. Hasn’t done so for years now.

I don’t want to make myself small to fit into the relationship.