This year is exactly 9 years of my separation and divorce. Happy anniversary!!!
I don't remember names and faces but dates, dates I do remember very well. You just ask me where I was on any particular day in my past and I can tell you. Is that a consequence of writing a blog or my recapitulation practice, I don't know.
On April 4, 2021 was 30 years since I met my ex. We started dating couple months after that. We were together 22 years, married 20 years... I separated with my ex on June 30, 2013.
I write this post for you, unhappily married man, particularly if your wife practice yoga. Believe me... there is a reason to be afraid, so you might even read this article to the end. If you can read it to the end, you might come to your senses. Maybe. I mean, what else can you do, you're heading toward divorce, my friend.
Divorce... Does it sound terrifying? Nope, divorce is a really cool thing that lets you be the one you want to be again.
I love being divorced. Every year has been better than the last. By the way, I'm not saying don't get married. If you meet somebody, fall in love and get married. Then get divorced. Because that's the best part. Divorce is forever! It really actually is. Marriage is for how long you can hack it. But divorce just gets stronger like a piece of oak. Nobody ever says 'oh, my divorce is falling apart, it's over, I can't take it. - Louis C.K.
Well, let me tell you my story...
We don't have a future together
It was Sunday, June the 30th 2013, after 22 years of being together, my wife spoke out and informed me, with the bone-chilling realization, that our marriage wasn’t going to work out.
"We don't have a future together" she told me on that day when I asked what bothers her. I knew that our relationship is not the best one. She was nervous and bitter for days so it all ended that Sunday.
When I heard those words I was not so surprised. I asked her is she serious and I told her to check her heart and see does she love me. She said, NO, things have changed. I got up then and moved my bed to yoga room. I moved out from our apartment in two weeks and I started to live the life of a divorcee.
There is a strange connection between yoga practice and divorce. At least 70% of women who started practicing yoga, in their late 30’s and into their 40’s, have since gotten divorced.
According to my experience, it really appears that yoga practice (indirectly) is a strong influence for my ex's divorce decision. I do believe yoga was partly to blame for my divorce.
How Yoga destroyed my marriage 😏
My ex was a yoga teacher while we were together; she has completed 3 yoga teacher training (200 hours certification each) and countless workshops from Ashtanga celebrity instructors, Hot yoga workshops, Iyengar yoga, Bikram yoga, you name it. She, so to speak, embarked on an introspective journey, sparked by the spiritual practices of yoga.
She read the Alchemist, the Secret and the Power of Now, those are the three most dangerous pre-divorced books.
She practiced yoga, 4-5 times a week, she became extremely self-driven, goal-oriented and independent. She wasn't needy anymore; she’s determined to get what she wants out of this world. She didn't care about the meaning of life; she had a strong mind and sharp opinions. She's well-educated and deeply contemplative. She embraced her individuality to the fullest... Bottom line is this... she did not need me in her life anymore.
Ironically, when women are deeply into yoga, they may experience a wave of spiritual awakening, and they can become frustrated with all the emotions that awakening brings to the surface. They clearly see that something is wrong, their life is an emptiness and other truths about their relationship.
The yoga helped her to rediscover her real position. She was awakened from the mundane life of everyday obligations and the first step done in that newly acquired freedom is to get rid of me. The first thing she did is to blame me as a husband for everything she was lacking in her life.
My ex, just like many others, started to search within... but she did not discover truth, she discovered false things. Good enough... for divorce.
Well, come on, to be quite honest, I knew it. I have known that one day our marriage will break. We have lived a life more and less like strangers. I have learned whatever it is she needed to teach me (and vice verse) so our time was not necessary anymore and it was over.
This was my life, I thought. But it was not anymore
Is this sounds familiar to you? This is how things are... Realistically, you'll collapse after divorce.
Maybe you're thinking that I, as an awakened being, was supposed to be a sterling example of composure and serenity, a person of exquisite poise and understated elegance radiating love and compassion. Maybe you're thinking I should transcendent daily life annoyances, that I was the who lives untouched by the petty challenges of daily life.
Far from that. My state of inner harmony was disturbed. The separation rocked the very foundation of my existence, leaving me feeling lonely, flawed, enraged, undesirable, hopeless and empty. My first month after splitting up was all about grief and mourning for hopes and dreams that can never be fulfilled, shock and bewilderment, guilt, regret, and remorse, sympathy and antipathy... in one word - devastation.
I just wanted to forget her and move on into a new life. I was going through a protracted meltdown that has uprooted me from my daily life. In August I went back home and somehow I was feeling better.
Immediately after divorce, you'll start remembering all the most irrelevant details in your married life. You'll start counting the days for how long are you single. And if you're lucky, you'll find yourself with a couple of divorced buddies, start smoking the red Marlboro, drink IPA beer and start wanking regularly.
We are predictable, and prone repeating the same life mistakes, again and again, so you'll start looking for the women who resembles your ex. We'll call that "moving on". Moving on after divorce generally begins with the online dating. And there we'll get more disappointments which are carefully placed in between episodes of grief and other emotional crisis.
Be prepared on time, it will happen, your world will crash into a million tiny pieces. The world that you're so carefully built from scratch, weaving together dreams and reality to form something so wonderful it seemed it would last forever. Nothing lasts forever. And that's a good thing.
It is impossible to stay a friend with ex
Now, I remember our marriage as essentially a marriage of two strangers, we were together for a long but each of us was utterly alone and for some reason pervaded by the deep sense of insecurity, anxiety and guilt.
After the separation, I wanted to be a friend with her but she refused any contact. I have realized that she has planned divorce a long time before she actually expressed her feelings. I do regret the time spent with her, I regret being ever married to her.
Anyway, I don't want to sound pathetic, much less nostalgic. After all these years of separation I find it necessary to see things as they were. No imagination or wishful thinking. It is true, we didn't have a future together.
I discovered that divorce isn't such a tragedy
Suddenly, there were no locks keeping me chained in my seat in the marriage boredom. I was enslaved by my own fear and ignorance and suddenly I was free. I just marched myself into this damned idiotic, impossible boring, married life without ever stopping to think about what I was doing. Now that was over.
Divorce is not a tragedy, a tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage and dreaming something else. In my marriage from outside everything looked fine and polished but the melancholy and apathy was my reality.
I'm fortunate in that I've never married. What brought me here was that I know of two women (completely unrelated to one another) who became yoga instructors and not long after initiated divorces against their husbands. It got me to thinking that there might be a connection between women going hardcore into yoga and then dumping their husband. Of course, not without claiming their cash and prizes in divorce court. When I read that your wife also became a yoga instructor, that just seemed beyond coincidental. Men, if you're married, be forewarned that if your wife wants to get into yoga it may very well result in the end of your marriage. Especially if she decides she wants to become an instructor. As you stated, it seems to instill a negative empowerment in many women to dump their husband...be stunning and brave...and embrace her new world as a single independent woman.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment. That was my first marriage. I divorced 11 years ago. I have moved from that broken marriage a long time ago; this year I got married again. Life goes on... thanks!!!
DeleteI had this exact same experience unfortunately. And to add to it she had undealt with childhood trauma. The yoga teaching of, "you deserve to be happy, no matter what" resonates with women and they push away the person closest to them blaming them for not being happy. But we cannot make others happy, they have to be happy on their own. I realize now, 1.5 years after my seperation, that she may have though she was happy during our 10 years together, but yoga awoke her trauma and when she realized she wasnt happy she took off out of nowhere, with no warning. Ironic how she did it so suddenly with no warning, counseling or discussion, when yoga is supposed to teach understanding and love. But un- guided meditation can be very dangerous, especially when there are other demons below the surface
ReplyDeleteGreat observations. Thank you for the comment.
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