Life and other stories
Why i left my husband.
I am alone in Koh Phangan, a little island in Thailand. I have a little house close to the ocean and to a yoga-studio where I go everyday, it is quiet and nice and just what I needed. In the beginning I did not like it at all, I don´t know why, some how I always hate the place I go to the first day or so, maybe because it is not what I imagined, but then somehow I always manage to find the beauty in places.
I have now been traveling with my husband, since we decided to sell everything we own, and just go for our dream. That is more than a year ago now.
Has it been easy? Yes it was easy to sell everything we own, yes it was easy to say goodbye to our old life. But being together 24/7 almost everyday, often living in small spaces around the world (tents, cars, small bungalows etc.), is not that easy. You become each others everything when you travel, that sounds really romantic, but believe me it is not.
Somehow you melt together and become one ( again not romantic), you have to compromise so much that you kind of forget, who YOU are, and what you wanted out of this travel adventure. It all gets very blurry, and you cannot see clearly any more where you stop and he begins.
Yes, so we decided to take a month break from each other. Yep! My husband wanted to go and do Muay Thai training in Chaing Mai (place in Thailand in the jungle) to get really fit and sweaty with a bunch of other manly men, and I wanted the peace, beach and yoga, so of we went.
This is probably the healthiest thing we have ever done for our relationship, taking time apart, not breaking up, just giving each other space to breathe, think and find our way back to who we are as individuals.
Of course I miss him, but I don´t let that over shine my wonderful experience, of being alone and finding back to my center.
A few days after we decided to split up for month, I stumbled over this article from a Danish woman called Sofia Manning, very inspiring. Her blog post was about, demanding her own room, before she moved into her new house with her husband ( you can read the whole blog post here, if you read Danish 😉 )
In short she wanted have her own private space, you know like the men have there garage. But that was not the only thing she wanted, she also wanted 5 days a month, free from her family life, where she could recharge, find back to her center, and go out be with her girlfriends on her own time frame, selfish!? not at all, I think this a very healthy lifestyle she decided for her self.
Funny enough I had a similar conversation, with a customer of mine a few years back, she told me if she could change one thing in her life, then she would have bought a small vacation home at the time her children where small, this would then have been her little escape place every now and then for 1 or 2 days, just to be my her self with a book, a cup tea, just breathe for moment and fill her cup up with self love again. She ended up saying, I think that could have saved my marriage. Selfish not at frocking all.
We women we do it all and we never give us time and space to just take care of our self, we just simply don´t allow our self to be selfish and recharge our energy.
Like Elizbeth Gilbert so nicely said it in a interview, when we go into a relationship, instantly we become a servant and forget who we are and what we wanted out of life. Then years later you get your small midlife crises, where you get depressed or sick with something, because you for all these years have been hiding who you really are and what you wanted out of life.
Then you end up at ‘The Yoga Barn’ in Ubud, in you mid 30s or 40s, depressed and desperate to find the meaning of life. Oh boy I’ve seen it, I listened to them at the women’s circle, and it is not pretty. What do you think Eat Pray Love is all about??
I am telling you this, so that you know If you ever had that thought of you own space, it is OKAY, you are not alone, many of us need a place to recharge.
Demand your space, and start your journey today, find out who you really are and what dreams you have been hiding all these years. Start living and stop being a servant, become clear about who you are. NO it is not selfish.
Big kiss from Thailand, I am on my journey, so join me 🙂 Let´s live outside the box.
I would love to here from you, let my know in the comments down below, what your first step is today, towards demanding your space and becoming clear about, if you are really living the life you truly want?
8 Comments
Mette
Kunne godt tænke mig en dansk version af teksten da mit engelsk er dårligt
Nicole Piper
Kære Mette
Her er den på dansk: https://nicolepiper.com/hvorfor-jeg-forlod-min-mand/?lang=da
Connie Christensen
Kæreste Nicole!
Umiddelbart synes jeg, det er trist at høre, at I har været nødt til at gå hver til sit – men når det er sagt, så fungerer det jo ikke, hvis I ikke giver hinanden tilstrækkelig næring til at “spiralen går op-ad”. I er unge endnu og det er fint, at I har erkendt, Jeres veje må skilles – om ikke andet, så for en tid. Hver for sig har I mulighed for at finde ud af, om der er noget i savner ved hinanden. Efter nogen tid finder I jo nok ud af, om der er en essens af Jeres forhold, som berettiger til en eller anden relation, som bygger på gensidig tillid og respekt samt den personlige frihed, I har brug for. Who knows. Held og lykke med at finde “den ny vej” !
Stort kram fra Connie – Sønderborg
Nicole Piper
Kære Connie
Jeg tror at du har misforstået en smule hvad blog opslaget handlede om. Vi er ikke gået fra hinanden, vi gør bare ting hver for sig en måned.
Hele essensen af blog opslaget var sætte focus på at det er okay tage tid til sig selv og give sig selv et frirum også når man er i et forhold.
Mange Knus Og Kram Nicole
Marisol
I think this doesn’t apply to every woman. I don’t think every woman gave up their dreams or lost themselves just because of a man. I think you can find your own space living with the partner you chose to be with. It’s all about having balance in your daily life. Also, it’s about styles, you might need more hours by yourself than maybe other woman and that’s ok. Meditation helps to find your balance and you can do this by living or not living with your partner. I don’t think “separation” is necessarily the answer to find yourself. We might just need to be more aware of who we are at all times, and learn how to have breaks without going to extremes. But again, if separation works for you that’s fine, I just don’t think this strategy can be generalize to every woman, it might not work and it might bring resentment to the people involved in the relationship. Every relationship needs to be observed independently and apply different strategies to not loose their individuality.
Nicole Piper
Hey Marisol
Of course every woman and every relationship is different. What might work for me, might not work for you. But what the point is with the blog post, to say it is okay to give yourself freedom and space to find in to your center again. A relationship doesn’t have to apply to certain rules, create your life and your relationship the way you want to, as long as you both a happy.
Big Hug Nicole
Heather
I think you have to really travel with a partner for long stretches of time (months on end) to really understand what you are talking about. I had this happen when I traveled (backpacker/flashpacker style) with another travel buddy, often times someone I met in my travels that we decided to travel together. I know EXACTLY what you are referring to where you loose yourself and feel as though you are acting and thinking as one. It happened with girls and guys I traveled with, it doesn’t even need to be a romantic relationship thing, just a travel partner thing. My guess at why this happens is because when we are traveling in foreign countries and exploring and navigating foreign cultures we gain this weird inter-dependence with the other person since they become the only thing constant in your life as everything else feels upside down and backwards and you’re struggling together to navigate this challenging life of travel. You end up doing EVERYTHING together. It’s not the same as a normal couple or roommate/ friendship relationship that you would have living normal lives in your home country together. You don’t live separate lives, separate jobs and separate friends. You don’t have other constants or comforts or familiarities to depend or turn to. I know this feeling you have described so well, it happened every time I parted ways with someone I had been traveling with for a while, you feel so open and vulnerable right after you separate like you are suddenly missing your other half, I was just trying to explain this to a friend the other day how suddenly you feel like you forgot how to travel and be alone all the sudden, almost like you forgot how to think for yourself. And unlike Marisol’s understanding of your post, it’s not a dependency on your man type of thing, it’s about two travelers navigating foreign lands together too long, it’s inevitable. The feeling always passed for me after the first few days alone so I can imagine why you weren’t super happy in your first days in Koh Phangan. But I totally agree that you absolutely needed that space to find yourself again. It’s therapeutic and healthy and parting ways every so often (especially in travel) is soooo important! Good post Nikki! I was even a little lost for a day or two after you left Bali and we were just staying at the same hostel, not even roommates lol. It just happens.
Nicole Piper
Thank you my sweet heart Heather, i really loved your comment ( our almost a whole new blog post 🙂 ) Because you had some really good insides about how it is to travel with anybody, Partner or nor partner i liked that a lot, because it is not easy, because you have to communicate so well about every little detail.
I missed you to actually after i left, still do sometimes.
Big Kiss Nicole