Happily Separated! Part 1

Yep I’m talking about me. After 20 years of marriage, I am a separated woman. We’ll get to the why later but right now I’ll be sharing how marriages can get to the point of separation or divorce after what’s often considered a lengthy time married.

Also if you’ve been watching my stories on Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram, then you have been getting my vulnerability especially on August 13th. In that story I shared how my husband wanted to keep having sex without getting a vasectomy but I was the one that had all these major abdominal surgeries including my 6th one earlier this year. What you saw there was some of the anger that’s still lingering but please know, that is not why we are separated.

There’s more to that story to come because if I had put up with that for 8 years, trust, I was actually willing to put up with it for another 8 years. And we gon get to the sex part soon because that part in itself is explosive enough but right now, let me share how people can easily end things after building together for two whole decades and be of the faith.

I remember this couple named The Neelys as they did a cooking show called “Down Home with The Neeleys”. And I remember how in love they would look during the show. Beautiful black couple of faith, so in love with one another and working together. That was so inspiring to me as I was part of a couple who was also so in love and working together at the time.

But then just like that, the news hit fans like a ton of bricks. What news? That after 20 years of marriage, that beautiful black couple of the faith who just exuded the epitome of Black Love was divorcing. After 20 years? 20? Years? You mean two decades? 

“What could be that bad to let 20 years of marriage just go down the drain”, I asked out into the atmosphere. I remember talking to a close friend about this who had been married one year less than me at the time the news broke of their marital demise. Here I was a decade in being inspired by this couple who worked together, only to feel like the news of them breaking up was a slap in my face. I was appalled. And my close friend and I went in on them.

“Chile people don’t fight for nothing no more”, my friend said. “Girl, right. 20 years and you ending it? That’s too much of an investment to let go of. They being ridiculous”, I exclaimed.

But what I’ve come to realize is that life has a way of humbling you and that even at or after 20 years, life can happen to any of us no matter our faith, belief, race, creed or nationality. I also know most often times, the life that’s happening at that 20 plus year mark didn’t just start in that 20th plus year. Nah. That life happening had been building up over time. We just don’t always see what that buildup has been leading to. The Neelys were really over before that show started but it was his dream and it came with paycheks honey so she did what many of us would do as wives…support our man’s vision often times over our own happiness. She wanted out but that kept her there until she just couldn’t take it anymore. Notice how after their divorce, he went on, remarried and continued in the cooking industry, but she did not. At least not at that time. I remember in one of her interviews on the divorce she said, "I remember leaving with my purse and my duffle bag, and I was out of there,". (You can read more on that here: https://www.mashed.com/227816/the-real-reason-why-down-home-with-the-neelys-got-canceled/

But me on the other hand, you wasn’t about to make me separate (again), leave or divorce. Oh no honey. I actually loved being married and saying that I was married. I loved all our photoshoots and wearing my marriage as a badge of honor. I know for some or even many, hearing that I’m not only separated but also I’m the one who “left with my purse and my duffle bag” too, it is a shock. I get it.

You see, for years I’ve called myself happily married. And tho that never meant there were no issues, it always meant I was happily married overall. And I actually was. I’ve said many times before and believed that spouses may not agree on everything but as long as there are mutual agreements on the core things, this can be a happy marriage in spite of some things you don’t agree on.

But somewhere along the lines, I noticed the happiness starting to fade. The more I evolved, the more I noticed things in my marriage staying the same and I just wasn’t ok with that. Because I’m big on self improvement and it’s ideal to grow together within the union. But I learned at even 10 years in, that that’s not always the case. In fact in any relationship, many times those involved evolve at different times…but what happens if there’s no evolution with one of them? What if you wake up one day and realize you are married to exactly who you married however many years ago y’all married? And then you realize that that wouldn’t even be an issue IF you were the exact same person who married them many years ago. But that because you’ve evolved since you married and maybe they haven’t, y’all are now out of sync. Not on the same page anymore and the biggest things? Not in alignment. Not on one accord.

When I woke up and realized this, it hit me hard…almost as hard as the death of my parents hit. But this was a different kinda hit. On one hand you’re trying to figure out, “So, what’s next for us”? But on the other hand, you’re more focused on “What’s next for me”? Because if it’s one thing I have truly learned in marriage it’s that you can’t change nobody but you. And why bother? We not out here to make people change to what we think they should be anyway. You either marry them as they are as you are and evolve together or evolve at different times OR you marry them as they are as you are and evolve yourself realizing they may or may not ever evolve. Which can leave you asking yourself, “What’s next for me” instead of we. 

That definitely hit hard and hit different as I’m one who has always looked out for all of us in the family and made sure to set everyone up for whatever it is they want to do within the family and the union. But therein lied the big problem. It was never my job to do that. I was taking on things I should never had taken on all under the guise of submission. Support everyone in what they wanna do yes, but to set everyone up? Don’t mix what should be done for children with what should never be done for able adults. Why not? Because the more you do this, the less they’ll do the work themselves and then they’ll begin to depend on you to do the setting up in order for them to do anything in whatever the area is. I had allowed the lines to blur and was doing for my mate what women should never do for men.

A lot of this came from religion tho. Remember that “beautiful” word I would write about called Submission? Yasss hunty. I was being a happily married submitted wife making sure my Man, with a capital M, was growing and gettin ish done and I was definitely big upping him up everywhere I could. I was one of those wives who would never publicly put her man down. And I’m not saying you should do that. But what I am saying is when I look back, I saw me applauding this human at times for things he should not have been applauded for…at least not by me. I began to see...there really was little to no growth on his end. He was happily comfortable right where he had been since I’ve known him and I was growing more annoyed with him by the day. Yes I’ll share more.

I wrote a post once entitled ‘A Man Who Prays’. Chile it was so inspiring. So many people loved the post and commented deep words on it too. It was so good that I put it in our first book entitled, “When Love Stands”. In the post I was sharing how we had an electric bill that was basically past due and we didn’t have the money to pay it. Things were tight and hard and I went to him worried about how we were going to pay it. He didn’t know but he did know how to pray. And pray he did. Sorry, I’m actually laughing my ass off at this, not necessarily the post but how I’m looking right now thinking about the fact that I actually wrote this post. Like…bro…why couldn’t you just pay the damn electric bill tho? We didn’t have gas in our home. Our entire subdivision was electric only which to me was a plus, so all we had was electric and water with a small mortgage, an even smaller car note, and car insurance. Aside from groceries, these were all our bills. WTF couldn’t this damn bill be paid? (remember to stick a pin here).

See, but here’s what many didn’t know. He was unemployed fired (again) when I wrote that post (stick a pin here too). I had been praying for him and encouraging him…you know all the things the submissive wife is supposed to do…and one of the ways I would also encourage him is by writing about him and sharing that writing to the world to encourage others. But what I didn’t realize what I was also doing with that was basically giving him praise and “participation awards” for doing the bare minimum in what he was supposed to do according to the way our marriage was anyway while also telling wives to bear down with the bullshit. I know it sounds like bitterness now, but it’s actually way more than that. It’s enlightenment. It’s consciousness. It’s awareness. And most of all, it’s freedom. It’s always freedom when you realize you outta some things than still in them. And it’s also why many males would invite me to their platforms to talk to the women on submission. My stories I shared from my heart then, would be used by men to help encourage their women to submit (be controlled) to them. My stories, especially this one story in particular, would be the catalyst to get women aligned with the movement by men who were looking for younger submissive women to engage with and eventually marry. So why not get a seasoned wife to share on submission? And they didn’t get me just for my story. They got me because I made submission look good especially to younger women. You see…I was a “Pretty Princess” in my marriage. I had a man who worked outside the home and I never had to work outside the home. All of my children were homeschooled and had never been to public schools. And by the time I was sharing this one particular story, we were living in a beautiful home in an affluent neighborhood and we just looked damn good doing what we were doing and being who we were being. I was locked in. I was always brought in to “shut it down”. And if there was any pushback, the men over those platforms would protect me just as my husband would in the physical. (Stick a pin here too).

But forgive my heart on that because that’s where I was at that time. So I was speaking and teaching you from where I was. Most humans do that. But when we evolve, we come back and re-teach by correcting based upon the fact that we know better now than we did then. And that’s one of the things my LOEV Letter is about. It’s my letter from my heart to yours. And yes it’s primarily on Love, Leisure and Pleasure, but in order to get to the Leisure and the Pleasure, I first have to talk about the Love which is where relationships often form.

In my book 9 Things Women Should Ask a Man Before Giving Him Sex, I talk about the 5 Pillars of the Family akin it to a 5 Legged Stool, where I share how each of the 5 pillars can be assigned to each leg of the 5 legged stool.

If you’ve been following me for at least 5 years then you should have heard me teach on this during one of my many lives. If you’ve been following me for 10 years or more then you may remember both he and I teaching on this even tho I was the primary teacher, researcher and speaker on the topic. Leg one of the stool is the financial pillar and that’s where we are driving to next. Because honey, they say no finance, no romance, right? But I was out here giving it up in spite of lol. I was a wife right? And all of that is coming very soon.

But know that when my entire life blew up in my face, it did so on Independence day. Yep. July 4th, 2024. I was broken. I was embarrassed. But most of all, I was exhausted. I felt like something I have rarely ever felt like in my entire life…I actually felt like a loser. (Only for a short amount of time now because you know ya girl confident asf). But at that moment the blow up happened, I was arguing with an Indian lady in front of my children about me being dishonest and violating her policy. Though my children saw me take up for them, for us, for me, I was in the wrong. And I had to correct this and apologize to my children, but I was extremely angry with the man I married. Where tf was he? Once again, leaving me in a position where I had to do weird shit or put out a damn fire in the first place to save us then cover his ass. My choice tho. But this time, I couldn’t put the fire out. In fact this was the continuance of several fires I actually could not put out in 2024 when I could always put them out. Just thinking about me arguing with that lady I think on how my argument was so weak when normally my argument game is lethal. I was arguing with her but I had nothing for her like I normally would. It’s because my life was blowing up and I had become exhausted with putting out big and “Little Fires Everywhere”. I think subconsciously, I might have even wanted it to blow up because it was the only thing that was going to get me to leave him.

When I texted him on what happened, I ended the text with, “I’m done”. I had grown weary of feeling unprotected and unsafe. That story about '“A Man who Prays” had gone to his head. Not the one story but my praise of him always getting us out of shit eventually, tho it was him who was putting us in the shit to begin with and it was me who was covering for him with praise, posts, thousands of personal LOEV Letters written and audios recorded to him to speak life into him which was draining the fuck outta me. And let me just stop giving credit where credit isn’t due…it was actually ME getting us out of those situations but he would do the heavy lifting per the plan to save us that I would always come up with. I know none of this is making full sense yet, but trust me it will. Remember I said I was switching cars to take you on a ride. Well just know, this is a road trip with several stops along the way and we got some stops coming up.

Just know that I am happily separated right now as I am safe, protected, protecting, healing, battling and more all without him even in my life. Yes everything’s still fresh and tender for me right now but I knew writing my heart, especially to you, has always been therapy for me (and it’s how I met you) so I knew I needed to go ahead and start this now even tho I am actually grieving. I know grieving. I know it well. It’s been one of the stories of my life the last 3 years. And in spite of all that’s happened, all that’s happening now, all that I’ve gone through, still going through and all of the emotions I’m feeling each day, I am Happily Separated. I am Happily Separated because I am finally experiencing happiness and freedom to wake up and truly do what I want and need to do on a daily basis without that happiness and freedom being tied to having a man or being a wife or wondering what fire I’m gon have to put out that day to save everyone. sigh of relief

If you can think back and remember when I would often say, “What they do before marriage, they will do after marriage and do it the more”? (One of those infamous Truly Faithful quotes that I came up with) well it’s really true. “My estranged husband” is exactly who he was when I married him in 2004. But more so, he is exactly who he was when we were dating. Some things lied dormant, but they came out the longer we were married. The only one who was truly putting in the work in this marriage was me. Sounds selfish to say doesn’t it? In all honesty, I should have been gone. And maybe had I left years ago, we wouldn’t have lost so much. Yes, lost so much because of that pillar I shared with you earlier and this particular pattern that you could trust like clockwork.

But in hindsight tho, I found that I was never encouraging, uplifting and submitting to a Man…I was actually encouraging, uplifting and submitting to a pattern, a paradigm and a system that was never going to change…

Whew…I know that was a lot. As my breathing coach would say, “Take a deep breath in”. inhale Now let it out. long exhale

OK you good? Need a break? Ok then that’s enough for now. Let everything marinate for a few days then look out for part 2 Sunday. We’ll call that ‘Clarity Sunday’ as you’ll begin to put more and more together and see things for what they truly are. #StayTuned

Always Much Love,

~ OEV