Alignment in Vows Unspoken: Finding Freedom & Healing

Sep 5, 2024

8 min read

Summary: In this piece, we look at spiritual and psychological lessons in romantic love to create a teaching moment for others. Let this piece pay tribute to all the women I have had the privilege of meeting, whose similar story brought them into alignment and to healing. I see you, I love you and honor you. I celebrate with you in knowing it all worked out as it should for our souls' development. Tags #alignment #divorce #love #relationships #unalignment #healing #emotionalhealing #thespiritualshrink #spiritual #spiritualtherapist

#consciouscouples #counsciousrelationships #healing #spiritual #spiritualjourney

Let me set the scene. When decluttering a room in my home, I come across a file labeled “not trash”. Behind several documents I find three tri folded pieces of looseleaf paper, neat and crisp in the back of this random manila folder. As I opened the first loose leaf paper, I realized it was the long-forgotten letters my ex-husband wrote me the week I asked him for a divorce. At that moment, I was brought back to 2019. I remembered my ex giving them to me and thinking to myself it was just another persuasion tactic being used to get me to stay, to "keep me trapped".

I remember feeling any words that could have been present on the page were simply that,--words and I needed action. Actions and changes that I had been desperatel begging for for years. I had lost hope the changes would ever happen. So I never read the letters. I threw them in the pile of paperwork that I assumed I would need to proceed with the divorce and never thought of them again...until now.

Holding the letters in my hands, I turned to throw them in the trash, but I pause almost as if I was being guided to just read them. I quickly realized my ex-husband had written vows he never actually said aloud on our wedding day and never honored. As if the old version of myself had leaped off the page to hug me, it became abundantly clear how much I had changed from the woman that doubted filing the divorce to now. I look back with empathy on the younger version of myself that accepted less than I deserved and for the young woman that was about to embark on a life changing healing journey, an awakening, and was never the same...in the best ways.

During the marriage, I spent a ridiculous amount time making requests to be treated well and barely knowing how to set and hold boundaries. All the time I spent wishing he would be different, I could have been asking myself why I stayed and tolerated existing in a marriage that made me feel so shitty. Back then, even if I could have acknowledged what kept me in it, I knew I had to be ready to actually act on it. In full disclosure,

it was fear that kept me, self -doubt, and the unknown. The fear allowed me to betray myself, day after day until almost four years into the marriage, I felt like a shell of a person. Energetically, I was drained. My spirit was tired, tired of being leached off of, tired of trying to "communicate better" and make it work, because I was conditioned to whole heartedly believe "that's what you do", honor the vows, despite my closest family knowing what I had failed to see. The marriage was one sided. I did all the emotional work, all the thinking, all the earning and providing, and SO MUCH allowing. There was nothing more I could do to tolerate being in the marriage. I was starting to resent him for something I was actually doing to myself by staying, by allowing. Every day I didn't leave, I was saying "yes" when every fiber in my being knew I meant, "no, I don't want to be in this any longer". I even resented him for seemingly not noticing and caring that I resented him.

I was tired of guilting myself, I was tired of feeling drained, tired of the brain fog, tired of not just making a decision (which is actually making a decision) and I was tired of the fear that was now impacting my health. And did he care? Not even a little. His only concern was why I didn't want him to touch me.

Eventually, with radical self-acceptance and some anger I took accountability for the situation I found myself in and it was time to level up. The vibrational match he and I were when dating in college was no more. The lesson we were to each other, our mission, in the marriage was complete. The emotional wounding of each of our pasts had led us together, bonded us, and now the marriage is just one of many lessons we will learn in this life. I don't necessarily think divorce means that love between us didn't exist- it just was not as healthy as it could be or a vibrational match.

I would never try to speak for the man that stood in front of me the moment he put those letters in my hand, but I’m sure during that time he couldn't understand why I couldn't "just be happy" with the way things were and had been going, why I couldn't be happy with the little effort he had put into the union and into himself. I'm sure he wondered why I wasn't willing to play small, be more compliant, more agreeable........ why I couldn't be less "me".

Looking back, I realized part of the way I experienced him was what I allowed and the pattern it created. The other part of this experience was just who he was at the time. He simply did not have it in him to embody the kind of man I desired in my life, so why was I asking for something that he couldn't give me. He just wasn't that guy. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally -he wasn't it and I had to take accountability for not seeing it. I had to take responsibility for being in denial due to fear or not more clearly knowing what I wanted, desired and deserved in partnership. I can't take accountably for the way he treated me, spoke to me, or behaved towards me, but I needed to apologize to myself for tolerating it.....and set him free long before I did. It was silly really, I was miserable and so was he. He just didn't realize it. I'm sure every time I asked for more from him, he secretly asked him why he couldn't give it. He was checked out, numb, and making decisions that didn't serve him on a soul or emotional level. And when he did have a moment of clarity, he didn't care, he knew he had something that "worked" for him on the surface.

A few memories came to mine as I started to fold up those papers. The first being the night I was on retreat in DC- the most beautiful song had come on and as the entire room began to sway and sing I can remember tears rolling down my face and just praying in desperation for God/ the universe to save my marriage- to fix it. As I sit here writing this next to incredible partner - I realize, it was fixed. In that moment on retreat my prayers were being answered. In order to live out my purpose here on this earth and live my best life and have the kind of marriage I saw for myself, the marriage I was in had to die. The parts of me that said yes to that union had to be healed.

Lastly, the memory of a few final words my ex and I spoke to each other on the phone came to mine. I remember telling him that me filing for divorce was going to be the best thing that ever happened to him. He had, on the surface, started working on himself, got in therapy- all the things I begged him to and he seemed to be energetically a litter lighter. Was I projecting my freedom on him? Maybe. I knew we were no longer a vibrational match and would never be again. To end this phone conversation, he made a seemingly random comment. He said, "Whitney, its not that you don't want kids, you just don't want them with me. "

I remember pausing and realizing he was right. I had told him I wasn't sure I wanted children "just yet" and just yet turned to never as the relationship deteriorated. All that I had allowed and endured in the marriage had taken its toll. I felt like I was barley holding our way of life together and balancing the responsibilities alone. I couldn't imagine bringing a child into that hostile and type of environment. I was in such denial within myself, so checked out, my nervous system was jacked up and this statement showed me just how far from "true to myself" I had fallen.

Its interesting how these memories come up all by reading a few letters. It feels odd to smile at them, almost a nod to my 20 something year old self.... we made it, we found our way.

I could go into all the ways our dynamic played on our core and childhood wounding but that's another post. SO for now, I hope to provide some food for thought and a few take aways from this piece.

Choosing what is in our greatest good is not always easy. We can do what's right for our soul and still feel shitty for a period of time as we shift the energy and integrate the lesson. I'm convinced this is where the quote about breaking your heart. but fixing your vison comes from. Be bold and courageous. Honor yourself.
The why, and the how, and what, can be critical questions to ask oneself in the emotional, spiritual, psychological and vibrational healing. Why and how we chose the relationship (or friend or whatever), what needs/ fears/ wounds were we operating from? What did we learn about ourselves? How can we integrate the lesson and transmute the energy of it to serve our healing and greatest good? Ask the questions, reflect, feel the feelings and pass right through it - don't unpack in the sadness, grief etc. - But we do have to feel it to heal it.
Romantic partnership and various levels of love are available to us all along the journey of healing. Even in the most seemingly silly relationships, there is a lesson to take away- we don't have to love the lesson, but its working for our souls evolution. I like to use the phrase, "they could be a lesson' or a blessin". My 20 something self would have cringed reading that. And honestly every lesson is a blessing if it moves us closer to our most authentic self.
Don't buy into the single shaming- the choice to remain single or unattached is a beautiful and personal one- only you can decide what's best for you. Your worth, value and abilities are not dictated by a relationship or anyone else's behavior.
Be courageous in your pursuit of honoring your authentic self, even in the "let go". I think it helps to think of it as having more loyalty to yourself and self-respect than fear of the unknown. It's so much easier said than done......I made 2 attorney appointments before finally just filing for divorce.
Self-compassion, self-forgiveness, and empathy towards yourself are key. The level of self-love, self-compassion and acceptance I have now reading these letters is not what I had then (if I had, I probably wouldn't have been married to him in the first place lol). Be patient with yourself -it's cultivated. Seek a qualified mental health professional, life coach, reiki provider, and other healing alternative modalities to be your ally with any healing needs. You are worth the time, effort, and investment. You deserve the freedom that comes with healing. If you would like to be a part of our Facebook group for holistic service seekers and holistic service providers join us here- it's free https://www.facebook.com/share/g/vBnRNp1w4W5HxNj5/