Fighting Relentlessly for My Life, Not Just My Marriage

I remember the moment it hit me. I was driving home from the gym, music humming in the background, when a thought landed like a punch to the chest: When did the institution of marriage start to trump my personal joy and happiness?

That question unraveled years of programming. From a young age, I had been taught by the church that marriage is a covenant with no back door divorce was not an option. For better or for worse. To step away was unthinkable. But the longer I lived under that belief, the more I realized it was robbing me of my freedom. And here’s the truth I had to face: staying in a marriage for marriage’s sake when that marriage had turned toxic and abusive wasn’t love. It was survival. It was prison

The Brutiful Awakening

For me, the process of waking up to my real life didn’t start at 50, like Sleeping Beauty. It began at 42. From 2017 onward, I embarked on a journey I now call my Brutiful Life a path filled with both beauty and brutality. There were name-calling, accusations, manipulation, and abuse on every level emotional, mental, verbal, sexual, spiritual, and financial. I wanted desperately for my marriage to work. I told Jesus I would stay until He said it was time to go. I loved my husband, but I loved Jesus more. He was my protector, my provider, my safe place.

Every fiber of my being prayed, wished, and hoped for a different outcome. And yet, amid the chaos, I began to realize a freeing truth: I love you, but I love me more.

I came across a quote that sealed it for me: “She did not choose to be alone; she simply chose to love herself more. It required her to be the love of her own life, until someone comes to fulfill that position.”

When I fell in love with me, something shifted. Real love will one day find me the kind that loves me more than I love myself, and that I can love in the same way.

Recognizing the Back Door

I came to understand that marriage DOES have a back door, but the power lies in the CHOICE to stay or go. For too long, I had believed I was trapped. But I learned that staying in a marriage where one partner becomes controlling, manipulative, or addicted where love turns into destruction is not God’s design. No one should be destroyed for the sake of keeping a vow. When you love someone more than yourself in those circumstances, you are helping them destroy you. And that is not what God intends for marriage or for life.

Marriage as a Daily Choice

Now I believe this: yes, there’s a back door but the power of love lies in the choice not to use it. If I marry again (and I will), it will be with this mindset:

I choose you.
I choose you every day.
Not because I’m trapped, but because I want to stay.

I choose to be the best me I can be for you.
I choose to love me so I can love you well.
I choose to work on myself so I can bring my whole heart to us.
I choose to let go of bitterness, anger, and unforgiveness.
I choose to honor and respect you.
I choose to laugh with you when life gets heavy.
I choose to touch your soul, never wound it.
I choose to explore every layer of who you are.
I choose to risk it all.

We can’t control the music life plays for us, but we can choose how we dance. And I will choose to dance with you my lover, my friend, my partner, my always and forever. That, to me, is marriage.

Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others

One scripture that has profoundly shaped my thinking about love is Matthew 22:37–39:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Notice the natural order here: God → Self → Others.

First, we are called to love God fully, with every part of our being. That love is the source and the guide for everything else. Then comes self-love implicit in the command to love your neighbor AS YOURSELF! You can’t truly give healthy love to anyone else if you don’t value, care for, and honor yourself first. And finally, loving others flows naturally from a heart rooted in God’s love and strengthened by self-respect.

This scripture mirrors my journey perfectly. Choosing to love myself wasn’t selfish it was necessary. It was the first step toward understanding what real, healthy love looks like, both for others and for myself. And it laid the foundation for any future marriage I enter: a love that is intentional, free, nurturing, and aligned with God’s design.

Love Is a Choice—And So Is Life

Jesus never forces us to love Him. He gives us the freedom to choose. Every day, I choose Him. And when I look back at my marriage to Shon, I know that I chose him every day too even when it hurt, even when it was messy, even when the outcome was uncertain.

On May 31, 2018, I wrote in my journal:

“I always leave my journals out on the coffee table. I sometimes secretly wish he’d pick them up and read them. Then he’d see and know the things I express about him to Jesus—how much I love him, pray for him, and fight for him.”

He never read them. But I did what I could. I fought, I loved, and I survived. By the time my divorce was final, I had seen five counselors and was still in counseling today. Through it all, I emerged into the woman I was born to be the one God had been designing all along. I found the real me. The me that chooses herself, that chooses love daily, that chooses life. Because ultimately, love is a choice. Life is a choice. And I choose both relentlessly, fiercely, and freely.

A Future Marriage Rooted in Freedom and Faith

Through all of this, I’ve realized something profound: my next marriage will mirror my relationship with Jesus. Just like Ruth was found in the field drawn by love, not obligation I will be found by a love that honors who I am, a love that grows alongside me. I don’t need to settle. I don’t need to compromise my freedom or my joy. Because I now know that real love doesn’t trap, control, or destroy it nurtures, heals, and expands.

When two givers fall in love, it’s unlike anything else. That is power. That is pure love. That is marriage. That is God’s design. Will I marry again? Yes but I will marry consciously, freely, and joyfully. I will choose each day, as I choose Jesus, to give my best self, to love authentically, and to nurture a bond built on respect, intimacy, vulnerability, and mutual growth.

Love will find me when the time is right, just as it always has been in God’s timing. And when it does, I will meet it fully awake, fully me no masks, no programming, no “have-to’s.”

Because the most important fight I ever waged was not just for my marriage it was for my life. For my freedom. For the woman God created me to be. And that fight continues every day, in every choice, in every breath of love I give and receive.

Much Love,

Rachel Xoxo!