The Night I Had to Choose: My Marriage or Myself

💌🌀The choice between myself and losing my marriage, or my marriage and losing myself. 🌀💌

The night I sat on the sand screaming at the open mouth of the ocean, the fog was thick and hung a scent of public restroom in the air. Normally a cause for relocation, I surprisingly stayed put, planted in my confusion and feeling of helplessness.

Confirming no one else was around I let out a deep, hoarse yell. The healing kind.

My husband and I had just stormed off from each other after one of the biggest fights in our 10 years of marriage.

Up until this point, John and I would keep our big feelings locked tight. Little leaks here and there, of course, but for the most part, we moved in silence with our big feelings. Neither of us were really taught how to express, mostly how to avoid.

We’ve managed to unpack the inner workings of this patterned behavior since this day of the big fight five years ago, but the melting pot of marriage at 20 years old, before we had time to really discover who we were and what we believe, was really starting to bubble up and cause friction.

Staying hidden was no longer an option.

As a child I lurked around a lot. Wandering outside for hours alone in the ditch behind the house, you start getting creative with ways to hide from the scary neighbor next door and the confusion of plunging into a world of darkness and unknowns with no user manual. The only real instructions I had were to avoid curiosities and those natural impulses that could cause me to sin.

I really didn’t want to burn up in Hell or get left behind with nothing but terror and the clothes my loved ones left behind when they ascended to Heaven.

I made sure I was the good kid—the easy one—the one who stayed quiet and didn’t cause much of a fuss. Not because I was scared of my parent’s, they’re great people! I was like most kids, I didn’t want to cause disappointment and the fear of Hell was real in our household…a natural byproduct of the strict, religious belief system that was taught in the home.

Out of sight most of the time, I developed a keen eye for noticing patterns and behavior of neighbors walking by, overhearing discussions, putting pieces together about what might be going on behind closed doors.

I didn’t talk much. I was shy and incredibly perceptive. I attribute that to my years of hiding, watching and observing.

Unfortunately, I carried this survival-instinct-turned-behavior into my marriage.

Always waiting and watching for any micro movement or shift in tone that I could analyze and calculate how I should respond.

Should according to what? And who?

But that strategy started to crack and crumble beneath my feet when I started questioning…everything.

The big, scary word that sent a quake through my entire Christian family and no doubt had my name ending up on prayer chain emails all over churches in Southern California.

Pastors wife.

Worship leader.

Daughter of two leaders in the church.

John and I met when we were both in Bible school in the heart of downtown Chicago when we were 18. 2007: The Age of Innocence I call it.

The city was new and big and I knew no one, but that wasn’t intimidating to the girl who’d spent most of her childhood and life thus far hiding from the people closest to her, right under their noses.

Growing up in the nineties, all us millennials and Gen X kids were raised by the cul-de-sacs and guided home by the glow of dawn, so I was well versed in being alone.

In fact I was thrilled at the idea of starting from scratch, far away from anyone who knew me.

John and I started dating at 19, and four months after we sat my parents down and told them we wanted to get married.

Wild.

We really did love each other…but our purity and innocence was, unknowingly, stronger than anything else.

My parent’s reaaally liked John though—he’s one of those rare catches and was very “strong in his faith”. My parent’s loved that. Knew he’d be a great leader for their daughter who they always seemed to worry about.

We were married just after my 21st birthday and our wedding night was the first night either of us had had sex. Yep. No test drives here! We were serious Christians…or at least John was. I just simply hadn’t dedicated any time to what I really thought.

It was just all I knew.

I’ll spare you the awkward details of our first night together, but let’s just say we were fumbling around with this new form of intimacy in the same way we’d spend the first 10 years of our marriage—lots of awkwardness and unspoken needs and feelings.

So as I sat on the beach that night, the waves in me building and swelling, I felt completely toppled by all of this. We had just brought our beautiful son into the world and I was beginning to discover my true thoughts and feelings about Jesus, religion, spirituality and what I believed.

Not what I was taught to believe.

What I searched and cried out for in all those sleepless, broken nights of early postpartum.

I was still attending church, still a pastor’s wife—hiding inside the woman I’d unknowingly become and the walls of the mega church we attended.

Everything in me felt lost and I just wanted to scream out anytime I sat in church.

I knew I didn’t belong in this place, in these beliefs anymore, but I felt totally stuck.

Married to a good man, the man I love, but we were drifting apart, fast.

I brought up how I felt called to try psychedelics. It would help with the confusion and the depression slump I’d been in since becoming a mother…I felt really called to trying it out in an assisted, therapeutic type of way. Not in a party type of way.

This is what started the big fight.

John was afraid I’d change and it was definitely off limits for Christians to try this sort of thing. But I wasn’t a Christian anymore, just pretending to be on Sundays.

More sadness and disappointment led to anger and confusion.

But I knew my soul was calling me to try it out so I kept at the conversation.

It was clear there was no budging. Was this my life?

Pressing on, alone, questioning my beliefs and pursuing truth, authenticity felt like a death sentence to my marriage, but I knew I’d never be whole without it.

I didn’t want to be fragmented pieces held together behind hidden thoughts and feelings for my son anymore.

It was time.

I could either choose myself and lose my marriage to an amazing man and father…or choose my marriage and lose myself.

This night on the beach wasn’t just about me wanting to do psychedelics.

I was taking the first steps toward discovering who I really am. Setting out on the journey my soul had imprinted on my life since before I entered physical form.

I made up my mind that night that someway, somehow, I was going to do psychedelic therapy and no one had to know about it. I definitely couldn’t tell John about it! Yet.

This was the first act of pursuing what I knew and felt to be true and I was on a mission to get there, even if that meant alone. A representation of the steps I’d been taking up until this point, and that I was yet to take in living in truth.

Deep down I knew I was embarking down a road that would lead me further and further from the person who met her husband at Bible school and I wasn’t sure if John would be coming with me.

I was hoping he would. Praying he would. But I felt inside the weight of going up against the impossible.

John was really Christian at the time. He was one of the very dedicated ones.

Keyword: was.

Not to spoil the ending, but John and I are still together. We’ll be celebrating 15 years next month. Five years after the night I sat on the edge of what I thought would end my marriage and we are now more connected, deeper in love and aligned than ever. Ever before.

The past five years have been equal parts excruciating and miraculous.

And as grueling as the journey of self-discovery is—especially when it brings you further apart from the ones you love the most—I can say, with my voice stronger than ever before, it’s so much better than hiding.

I’ve replaced the fear I lived with of letting other people down and I’m now pulled forward by the lingering taste of what life feels like when it’s not lived in authenticity.

I’m free.

For the deeply curious, check out John’s Substack here. He’s now a writer.

The topic?

His journey of understanding truth and spirituality after leaving Christianity behind.

His book shares his miraculous deconstruction journey in detail.

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