My Marriage is Over, So Why Do I Feel Like a Tossed Salad?

By Lisa Kroulik © September 19, 2011

Many women who leave an emotionally abusive relationship are surprised by the intensity of their conflicting emotions once they are finally free of the person who caused them so much pain. It can feel like someone put the ingredients for a salad into a bag, shook it up, dumped it all over the floor and left you to deal with the mess. While feeling mixed-up and confused aren’t particularly pleasant emotions to experience, they are perfectly normal and – believe it or not—also healthy and necessary. I have been there myself and am here to tell you that your emotions eventually settle down and you will be okay.

I will always remember the feeling of immense relief I had when my ex-husband finally moved out of our home, even though it meant I that I had to take care of the house and two kids by myself. It was actually less of a burden than feeling like I had three kids, one of whom happened to be an extremely immature 42-year-old. I also felt very happy, an emotion I hadn’t experienced in years and didn’t quite know how to handle. My daughters, ages 12 and 9 at the time, seemed to experience the same initial sense of relief that I did, even though they were sad it had finally come to this.

My ex-husband was manipulative, passive-aggressive, angry, narcissistic and lived in a fantasy world with his sexual addiction. I can say that now, but I sure couldn’t say it then. Instead, I was told there was nothing wrong with him and that if I thought there was, it only meant there was something wrong with me. Others could see my reality, but I denied it in order to survive. Feelings were absolutely forbidden in my first marriage.

After 13 years of living in an alternate reality, yeah, I was relieved when he left. The awful, unspoken tension was no longer a constant in our house and my daughters and I could relax. It would be wonderful if I could say that the happy and relieved feelings were the only ones that my daughters and I experienced, but I would not be telling the truth. It was only the beginning of a roller coaster of emotions that I rode for about the next year.

I never cried after the divorce finally happened, because I was no longer distraught about it. After all the crying I had done during my marriage to do avail, I just felt flat and had no more tears left. I did question myself a lot about whether I had given it enough time, despite the fact that I had stayed in my marriage years longer than most people would have under similar circumstances. I also felt tremendous guilt, because I was no longer willing to excuse my ex’s behavior or try to be the one whose love finally "fixed" him. It was very difficult to give up the idea that if I just tried harder and loved him unconditionally, he would be healed from whatever damage that is within him. If it didn't happen after 16 years together, it was never going to happen.

The one emotion that knocked my socks off was my anger. Actually, anger is an understatement. What I felt toward my ex-husband was absolute rage. Rage that I had been lied to for years, rage that he didn’t appreciate my love, rage that I had given him 16 years of my life only to be tossed aside like an old shoe. I am a fairly mild-mannered person and to realize that I had the capacity to have so much rage inside of me frightened me terribly. That alone was enough to make me realize how terribly unhealthy my first marriage was.

Naturally, every woman in an abusive relationship is different and had different experiences that lead up to her leaving. According to the London Abused Women’s Centre, you may experience some, all or none of the following emotions, sometimes on the same day. Since I have already touched on anger and elation, I won’t go over those again.

Grief: You have experienced a loss that is as real as a death and that is the loss of your marriage or relationship and all the dreams that went with it. If you were physically or emotionally abused, you may be hard on yourself for feeling grief at the loss of your relationship, but you shouldn’t be. There were probably some good times, even if they were infrequent, and you may miss what once was. The memories of the good times are probably what kept you hanging on for so long.

Feeling Like a Failure: Even if leaving was the best possible decision for you and your children, you may still struggle with the feeling that you are a personal failure because your relationship ended. If you are like me, you did everything in your power to hold things together, and the marriage fell apart because the abusive person was simply unwilling to change. That's on them, not you.

Anxiety: Learning to live a normal life without the constant fear of upsetting the abusive person in your life takes some getting used to. Even though it is healthy, it is unknown and people tend to fear what they don’t know. Remind yourself that it is normal to feel scared, but that you made the right decision and are moving in the right direction.

Feeling Disoriented: Time and distance from relationships tends to change our perspective, and you may feel totally dazed and out of it for a time. If you are dealing with memories that have long been repressed, you may question your own sanity and wonder if those things really happened. It can be a strange feeling to suddenly see your former partner as he really is, and not how you projected him to be all those years in order to remain in the relationship.

Feeling Lonely: When your relationship ended, it also changed several other relationships at the same time. If you were once close to your in-laws, it can be devastating if they suddenly want nothing to do with you. If you had children with your partner, it can be lonely when they are spending time with him. Although it can be tempting to give in to loneliness and start to withdraw, it isn’t healthy in the long run. This is a perfect time to cultivate new interests and friendships.

Wanting to Get Back Together: When the process of recovery becomes too much to bear, it can be tempting to want to reconcile with your abusive partner just so you don’t have to deal with the pain of being on your own anymore. At times like these, remind yourself of why you left and whether being back together would really be better than the temporary intensity of emotions that you are presently experiencing.

One of the reasons that the months immediately following divorce or separation can be so painful is that you must come to identify yourself in a whole new way. When my marriage ended, I literally had no idea who I was. I had looked to him to identify me for so long that I didn’t recognize the person I was left with when he was no longer there. It was terrifying and thrilling all at the same time.

This can be a time of really getting to know yourself and it actually can be very exciting. Without an abusive person there to sensor you emotions and stifle your creativity, you may discover characteristics about yourself that you had long since forgotten. I discovered that I have a good sense of humor and enjoy making others laugh. I also re-discovered my faith without being limited to feeling like I had to believe as my ex-husband did. Perhaps the greatest thing I found hidden in myself is that I still like to write, just as I did when I was a little girl.

Most abuse counselors recommend that you wait at least a year before dating again, just so you have given yourself enough time to work through the emotions of your last relationship. I was two months shy of that, but my story has a happy ending because I married the first man I ever dated post-divorce. We celebrated our first anniversary in July, and we couldn’t be happier. You know yourself and when you feel ready more than any guideline, so just be sure to give yourself some time and take it from there.

One thing to be aware of about new relationships is that they may trigger memories of the old one. This is something I couldn’t understand because my second husband has no abusive tendencies and the triggering memory didn’t always seem to have a context. Like the other emotions that have been discussed, having a triggering memory doesn’t have to make logical sense and it probably won’t. The important thing is that you acknowledge it, process what has come to your mind and move on with your new and healthy life as soon as possible.