The Space Between: Love, Marriage, and the Quiet Revolution of Self

I never thought I’d respond to someone else’s story and find myself bleeding onto the page in the process—but here I am. Your words, your vulnerability, your unapologetic truths cracked something open in me. Not in protest. In solidarity.

You wrote from Limbo—the sacred middle ground. That honest, contemplative space where nothing is quite right or wrong, where belief systems unravel under the weight of lived experience. I know that place. I’ve sat there, too. We don’t talk about it much. Society calls it confusion or crisis. I call it becoming.

I grew up in a Christian household. Marriage before sex. Babies only after vows. Stability in the form of a commitment signed and sealed before God. I broke all of that. At seventeen, I got pregnant. I had three children with my now ex-husband—technically four, because I was carrying our youngest when we finally did what we were supposed to do: legally marry.

From the start, we were “off course.” We moved in together the day we met—roommates in a house of mutual friends—and that alone broke all the rules I had grown up with. Still, I held onto the guilt like it was gospel. I kept going to church, showing up, pretending. But I was already cast out by the people I thought would love me most. I was no longer part of the circle. I was “that girl.” Unwed. Pregnant. A fornicator.

The shame? It calcified. Made itself a second skin. So when he proposed—after years of chaos, lies, manipulation, and abuse—I resisted. But I eventually gave in. I cracked open my Bible again, searched for God, and convinced myself that if I wanted to be “God-like,” I had to marry him. That the only way to make right what I had broken was to become his wife.

Worst mistake of my life.

The vows didn’t change him. They didn’t change me. What stood before the altar in front of friends and family was a façade. A performative gesture. A social salve. I was still lost. Still confused. Still scared. And now legally bound to someone I was already emotionally escaping.

My parents divorced when I was sixteen. After years of Christian-based marriage counseling, they gave up—and I carried that like my own failure. So when my marriage began to disintegrate, I swallowed the pain. Church leaders told me to stay. Told me I’d be shunned by God if I left. That I didn’t love enough. That I didn’t support enough. That I hadn’t sacrificed enough.

Even with the abuse. Even knowing what he was capable of.

It took me two years to build the courage to leave. And when I finally filed, he broke my arm—in front of our children. That’s what it took. That’s how hard it was to untangle myself from a narrative that was never written for me to begin with.

So when you speak of redefining marriage—of seeing it as a construct, not a covenant—I get it. I live it. Marriage, to me, no longer represents safety or sanctity. It represents pressure, trauma, performance, control. The thing we’re told we must chase in order to be whole. To be seen as worthy.

But I’m not chasing that anymore.

Now, two and a half years into my divorce, I see it all differently. I no longer believe that love needs legal documentation to be real. I no longer believe marriage is the benchmark of romantic success. I don’t want a performance. I want peace. I want presence. I want a love that doesn’t require an audience or a signature to be valid.

Is that a trauma response? Maybe.

Is it clarity? Absolutely.

You asked: What does marriage actually add to love? And the truth is—nothing, if the foundation is already broken. Nothing, if it’s used as a Band-Aid or a badge. I’ve seen love thrive outside of marriage, and I’ve seen marriages that suffocated the very thing they were meant to protect.

Like you, I’m not anti-marriage. I’m pro-authenticity. Pro-choice—not in a political way, but in the deeply personal sense. That every person should have the freedom to choose what love looks like for them. That no one should be shamed for stepping outside the box society made centuries ago.

So many of us are rewriting what partnership means. We’re asking bigger questions now. Not because we’re broken, but because we’re awake. Because we want love that breathes, not binds. Because we know that presence matters more than paperwork.

And because—maybe most of all—we’re finally brave enough to call it what it is: a system that doesn’t work for everyone.

You said you wear the scarlet letter. So do I. But I no longer wear it as shame. I wear it like a warning flare—lit for every woman who thinks she has to stay, has to smile, has to pray her way through pain to be worthy. You don’t. And if you’ve ever left something that was destroying you? You are sacred. Not a sinner. Not a failure. Not a fool.

Just a human being—who chose freedom over illusion.

And who is still worthy of love. Without the red tape.

Closing Note:

This post is in response to the 'Scarlet Letter M' and his post, "The Hidden Truth About Marriage (The Paradox of Love)", over on TheWRITEntanglement. Check it out for a better understanding of my POV and the conversation between us spurring this response.

I always thoroughly enjoy conversation with Max on things like marriage and spirituality (he also shouted me out from my post "The Duality of Spirituality and Being Human" on his post, "Spread Love, be Human and be Free: The Reveal that'll change Everything").