you have been one of my very dearest and most favorite artists for many years. the first time i stumbled across a tumblr repost of a few of your paintings - eight, ten years ago? - and saw the texture and color of your skies and sceneries, i was moved to tears by the paint in symphony on your canvasses. the way you turn fluid, ever-changing life into a single crystalline snapshot of a moment, vibrant with feeling, is truly singular and beautiful.
i am sorry to hear that your home life has been tainted by the complicated pain of relationship trouble, and i hope i am not overstepping by saying what i am about to say. as a child, i could tell my parents were on their way to a divorce by the time i was around eight years old, and once asked them plainly if they were planning on it. both of them rushed to say no, but by the time i turned eleven, my mom broke the news to me that they were indeed separating, just as i had suspected.
i was sad at first - i was an only child and we had no extended family within two thousand miles, so it was sad to me that if i spent a holiday with one parent, the other would be all alone - but, far more than sad, i was actually relieved. my parents' divorce was now a straightforward reality that i could learn to accept, rather than a looming, ominous cloud of uncertainty on the horizon of my future. i no longer felt guilty that i was burdening my parents by forcing them to stay together simply by existing, and i didn't have to keep wondering if they would be happier people if i hadn't been born. through my troubled adolescence, i also found it easier to confide in and bond with my parents one at a time than i had when they were still together, even though they closely communicated about me and coparented as a united front until i was out of school and on my own.
almost twenty years later, neither of my parents ever remarried, but both of them are living happy, fulfilling, completely different lives in different parts of the world.
all this is to say... if the only reason you are still with your husband is to try to guarantee your children happy lives, rather than because you feel the relationship still has enough love in it to be worth salvaging, then i think you should consider seriously that putting them through the sudden trauma of their parents' separation is not necessarily worse than putting them through the slow-burning trauma of growing up feeling like it is because they were born that mom and dad are unhappy people. even if you and your husband both perfectly play your stage roles of happy parents, as time passes and the children get older, it will be harder to hide the truth. if they grow up and find themselves in unhappy relationships, they will be more likely to stay in those relationships for longer while acting like everything is fine, following the example of their own parents and deprioritizing their own happiness.
above all, though, you are just as deserving of a happy and fulfilling life as your children are. you deserve to feel at home in your home. you deserve either a partner who respects you and your needs, or the contentedness and unburdened joy of a life without a partner at all if that is where your happiness awaits.
your incredible art has reached out and touched my soul and countless others, so i hope i am not too gravely overstepping by reaching back. from my distant corner of the internet, i sincerely wish you a happier future than the present, no matter what it may look like.
Thank you so much for sharing this with me. Your message means more than you probably realize, and I think it will give me some of the strength I need to make a very difficult decision.My situation is complicated. I’m realizing that so much of what I believed our marriage and our shared life were built on may not have been as I understood it. For many years, I lived with the belief that we were building our future together, and now I’m having to reconsider many things I thought I knew.So for me, leaving isn’t only an emotional decision. It also means facing enormous uncertainty and potentially rebuilding much of my life from the beginning. I have my art, my work, and the life I’ve created around them, and I’m incredibly grateful for that , but the thought of starting over is still frightening.
The hardest part for me is the children. The thought of no longer being with them every day is incredibly painful. Whatever has happened between their father and me as partners is separate from my wish for them to have loving and meaningful relationships with both of their parents.
That’s why hearing your experience as a child of divorced parents means so much to me. Knowing that separation eventually brought you relief rather than simply taking something away from you gives me another perspective I really needed right now.Thank you for trusting me with something so personal and for taking the time to write all of this. I will remember your words. ❤️
gummygunk
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
stormborns