With hundreds of conversations, articles, interviews, and book sales centered around healing, relationships, and resilience, I’ve realized something recently that stopped me in my tracks.

Whenever people ask me how I got to the point where I was finally ready to walk away, I almost always mention the same thing:

“We were in therapy for 8 of the 15 years we were married.”

For a long time, I think I used that statement almost as proof.

Proof that I tried.
Proof that I stayed committed.
Proof that I exhausted every option before letting go.

But during a recent podcast recording, something hit me that I hadn’t fully allowed myself to process before:

Just because I stayed that long does not mean someone else should have to.

And honestly?

That realization broke my heart a little.

Because surviving something for a long time is not always evidence of strength.

Sometimes it is evidence of fear.
Hope.
Trauma.
Conditioning.
Loyalty.
Confusion.
Or believing love means enduring things that are slowly destroying you.

I do not wear those eight years as a badge of honor.

If anything, I wish I had possessed the courage, wisdom, support, and clarity to leave much sooner.

And I say that carefully, because I also want to honor the version of myself who stayed.

She was trying.
She believed in healing.
She believed people could change.
She believed commitment mattered.
She believed fighting for family was the right thing to do.

I understand her now more than ever.

But I also understand this:

There is a difference between commitment and self-abandonment.

And somewhere along the way, I crossed that line without even realizing it.

Therapy itself was incredibly beneficial for me personally.

It helped me grow emotionally.
It helped me understand myself better.
It gave me language for things I had struggled to explain for years.

But despite all of that personal growth, it did not save the marriage.

And more importantly, staying as long as I did exposed my children to dynamics that were far more damaging than I wanted to admit at the time.

That part is difficult to say out loud.

Because as mothers, we often convince ourselves that keeping the family together is automatically what is best for the children.

But children are not only shaped by whether parents stay together.

They are shaped by what they witness every single day.

They learn from tension.
From silence.
From emotional instability.
From walking on eggshells.
From unresolved pain.
From watching one parent slowly disappear inside themselves.

And eventually I had to ask myself a devastating question:

What example was I actually providing for my children by staying?

Was I teaching them healthy love?
Healthy boundaries?
Self-worth?
Emotional safety?

Or was I unintentionally teaching endurance at the expense of self-preservation?

Because there is a difference.

A very important difference.

I think many people look to others for guidance on where their limits should be.

How long should I stay?
How much should I forgive?
How much effort is enough effort?

And while I deeply respect every person’s individual journey, I need to say this clearly:

I believe my limits were too long.

Not because I lacked love.
Not because I lacked loyalty.
But because I lacked enough self-preservation.

I had not yet learned that protecting your peace, your mental health, your emotional wellbeing, and your children is not failure.

Sometimes leaving is not giving up.

Sometimes leaving is the healthiest, bravest, and most loving thing you can do.

Especially when staying begins to destroy everyone involved.

I also think we need to stop romanticizing suffering as proof of love.

Long suffering does not automatically equal deeper love.

And endurance should never become the primary measurement of someone’s worth in a relationship.

What I want my children to learn now is very different than what I unknowingly modeled before.

I want them to know that healthy love should feel safe.
That communication matters.
That mutual respect matters.
That peace matters.
That boundaries matter.
That self-respect matters.

And most importantly:

I want them to know they are allowed to leave situations that continuously harm them.

Not every relationship is meant to be saved simply because time was invested into it.

Sometimes self-preservation is the lesson.

Sometimes walking away is the lesson.

And sometimes the most loving thing we can teach our children is that losing yourself should never be the price you pay to keep someone else.

with all my love, xoxo J