Breaking up with my husband, surprisingly, saved my marriage

This First Person article is the experience of Jessyka Hagen, who lives in Airdrie, Alta. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I stared at Jordan and wondered how I had ever been in love with him. It was a chilly winter night and we had been arguing. 

Frustrated, I blurted out words that changed my relationship forever. 

"I'm done. You win."

Jordan and I separated soon after. 

The couple who argued that night in the kitchen was nothing like the couple we used to be when we met seven years ago.  

There used to be a time when being with Jordan was fun. Full of adventure. Chaos. High highs and low lows. Intoxicating. 

Jordan and I met at a pub where I was bartending. He came in for his friend's birthday lunch. He instantly stood out from the crowd. Not because he was wearing baggy white jeans, a tropical bird print beach shirt, a snapback hat (with the sticker still on) and a confident strut, but because when he smiled, he smiled with his entire face. 

When I carded him, I realized he was three years younger than me and also a friend of my younger sister. Insert eye roll. Love at first sight was more like love for a split second. 

Despite my best efforts, Jordan eventually won me over and we went on a date a month later. 

The first time he told me he loved me, he meant it and I knew. The sound of "you" escaping his lips carried more weight than ever before. 

He never missed a morning text to tell me I was beautiful. I would surprise him at work with coffee or organize weekend getaways to places neither of us had ever been. We were always together, never got tired of each other and yet we were always enthusiastic to learn more about each other. We took up hobbies, we watched different shows together, we made an effort.

Four years later, we got married. At the time, I felt becoming his wife was the best decision. It was a new adventure. A promise to have fun together forever. But it was also incredibly hard. 

It was like we subconsciously both decided to do everything possible to see how far we could push each other. 

My husband has always worked away, either in the oilfield or mining industry. In the first year of our marriage, he was away a lot more — 24 days away and back home for four days. During that time, he began drinking heavily while I started to ignore his calls. 

I tried to control every bit of our lives, especially since I was home with our daughter. My daughter and I had a good routine that worked for us. When he came home, he started to feel like a nuisance, and I started to feel like I was mothering him. 

We were both lonely and resentful. We both felt like the other wasn't doing enough. We had lost respect for each other. 

We stopped adhering to each other's love languages — his being touch and mine being words of affection. I stopped showing him physical affection. The hugs and kisses stopped. Meanwhile, his words went from endearing to abhorrent. We were no longer teammates. We were constantly battling to see who could "win" at hurting or annoying the other. 

Separating was the best decision we could have made. 

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Breakups can look a lot of different ways: slow dissolves, out-of-nowhere blow-outs, mutual partings-of-ways. The truth is, they all hurt. Today you'll meet people in the thick of it, and the surprising ways they're getting through. When Litia Fleming broke up with Richard Kemick after 10 years together, it came as a shock to Richard. But two weeks later, they got an even bigger jolt: Litia was pregnant. Find out how these exes are juggling new parenthood, dating, and the joys and challenges of living together after breaking up. After a painful divorce, Saba Ahmad vowed to go to law school and become the lawyer she never had. She graduated last spring, and is providing support to other South Asian women facing the end of a marriage, as she pursues her last steps to becoming a lawyer.    Three years ago, exhausted from all the arguing, nagging and fighting, Jessyka and Jordan Hagen called it quits - only to realize their breakup would eventually save their marriage. Ify heads to Next Generation Arts, a youth arts organization in Scarborough, to learn lessons on wading through heartbreak. And we crash a support group helping men talk about their emotions after a breakup - but if you’re late, expect to do push-ups. 

Instead of focusing on each other, we put our efforts into co-parenting our four-year-old. 

That took much of the resentment and pressure out of our relationship. After a few months, I felt ready to find love again and downloaded several dating apps. 

I realized dating allowed me to be the best version of myself: fun, flirty, accommodating, respectful and eager to learn more about the person I was pursuing. I made time for them. I took up an interest in their hobbies. One guy I dated was into fishing. I'd never gone fishing before, but I learned everything about it while dating him. 

And then it hit me. I was putting in all this effort with people I had just met because I wanted them to like me. I put effort into showing up that way for them every day, but where had that version of myself gone when I was married? 

It made me realize I had stopped dating my husband. If I had given an ounce of the same effort I was now giving to strangers, my marriage might have been successful. 

Dating other people made me realize that I wasn't giving Jordan the space to be himself in our marriage if I controlled everything. When I was dating, I was easygoing and chill. I wasn't stressing about chores or depending on them for my happiness. I started having hobbies and taking care of myself. I bought lingerie because it made me feel good about myself. I started to fall back in love with myself by showing up as the person I wanted other people to fall in love with. 

I started thinking about my shortcomings. I had to look inward and take accountability. As much as I wanted to continue blaming everything on Jordan, I realized that in the breakdown of our marriage, I was just as much to blame. 

Meanwhile, Jordan was also doing his own work on himself independently of me. He stopped drinking. Instead of seeing his work schedule as something we had to go through, we saw it as an opportunity. I realized my privilege in having a husband who would make sacrifices to provide for our family, and I found gratitude in the time spent apart to strengthen our relationship. 

Instead of despising the time alone, I valued our independence. We are intentional on his days off by always scheduling a date night when he's home and tackling home projects together.

We started going to therapy individually and together so that we could be good co-parents. We rebuilt our friendship: the baseline of "us," so we could be there for our daughter. 

One night, after he had gone out on a date, he told me the girl he had gone out with was "so fun." It gutted me. I realized then that I was jealous. I used to be someone he was excited to talk about. I realized then, as happy as I was to have him as a friend, I wanted my husband back. 

Thirteen months later, we went Christmas shopping for our daughter together. Something was different. Chalk it up to the magic of the season but there was a sparkle we couldn't deny. 

The difference? From my point of view, we had started to respect each other again. 

We laughed freely. We had fun. It felt like an adventure. We had become friends. We had fun together. We would flirt with each other.

And with that, I started dating my husband again.

There's this notion that you shouldn't go back to your ex. After all, you broke up for a reason. What I learned in this time apart is that no matter how far you run from the relationship, the same reasons you separated will follow you because sometimes you're also the problem. 

Jordan and I have been back together for three years. I can confidently say our separation was the best thing that happened to our relationship. It made us appreciative of what we have, of who we are and realize that love is a choice you make every day. 

The choice to love him is still the easiest decision I make every day. It's reminding ourselves that when everything around us is hard, leaning into each other instead of turning against each other makes life a whole lot easier.

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