Divorce at 60…

Divorce was the most painful, gut-wrenching chapter of my life. It was not something I wanted, not something I ever dreamed of. At the time, it felt like failure. It felt like shame. I would never wish that period of my life on anyone.

And yet, with the clarity of hindsight and the grace of healing, I can say this with complete honesty: My divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I don’t say that because divorce is easy — or liberating in the ways movies sometimes suggest. It wasn’t. It broke me open. But it was in that breaking that I finally saw myself clearly. It was in that loss that I was redirected toward the life I was meant to live.

I learned that I didn’t have to fight to be loved.

When I was married, I told myself that my job was to hold everything together, no matter the cost. My focus was singular: keep my husband. Don’t lose him. That was the goal, the obsession, the undercurrent driving every choice I made.

I silenced the parts of me that whispered, But are you happy? Because the truth was, I wasn’t. I was deeply unhappy in that relationship. I just didn’t want to admit it, not to myself, not to anyone. Admitting it felt too terrifying. It would mean everything I had built, everything I had invested in, was falling apart.

So I fought. But I wasn’t fighting for love. I was fighting to be enough.

And here is the hard truth I had to learn: It’s one thing to fight for love. It’s another thing to fight to be loved. And we must know the difference.

No one should ever have to battle to prove their worth to their partner.