My Failures as a Man In My Marriage: A Sincere Apology to My Ex-Wife
When Marriage Fails: A Journey Through Divorce and Self-Discovery (Part 4 of 5)
Reader note:
If you’re a divorced woman, upset by an unrepentant ex-husband, you’re about to read a sincere, deeply felt apology from a contrite ex-husband to his ex-wife. It may be heart-cleansing to read this slowly, play a few song notes, absorb it—imagining your unrepentant ex-husband having these feelings, saying these words. Suspend your disbelief, and see what opens up for you. It will be beautiful.
If you’re a man, if you identify with the foolish ideas and attitudes I clung to with pride, ask yourself if you would do this to a woman, knowingly, intentionally. It’s important because I’m about to lift your veil of ignorance, leaving no excuses. Once you see her truth, you must decide between being a abusive asshole, or a gentleman. It’s that clearcut.
Consider this: your actions define you for others. Your mysterious inner world concerns no one but you. Your victim story, prideful views, the bullshit you imagine define your character—it’s merely a thought in your head, a fart in the wind. Once you see the wrong you’re doing to a woman from her perspective, and you choose to continue, gleefully travel that road, you are Darth Vader, the Devil’s right hand.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
My Failures as a Man In My Marriage
Here’s the truth, laid bare, with no soft edges or excuses: I acted like a fool.
I failed to recognize the moments when wisdom was needed and let them pass like clouds across a summer sky.
Because of my choices, my ex-wife endured years of hardship and emotional pain. Nothing in what I did was admirable, nothing to redeem my actions.
It was my failure.
I don't know why I did the things I did
I don't know why I said the things I said
Pride's like a knife, it can cut deep inside
Words are like weapons, they wound sometimesI didn't really mean to hurt you
I didn't wanna see you go
I know I made you cry, but babyIf I could turn back time
If I could find a way
I'd take back those words that have hurt youIf I Could Turn Back Time--Cher
Failure to Provide
I failed to provide stability. Our household was anything but steady; we moved over fifteen times! My son never had a room he could call his own. I struggled to hold stable employment.
My work in real estate consulting disappeared in 2008, and I walked away from jobs that didn’t suit me. I faced long, empty stretches of unemployment and chased an entrepreneurial income for eight years, yet managed little more than paying bills—sometimes not even that.
This failure weighed heavy, breeding stress and anxiety, driven by the constant instability of our finances.
This sub-set of failures was primarily due to my arrogance, my shield of ignorance, extending to the workplace. I was the first-round draft pick who struggled to make the team, a primadonna nobody really wanted to deal with.
Failure to Protect
Hawks embody masculine dominance, the clash, the fight. When two hawks meet, they battle; strength wins, weakness loses, both leave bloodied. Doves, on the other hand, bring the feminine energy of yielding, group harmony, cooperation. Doves are strong in numbers but defenseless against a lone hawk.
The dove risks the pain of death at the will of the hawk, knowingly, for the safety of the hawk’s protection. The dove submits to the hawks will, come what may.
Doves only nest with hawks because doves believe that the hawks’ masculine energy will never be directed at the dove.
The hawk must shield the dove, feminine power, from all masculine energy—that’s the protection duty of masculinity.
When men react to women with masculine energy, threatening them, intimidating them, no matter how subtly, or making them feel unsafe in any way, it breaks the basic agreement between dove and hawk that allows them to coexist at all.
Embrace the hawks-and-doves idea, see the strength in it, feel the weight of its truth.
When a man faces a woman’s wrath, he feels his masculine energy emerge to retaliate, ordinarily leading to emotional violence against the dove, a relationship-ending mistake.
However, if this analogy arises in a man’s heart, feelings of true masculinity, the man feels his inner hawk, sees the helpless dove needing to vent instead of the vicious monster demanding destruction. Combat is not required.
In that moment, everything changes. Instead of inappropriately responding with anger, exacerbating the conflict, the man will calmly let the dove squawk, complain, expend her feminine energy the dove’s way without any pushback.
A squawking dove is a silly image, cute and disarming. Seeing an angry feminine outburst as silly and cute, far from demeaning, is an effective way to release the unneeded masculine energy that arose with the anger.
When a man fails in his duty of protection, his precious dove is hurt, repeatedly. Anger builds inside the dove, finally pushing the dove to become masculine, deny her true self, fight back. The only option for the woman to remain feminine is for the dove to take flight.
There's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it's bringing me out the dark
Finally, I can see you crystal clear
Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your shit bareSee how I'll leave with every piece of you
Don't underestimate the things that I will doThere's a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it's bringing me out the darkThe scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all
The scars of your love, they leave me breathlessRolling In The Deep--Adele
I failed to shield my ex-wife from my masculine energy. I would defend my personal boundaries inappropriately, reacting to feminine energy as if it were masculine. I fought a battle with a helpless opponent, winning every fight and losing the war.
She couldn’t physically hurt me. Her verbal onslaughts threatened only my fragile ego. I gained nothing by shielding myself, pushing back with the masculine. I endured only loss by undermining the fundamental agreement of the relationship.
I defended my actions based on my worldview, believing that she would not be upset if she saw things my way.
I would argue my point of view, assuming only my view was valid, hers was faulty. I merely needed to get her to see my reality.
I resisted her viewpoint, argued mine with masculine energy, assaulting my feminine dove.
Each of those foolish actions, so common, easily justified with victim stories, each of those actions served to undermine my marriage. It was not masculine.
A duty of masculinity is to continuously interact with the feminine through their viewpoint. The masculine viewpoint is irrelevant to the feminine.
I turned her feminine energy into masculine energy by resisting and fighting when it wasn’t required.
I was as wrong as wrong gets. Ignorant. Arrogant.
Failure of Identity
I failed to build a social identity. I never sought status and never cared about managing what others thought of me.
Friendships fell by the wayside. I was always too busy, too wrapped up in my own world to make time for anyone outside.
She would plan social gatherings and put in the effort to arrange something, but I would refuse to go.
I hardly knew her friends.
Countless opportunities slipped by—social, business, moments to make a mark, to set us in a stronger place.
I provided no real identity to our family, no presence. We rarely went out together as a couple, drifting further from the world outside.
Failure of Acceptance
I failed to accept my wife as she was. I demanded she change, bending herself to fit my needs.
Her humor, sharp and sarcastic, once playful banter, the core of her allure, became poisoned and caustic by my attempts to silence her through subtle intimidation. Like a skittish deer, she grew timid, fearful that a careless word might bring a harsh reaction, an inappropriate masculine blast, a failure of protection.
Look at us, baby, up all night
Tearing our love apart
Aren't we the same two people
Who lived through years in the dark?I Can’t Tell You Why—The Eagles
In retrospect, I’m truly dumbfounded by the scope and scale of my ignorance. I honestly can’t explain how I became so colossally stupid.
I judged her, found her lacking, and she felt the weight of it. In another moment of internal soul-searching, I came to grips with the depth of pain an arrogant asshole can inflict on those around him.
I offered little support and did only the minimum to help her where she struggled, jeering her while doing so.
Often, I stood back, pushing her away with silent disapproval.
What a jerk.
Failure to Lead
I failed to lead with strength. I saw her as an equal business partner and expected her to carry her load like a man, capable of handling everything alone.
I made money; she kept house and family, sacrosanct imaginary lines in my head that prompted upset reactions when she requested help.
I believed she didn’t need my help, only a nudge to keep her responsibilities in line. I treated her like a male subordinate in my workplace, with mostly masculine interactions and reprisals.
But all these thoughts, these assumptions—they were wrong, and they led us nowhere.
I didn’t see her as someone under my guidance or care. I didn’t treat her like a feminine woman.
I failed to anticipate her needs, to open doors for her, to ease her burdens when the weight of her tasks grew heavy. I left her to handle difficult tasks on her own, standing back when she needed a hand.
I didn't lift her up in ways that mattered to her and didn't offer support the way she wanted it.
If her desires seemed trivial to me, I brushed them aside without a second thought.
I made no careful plans and took no pains to create a sense of security.
My leadership was weak, and she felt it. She lost confidence in me.
Failure to Sustain Attraction
I failed to sustain attraction. My appearance and physical shape were never the issue. Those things are only a sliver of what truly holds a woman’s interest.
I bought into the lie that being dependable and nice would be enough. I smoothed down the edges, removed humor and boldness from myself, and left my emotional armor behind. I stopped showing the raw, shameless desire that once made me feel alive and made her feel sexy.
My spiritual practice fostered gentleness, even when confrontation was necessary. I cultivated selflessness until I vanished a little each day. But all the softness, the habit of avoiding conflict, the stripping away of the masculine to build up the feminine—none of it kept her close or made her feel attracted to me. In fact, it had the opposite effect.
Stable isn’t sexy. I spent most of my marriage working long hours, believing that building financial stability would ease our stress and make her feel grateful and even drawn to me. But it doesn’t work that way. Sure, we felt less stress when money was good, but it stirred no gratitude or desire in her, which wasn’t her failing.
Friendly, kind, and stable traits are fine in a friend or companion, but they do not spark or thrill. I poured myself into the wrong goals, thinking I could secure our love through safety and predictability. In doing so, I slowly killed the attraction I wanted most to keep alive.
Social is sexy. A hermit holds no attraction; a man without friends offers no value to a woman’s world. I see it now—a man who can’t widen her social circle has little to offer.
A woman wants to share in a man’s life, not build it for him. A robust social circle signals value because it reveals to her that others like and respect him.
A man should have friendships, connections he can trust, and people who know him and want to help him grow. Without that, he has no social value, no depth.
A man must invest in more than just his relationship—contribute time to organizations, reach out to his community, and know people who know him back.
But I did none of this. I had no real social identity.
Taking Personal Responsibility
This was the hardest series of truths to document. I had to let go of the victim’s mask, the illusion that I’d done nothing wrong, that she was fully to blame for the breakup because she was crazy. I had to emotionally “own” my failures and face each one unflinching.
When I finally looked at us from a different perspective, seeing the roles of masculinity and femininity in a real marriage, my mistakes hit me like a hammer—so obvious, so shameful, it bludgeoned my defenses, crushing my resistance.
I realized I had been a fool, arrogant and blind. I ignored her reactions and reduced her attraction for me down to nothing, even less than nothing. She struggled alone, stuck and floundering, while I mocked her for it. Teased her weaknesses.
How could I have been so foolish? In case you missed them…
When I read through the first draft of this work, I saw everything anew—for the first time from her side, with fresh understanding. I stopped to meditate on how my behavior impacted her, dropping all my internal rationalizations and justifications for anything I did.
I imagined her future from her point of view. What lay in store for her if she stayed with me, absent any real change?
More of the same.
My failures, though numerous and obvious now, were distorted by pride and arrogance. My certainty in the wrong concepts magnified my ignorance.
She would endure years of her femininity being blasted with the masculine energy she’s supposed to be protected from. She wasn’t being accepted, the fundamental nature of love, denied to her.
I wasn’t loving her properly, worse than not loving her. Who would want more of that?
I played the song Easy On Me by Adele.
There ain't no gold in this river
That I've been washin' my hands in forever
I know there is hope in these waters
But I can't bring myself to swim
When I am drowning in this silence
Baby, let me inGo easy on me, baby
There ain't no room for things to change
When we are both so deeply stuck in our ways
You can't deny how hard I've tried
I changed who I was to put you both first
But now I give upGo easy on me, baby
Easy on Me — Adele
When I heard my ex-wife’s feelings come through Adele’s voice, frustration, despair, begging for mercy, submitting, feminine, hoping against hope that I might find the courage for one last masculine act—allow her to leave in peace. Ease her transition.
I saw the situation from her point of view, my heart broke open, compassion overwhelmed me.
Masculine energy upwelled, the desire to protect her from the brute who was hurting her—except that I was that brute. The scope and scale of my failure blasted right back at me, a perfect mirror into her pain.
I felt the painful and hopeless state I induced, the enormous relief to be released from that.
I wept. I sobbed, diving over and over into the ocean of pain, sadness, disappointment I inflicted upon her. I anguished with the despair we share over the wasted effort we invested in ourselves as a couple, ultimately amounting to nothing.
And I grieved for the deep, heart-wrenching sadness we both felt when we realized that even if we succeeded in staying together, there was no reward for our troubles.
She had suffered through a man who refused to be truly masculine, a man who laughed at her weaknesses instead of lifting her up.
She’d endured wild highs and lows, all because she had the misfortune of choosing me, believing me when I said I would love her. Little did she know that I didn’t know how to love, not in actions anyway, the only measure that matters.
I let the sobbing run its course, listening to that song repeatedly over many days, reminding myself of my many mistakes.
I've been tryin' to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about
Forgiveness, forgiveness
Even if, even if
You don't love me anymoreHeart of the Matter—Don Henley
When I first opened my heart to her pain, I felt lower than low. But each session was cleansing, healing, a painful but necessary part of the process.
Tears wash away the stains of the heart.
Remorse is How We Take Responsibility
I took responsibility, not just for the facts, but for her pain, wishing I’d known then what I know now.
I felt remorse, also known as healthy regret, a feeling I covet. This was a hard-earned regret I wanted to keep close, a reminder of mistakes I’d never want to repeat.
I dropped the self-loathing and aimed that raw energy at the beliefs that led me to fail her and to act so poorly.
Regret is my guardrail, the feeling that would pull me back if I ever leaned toward those same mistakes.
Finding that regret, feeling it fully, and rolling remorse into my heart was a milestone in my healing. Facing my flaws was the emotional reward, leaving me stronger and wiser.
It wasn’t that bad
Looking back, it wasn’t all bad. Dissecting each flaw and misstep, this brutal self-examination paints a picture that skews toward darkness.
Left out is the good, the moments that once kept us whole. We stayed together for twenty-four years, so there was plenty to keep us going, enough warmth and kindness to smooth the rough edges—until there wasn’t.
But those issues festered underneath, unseen. They churned quietly, gnawing away, hardening us, aging us.
It wasn’t a life of misery; from the outside, we looked Facebook happy, the picture of comfort. We lived in a haze of contentment, the American Dream with a few ingredients missing.
Love was there once, strong and vital, but it lingered, gasping, until it suffocated, choked beyond resuscitation.
Divorce was a fresh start, a clean cut, the painful break that offered us the chance to heal, to reclaim passion and purpose that had long slipped away.
For My Ex-Wife
She’ll never read this; she flatly said so. I understand why; It’s just words.
She’d roll her eyes at every line, thinking it just another excuse, another clumsy attempt to gaslight her or rationalize the past. She never took to my writing—and this wasn’t meant for her anyway, not directly.
These words are the balm I need, not hers. The writing, editing, crafting these words, images, videos, was soothing during my healing process, a direct expression of my open heart.
This work poured out of me during an undisturbed period of continuous heightened emotions, a retreat at my home with my son while my ex-wife traveled, putting literal and emotional miles between us.
If she were to read this, I would only want her to know that I’m sorry. The hell I created was forged with good intentions.
It's no secret that the both of us
Are running out of timeSo hello from the other side (other side)
I must've called a thousand times (thousand times)
To tell you I'm sorry for everything that I've done
But when I call, you never seem to be homeHello from the outside (outside)
At least I can say that I've tried (I've tried)
To tell you I'm sorry for breaking your heartHello--Adele
We’re bound together by our son. He’s grown, but unable to walk alone, fragile enough that we’re still tethered, orbiting around him, our paths crossing only when they have to.
Since the split, we’ve held to that unspoken rule: keep it brief, quiet, move on. But we both know that for his sake, for our own, our lives will touch, however faintly, for as long as we breathe.
And here’s Karma at work, or perhaps Fate’s cruel joke, the punchline that life’s thrown my way. I’ve grown better in her absence, sharper, steadier—everything I should’ve been when we were together. I taste that bitter truth like burnt coffee searing my throat. I failed her in ways I can’t reverse.
As an ex-husband, I am more of a man, more masculine, than I ever was as her partner.
I’ve spoken my apologies more times than I can count, and each time I’ve stood there, arms at my sides, remaining calm, letting her fury roast me, immolated in years of her stored hate. We’d share compassionate tears when her fury abates. Her words, blunt, angry, hateful, hammering my old buttons only a spouse knew existed, all of it deserved.
It’s ongoing. I believe it helps her. I owe her that. Perhaps my penance.
The damage is mine to own. The blame, the anger, the raw hurt—the embers I left smoldering in her heart, wounds I seared in with every mistake, every selfish misstep.
Those fires, I know, they still burn.
But if there’s any justice, I wish her peace. I wish her mornings free of the weight I left on her heart, days where she isn’t shadowed by the pain I caused. A morning when she is once again the pure, radiant woman I met all those years ago.
If I could reach into her soul and calm the storms I left behind, I would. This, all of it, is my quiet penance—a lifetime spent in the faint hope that I can find some way to make it right, even if it’s only a sliver of redemption in the spaces between us.
She needed so much more
Than I could give
We knew our love could not pretend
Broken hearts can always mendSend her my love
Memories remain
Send her my love
Roses never fade
Send her my loveSend her my love — Journey
I’m sorry. For everything.
