Anniversaries Can Be Sacred Even When the Marriage Wasn't

Today is my 21st wedding anniversary.

There’s no card. No flowers. No phone call. No celebration. There hasn’t been for a long time. We’ve been separated, this time, for more than two years, and truthfully, I’ve been emotionally separated for longer than I can count. But this year feels… different.

Because this year, I gave myself permission to grieve.

Not for him—I haven’t wanted him in years. Not for the relationship, because that was over long before we said it out loud.But for the dream.The one I held when I said “I do.”The one I tried to keep alive with sheer determination, prayer, and grit. The one that never had a chance to grow in the soil, I planted it in.

This morning, I put on soft ‘70s music—the kind that sounds like childhood Saturdays and open windows and maybe a little hope. I lit a candle, not in memory of the marriage, but in honor of the me who stayed too long, the me who tried to be everything. The me who worked 15-hour days, cried in the dark, made dinners and mortgage payments and decisions, while he offered promises and plans that never grew roots.

I grieved for what it could have been. What it should have been.The partnership I longed for. The spiritual connection I prayed for. I lamented the fact that I spent so many years being a wife to someone who wanted a mother instead.

He needed caretaking. Constant tending. Gentle handling. He liked the idea of being a husband but didn’t want the work. He liked saying “yes” but not doing the thing. And when I carried it all, he told me I was strong, so he didn’t have to be.

For a long time, I couldn’t face it. I felt guilty for wanting out. Guilt for already having a divorce in my past.Guilt because I believed in covenant and commitment, and trying everything you can.Because I love God, and I thought loving God meant never walking away.

But now, I see that it doesn’t dishonor God to honor the life He gave me.

It took me decades to understand that staying in a one-sided marriage isn’t faithfulness—it’s quiet self-abandonment. And today, instead of numbing myself with sarcasm or dismissing the day as “just a date,” I chose to honor it. Not as a marriage anniversary, but as a turning point.A marker. A sacred pause.

Today, I felt the loss. Not the loss of him, but the loss of the future I worked for alone. And I let the tears come.

Because anniversaries can be sacred.

Even when the marriage wasn’t.Even when the vows were only half-lived.Even when the dream unraveled thread by thread.

Today I lit a candle, played the music, and let the grief speak.

And in doing so, I made space for something new: Not bitterness. Not regret, but reverence.

For the girl who dreamed.For the woman who endured.And for the soul who is still standing—with softness, with strength, and with grace.

Tamara Bernal

April 23, 2025