In my personal life and coaching alike, I’m often asked: “Should I stay or should I go?”
It’s a hard question — one that deserves to be held with the utmost respect. It’s in my most vulnerable moments that I was led to answer this question for myself. While the answer was simple, it took a journey to arrive at. The passages that follow encompass that journey.
Coming to terms with the death of my marriage was one of the most complex experiences I’ve ever been through. I was married to my ex for 12 years and partnered with him for nearly 18 years. We have two beautiful children together, and a shared lifetime of growing up alongside each other.
It was 2015 when I first asked myself this difficult question. Seven years into our marriage, I recall taking this same question to the internet. Confused, overwhelmed, and slightly ashamed, I wondered: is this the seven-year itch everyone talks about? Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with us? Why haven't we figured it out after being together for so long?
At the time, I didn’t know that my feelings of discontent were valid. On paper, I had it all: a successful tech career, my health, two daughters, a dog, a home, a young and persevering marriage, and adult friendships worth cherishing. But, somewhere deep inside, a quiet voice was saying “You deserve more. You deserve to feel like enough.” Everything looked so impressive on the outside yet was oppressive on the inside.
By fall the following year, the voice had grown louder — this time, she was saying “You’re growing apart.” I didn’t want to acknowledge it. In my fear, I denied that inner voice.
We spent the next few years working on our relationship, but despite trying to approach things differently or working with a therapist, I found myself in the exact same place. 2020 brought clarity I didn’t know I needed. The pandemic forced me to pause, slow down, and reevaluate everything.
The arguments, repeated cycles, and unhealed wounds suddenly all compounded in one final argument. I knew I was done. It was time to call the time of death in this relationship.
I was finally ready to let go of what I believed was our shared dream and accept what my now ex had been showing me for years. I knew it, and had taught it — “behavior is real" — and yet I continued to protect, cover, and make excuses for someone who, with or without malice, was not willing to honor his word or follow through.
It may sound dramatic, but the moment I knew the relationship needed to end felt like calling the time of death in an ER. At that very moment, I remember feeling an intense sensory overload — everything was chaotic.
I remember the words of others, presented with curiosity but flickering with hidden judgments and criticism. I saw memories flash before my eyes. Sadness and grief touched my heart and my body mourned. I saw future dreams recede.
My body contracted as I filtered through each sensation. It felt like monitors beeping, light flashing before my eyes, and echoes of people around me trying to tell me what to do. But, beneath it all, there was a stillness inside of me. Nothing else mattered — I just knew it was time.
Calling the time of death in my marriage meant making a hard choice. It’s the brave and bold choice to honor yourself above everyone else. It’s the “healthy selfish” choice that is so hard for mothers to make because we’re not taught to choose ourselves.
But, like I tell my clients, when a mother is thriving, happy, and in her most bottomless well of pleasure, she pours from abundance. And everyone, especially her children, benefits when she pours from overflow.
They say divorces are a chance at a new life, an opportunity to reinvent or find yourself again. For me, it was a chance to write a new story and break cycles of intergenerational trauma — a pattern I witnessed among all the mothers in my family.
In my marriage, I was the doer, provider, and proud entrepreneurial mother who was trying to do it all. But what I yearned for most was a different experience of motherhood — one that allowed me to feel like the matriarch of my family. I wanted to feel supported as a mother, and that wasn’t something available to me.
Divorce was an opportunity to rewrite my own story of motherhood and entrepreneurship, centered around ease, pleasure, abundance, and the feeling of being held as a mother. I had no idea how to achieve this because none of the women in my family had. This new chapter was a rupturing of my old self and a path towards the matriarch I wanted to become.
I took a sabbatical, quit taking work for a year, lived off savings and unemployment checks, and honed in on the most important thing: healing and stewarding my kids through the transition safely and securely.
In doing so, I cultivated a richer soil and environment that allowed for growth as I discovered the many parts of me that deserve to shine and flourish.
I often look back at the moment I called the time of death in my marriage and think of what I’d tell my past self as she navigated the minefield that is divorce. I’d tell her I’m proud. This was the last decision you wanted to make and, yet, you still made it. You may not know how the story is going to unfold but, at the end of it, you are going to find a deep sense of inner peace that you’ve never experienced before.
I’d also tell her to lean into love and let life happen. Not just the human love you see in magazines and the media, the kind of love that feels spacious and expansive — the kind that’s cosmic, spiritual, and divine. Never forget that your erotic intelligence holds the deepest truth and wisdom: listen to your body, your pussy, your heart, and never ignore your inner voice.
The last thing I’d tell my former self at this heart wrenching juncture is to greet the darkest, most terrifying moments with radical honesty and loving presence — and to not be afraid to let others see it, too. It’s that vulnerability that will give you the gift of building the chosen family you’ve always dreamed of.
So back to the question: “Should I stay or should I go?”
The truth is, I can't give you that answer. It’s something no one can answer for you. Instead, I invite you to connect with your body and that inner voice, faint as it may be, and just listen.