The Divorce Is Not The Hard Part. The Attachment Is.
Let me just say something that might make you do a double take.
I am blessed to be going through a divorce.
Not broken. Not bitter. Not a cautionary tale.
Blessed.
And I don’t say that lightly.
Here’s What Nobody Tells You About Divorce
We know the stereotype.
One person is devastated. The other is relieved. One is clinging. The other is already gone. One is humiliated. The other feels free. One is confused. The other has been sure for years.
That’s the version of divorce we grew up watching— in our families, in movies, in the the group chats. And for a lot of people? That’s exactly how it goes.
But here’s the thing nobody really talks about:
The pain of divorce isn’t actually about the divorce.
It’s about attachment.
Attachment to what you thought forever was supposed to look like. Attachment to the opinions of people who don’t sleep in your bed or live inside your life. Attachment to an identity — wife, husband, couple, family — that you’ve been building for years and suddenly have to set down.
That’s the hard part.
Not the paperwork. Not the logistics.
The letting go of what you expected to be true.
My Divorce Looks Different. And I’m Grateful For That.
My ex-husband and I both know this is right.
We both have hope. We both have faith that our lives will be better— much better, not worse — because of this decision. We’re both on our children’s well-being. We both know we deserve something different.
We both do.
And that clarity? It changes everything!
Because when you’re not fighting over who was right, you can actually focus on what comes next. When neither is the villain nor victim in the story… you’re not carrying the weight of a narrative that doesn’t serve you both.
It’s only possible — this kind of peaceful, chosen, whole ending — when detachment is real.
Not performed. Not forced.
Real.
Detachment Doesn’t Mean You Don’t Care
I want to be clear about this because it gets misunderstood.
Detachment isn’t coldness.
It’s not “I don’t care about any of this.” It’s not shutting yourself off or going numb or skipping the grief because you’re too proud to feel it.
Detachment is:
I trust that I don’t need to understand everything right now to know that I’m okay.
Detachment is releasing your grip on the future.
Not knowing — and being genuinely fine with not knowing.
It’s the difference between standing in a storm demanding it stop and just… letting it rain on you while you walk calmly toward somewhere dry.
People have noticed something different about me lately. A shift. A lightness. And they want to attribute it to the divorce — like the marriage was the problem and now it’s over, so I’m free.
But that’s not quite it.
The transformation (I feel) is the detachment.
The divorce is just want happened.
On How I Entered This Marriage (Yes, I’m Going There)
I was twenty years old when someone asked me to elope.
I went to sleep that night and played both paths in my head — if I do, I don’t, what I’d feel, who I’d become — and woke up thinking: I get to find out both.
I didn’t want to say no because I genuinely had FOMO about being a wife. Before FOMO was even a thing, I had it!!!😂
Absolutely absurd. It was. I was twenty. Judge me all you want — you’re judging someone who no longer exists and honestly couldn’t be less bothered.
But I’ll tell you something else I thought that night — and I swear these were my actual words:
“If we pisses me off I can just divorce him”
I know. I KNOW.
But here’s why I’m sharing that — not to be shocking, but because it’s actually kind of profound in retrospect. I entered marriage with my eyes open to the option of divorce. Not because I was planning for failure. But because my parents divorced after 19 years, and I grew up knowing that it exists. That it’s real. That it’s sometimes right.
We can’t walk into marriage completely oblivious to that.
And yet… we do. We almost always do.
I’m not holding shame on that. I’m just saying.
Then Austin came.
And everything changed.
My son opened my heart in a way that genuinely cannot be explained to someone who isn’t a parent. That kind of love — the kind that keeps your soul warm from the inside — it’s indescribable.
And because of it, divorce went to the back of my mind.
I thought: Every inconvenience. Every dismissal. Every discomfort. It’s worth it as long as my baby has both his parents at home.
And then I had Aurora.
And then more time passed.
And then… I had to change to my mind.
You Are Allowed To Change Your Mind.
This is something I feel strongly about — maybe more than anything else in this post.
People hold onto their previous beliefs, their old values, their past decisions — not because those things still serve them, but because they’re afraid of being called fake. Indecisive. A follower.
I don’t care.
Change your fucking mind.
You are allowed to want something different than you wanted before. You are allowed to learn something that updates everything. You are allowed to become a person your past self wouldn’t fully recognize.
Do it unapologetically though. That part matters.
Because if you change your mind while still half-apologizing for it, you’re going to confused yourself and exhaust your support system. Own the shift. Walk into it like you chose it — because you did.
Divorce Doesn’t Mean You Failed. It Means You’re Alive.
To anyone going through this right now — can I just say something?
You do not have to feel alone.
You do not have to feel scared.
And especially — you do not have to feel shame.
Fuck that. Genuinely, fuck that.
It didn’t work out. Okay. Are you dying?
No?
Then the opposite is true. You’re alive. And there’s a whole beautiful life of yours sitting there, waiting to be experienced differently.
It doesn’t matter who left who. What matters is the story you choose to carry. The respect you hold for yourself. The confidence that comes from having clarity — even when clarity is just “I know this isn’t right anymore.”
That’s enough. More than fucking enough, actually.
Detachment Is the Practice. Not the Destination.
Here’s what I want you to take from all of this:
The transformation you’re witnessing in people who come out of hard seasons glowing — it’s not because the hard thing is over.
It’s because they stopped gripping it.
They stopped demanding answers from a life that wasn’t meant to be forever. They stopped needing the future to look a specific way. They stopped outsourcing their peace to other people’s reactions.
You can do and feel and learn without dwelling. Without spiraling. Without deciding that because one version of forever didn’t last, you are somehow broken?
You’re not less.
You’re available.
Available for what’s actually meant for you.
And my love… It’s exciting. Even when it’s scary. Even when it’s messy. Even when you don’t have a single clue what comes next.
Especially then.
Allow it!
It's happening with or without your consent.
my most sloppy kiss yet,
AMBER LINDSAY MARTINEZ
(Even after divorce, the name is yours. It’s entirely up to you whether you care about that or not. I’ve had this name for a while now… and I share it with my beautiful children. I’m not mad about it. Not even a little💞)