DIVORCE. The seven-letter word I never thought would become my story. When I was a little girl I dreamed of meeting that forever man, creating a family together, chasing our dreams as a united team.

When you’re growing up you always think of these big life dreams. Having a family, building a home, going through life together. This was always my dream. All I ever thought I wanted in life was to get married, become a mom and have a family.

I can’t tell you the amount of times over the past five years I thought about divorce, finding myself thinking, this can’t be how it’s supposed to be. But accepting that reality, accepting that the man I fell in love with was no longer that same man, was an entire different story. I asked myself hundreds of times… Is it harder to stay? Or is it harder to leave? And still, it took a life alternating night for me and my sons to finally say ENOUGH.

For the past five years I’ve been trying to help someone that clearly doesn’t want help and for the first time in 17 years I’m choosing me. I’m choosing to put my own mental health first. And it’s hard. It was hard to stay, and it’s been hard to leave.

It’s easy to look from the outside in and judge someone’s situation. It’s easy to look at someone’s life when you’re not living in their shoes and ask yourself why they are still there. Everyone’s story is their own. Everyone’s journey to divorce or deciding to stay is their own. If you’re finding yourself asking, should I stay or should I go, know you’re not alone. It’s only your choice to make, your choice to say when enough is enough.

You’re not alone.