Divorce is NOT a Failure: Why Ending a Marriage Doesn’t Mean You Failed

As a society, we often hold onto the belief that divorce signifies failure. We’ve been sold the story that if you get divorced, you’ve somehow failed at the “ultimate” goal of marriage – finding your person and staying together forever. But let’s unpack that.

The Stigma of Failure and Divorce

We also have a narrative that failure is inherently bad. Failure somehow means you’re not good enough, and that’s a scary thought! 

So, divorce = failure

AND failure = very bad

When these stories combine, divorce can bring on overwhelming feelings of shame and inadequacy. Despite 40-50% of marriages ending in divorce, the strong stigma around it can make the experience feel incredibly lonely.

We’ve all been sold stories that the ultimate dream is to find our prince/princess charming, get married, and live happily ever after. I can’t recall any Disney movies involving divorce or second marriages (other than, of course, if someone dies and an evil stepmother comes into the picture! Not exactly the dream we’re aspiring to). This ideal of “the perfect story” creates a lasting stigma around divorce.

Changing the Narrative Around Divorce

But what if divorce isn’t a failure?  What if it simply means that your relationship has run its course and now it’s time for a new chapter of life? I want to stress to you, over and over, that divorce is not inherently bad. It does not make you a bad person. It does not make you a failure. It doesn’t even have to be anyone’s fault. 

Relationships are complicated because people are complicated! Most of us haven’t been taught relationship skills – yes, these skills can be taught and learned. The majority of us are just making this marriage thing up as we go, feeling our way along, trying our best. Sometimes we get things really right. Sometimes we mess things up royally. Sometimes two people just grow apart in opposite directions. Sometimes, yes, someone does do something like cheating. 

But none of this makes you or your partner a bad person or a failure. It makes you human.

How Divorce Can Lead to Personal Growth

I was with my ex-husband for 12 years, married for 6. Looking back, I see that we were happy for a lot of those years and less happy towards the end. But I don’t see a failed relationship. I see so many happy memories that we made together, I see all the ways we grew together and lessons we learned along the way, and of course, our two incredible daughters we created. 

I learned so many things about being in a relationship with another human in the years we spent together. And, very importantly, I learned SO MUCH about myself and about relationships when we broke up! In fact, I learned more about myself during/after our breakup than during the course of our relationship (which, yes, may have something to do with it ending). 

I wasn’t willing to really look at myself and how I was showing up in our partnership while we were still in it. It wasn’t until afterwards that I was able to do the really hard work of looking at myself and my stuff, and have made significant changes as a result.

Embrace Divorce as a New Chapter

So looking at it from this perspective, how on earth could I consider my divorce a failure? Both my marriage and my divorce have, in different ways, contributed to my growth. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re moving forward, growing, and evolving.

I want you to treat your past self with so much love and compassion and grace. You made the decisions you made and did what you did because that was the best you could. Maybe you would do things differently now, because you know more. But you couldn’t have done it differently then, because that’s what you knew. 

My 4 year old can’t tie her shoes because she hasn’t been taught yet. That doesn’t mean she’s a failure. It just means she hasn’t learned how yet! It's the same with life, and with relationships. You haven’t failed at anything, you were just doing what you could with what you had. 

Marriage isn’t the be-all-end-all

Ending a marriage doesn’t make you a loser, and staying married doesn’t make you a winner. Walking away from an unhappy marriage can be the best decision you can make. Divorce doesn’t make you unlovable or damaged. Relationships are complicated, but the lessons you’ve learned are invaluable.

And I am positive, positive, that you’ll be able to pick out a TON of lessons from your relationship, no matter how long or short it’s been. And to me, nothing counts as a failure if you can pick the lessons from it and keep moving forward.