“When something isn’t right for you, it has a way of letting you know. Not in a big announcement, but in a thousand little nudges.” ~ Martha Beck
I was sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee one morning when a thought occurred to me that I hadn’t allowed myself to think before: It can’t be the rest of my life.
There wasn’t a dramatic moment that I could point to and say, “this That’s why I have to leave.”
Part of me wished there was something obvious, some clear betrayal or breaking point I could point to and say, “there. That’s the reason” Then I didn’t have to rely on my inner experience alone. My husband didn’t cheat, and I wasn’t abused. From the outside, my life looked stable, respectable, even successful. I built it on loyalty, commitment, and doing things the “right” way.
I got married at nineteen and was deeply involved in my church, even counseling newly married couples. On paper, I was living the life I wanted.
But something has changed in me. At first, it showed up as a quiet kind of exhaustion, not the kind that sleep fixes, but one that comes from forcing yourself through a life that no longer fits. I woke up tired and went to bed tired, even on days when nothing was particularly wrong, everything felt heavy.
It felt like I was going through my life instead of living it.
Don’t worry about that going away
That thought kept coming back: It can’t be the rest of my life.
It is shown in quiet moments, folding laundry, driving to the store, standing in the shower. Nothing dramatic was happening, but I kept feeling the same jolt of recognition: something about my life wasn’t right anymore.
Every time it came up, I shoved it down, listing all the reasons my life was good and reminding myself to be grateful. But it didn’t go. Drowning became more difficult.
So I did what I knew how to do. I tried to figure it out.
I read self-help books, listened to podcasts, and asked friends what they would do if they were me. Most of them said some version of the same thing: if you’re not happy, you should leave. But even if they said that, I knew I wasn’t going. Because I was afraid of what it would mean.
I kept telling myself it wasn’t bad enough to leave, and that There was a problem. If something was obviously wrong, I think I would have quickly believed myself. But when your life looks good on the outside, it’s easy to talk yourself out of what you feel inside. You tell yourself you are lucky. You tell yourself that others have had it worse. You tell yourself that asking for something different must mean something is wrong with you.
Because I had no apparent reason to want anything different, I kept asking myself, “Why can’t I just be happy? Why can’t I just be grateful for what I have?”
I didn’t ask because I didn’t know. I was asking because I didn’t want the answer to be something I already knew. I wanted someone to allow me to keep things the same—to tell me that this was just a phase, that I wanted to get over it.
Somewhere along the way, without meaning to, it felt like I’d opened something I couldn’t close. I tried to put the lid on again. I try to go back to how things were. But I couldn’t.
I could not un-know what I knew. I had created a life like what I was, but I was no longer that person.
If this is true…then what?
That realization made things clear, and much scarier. Because if I wasn’t that person, then who was I?
If I fully admitted what I was feeling, it would mean everything would change, not just my marriage but my sense of who I was. I have built my life around loyalty, commitment and certainty. So I kept circling it, because not knowing what came next seemed easier than accepting what was already true. I didn’t know who I would be if I stopped being that person.
For someone who was always clear about who I was and what I was working toward, not knowing felt like losing the ground beneath me.
For a while, I kept trying to think of ways to be sure before I did anything. But eventually, I got tired of waiting to feel certain. I was ready to do something about what I already knew.
I asked a colleague about a therapist she had referred, called and met at an appointment. No one looking back on my life would see that phone call as a turning point, but I did. It was the first time I acted like I felt important.
I was no longer just sitting around thinking. I had to respond to it.
In that first therapy session, I realized how disconnected I was from my own feelings. The fatigue and overwhelm I had been carrying for years was not just stress. A sign of how long I’ve pushed my own experience down. It felt normal for so long that I didn’t know there was another way to live.
As I continued to work with my therapist, I began to notice how difficult it was to answer simple questions about how I felt.
In one session, I told her about leaving home at nineteen because my father was an alcoholic and didn’t feel safe living there. I couldn’t pay the bills on my own, and in the Bible Belt culture I grew up in, marriage seemed like the only real option.
He asked how that experience was for me and I said something like, “You just do what you have to do.” He replied, “But what was it like for you? What was your experience when you felt you had no better options?”
I started reaching for words like “unfair” and “impossible”. Then he asked, “Did that make you angry?” I burst into tears. I was furious, angrier than I’d let myself admit. Angry that I don’t feel supported. Being angry at the rules I grew up with made me feel like I had no choice. Angry at myself for giving up my power and staying in a situation that didn’t support me for over a decade.
And I never recognized it or let myself feel it. It’s no wonder I work so hard to stay busy, stay grateful, and keep going. Some part of me was always trying to protect me.
But once I started being honest about what I felt, things started to change. I found my voice. I could hear my own intuition again. I stopped going through life on autopilot and started making choices with more purpose.
Years after that first phone call, my outward life looked completely different. I divorced my husband and we remain good friends. I quit my corporate job and started a freelance business, something I had wanted for years. I found the love of my life.
And it all started with a thought I tried so hard to dismiss: It can’t be the rest of my life. At the time, I thought the thought was a problem, evidence that something was wrong with me. What I understand now is the beginning of finally listening to myself.
What I understand now
Looking back, I realize something I didn’t see then: the lives that are hardest to leave aren’t always the worst. Sometimes they are often the ones that are good, the ones that don’t give you any clear reason to go.
So when some of you start asking for something different, it’s easy to call it selfish, dramatic or ungrateful. But that voice isn’t always telling you to blow up your life. Sometimes it’s asking you to admit that something doesn’t fit anymore. Change often begins, not with dramatic decisions, but with stopping pretending you don’t know what you know.
about Patty Bryant
Patti Bryant is an author and coach for women who feel like something is out of whack in life, even if they still can’t explain why. Learn more at pattibryant.com.
