I thought leaving would feel like relief. That's what everyone implies, right? You finally get out. The danger is over. You're free. The nightmare is done.
And yes — I felt relief. For about three days. And then the grief hit, and I didn't understand it at all. I had made the right choice. I was safe. There were women who would have given anything to be where I was. So why was I mourning?
Nobody talks about this part. Nobody warns you that leaving can break your heart even when staying was killing you. That you can sob over someone who hurt you, someone you know hurt you, someone you know you cannot go back to — and still feel the absence of them like an amputation.
Nobody told me that was normal. So I thought I was broken.
The Grief You Weren't Supposed to Have
There's a particular kind of shame that comes with grieving after leaving an abusive relationship. It sounds like: Why are you crying? You chose this. You're safe now. Don't you know what you had? You should be grateful.
Some of that voice is internal. A lot of it, in my experience, came from outside — well-meaning people who had walked me out the door and now expected me to be celebrating. People who couldn't understand why I wasn't just relieved. People who, in their frustration, made me feel like my grief was a sign that I hadn't really internalized what happened to me. Like I was romanticizing it. Like maybe I wasn't as sure about leaving as I'd seemed.
That grief was not a sign of confusion. It was a sign of humanity.
When a relationship ends — even one that was damaging you — you lose something. Many somethings. The person you thought they were. The future you were building together. The version of yourself that still believed in the relationship. The rituals and the inside jokes and the particular intimacy of two people who shared a life, even a painful one.
That is a real loss. The fact that leaving was the right choice doesn't make the loss unreal.
Lamentations: A Whole Book of Holy Grief
When I was in the thick of the grief-after-leaving, I found myself drawn to Lamentations in a way I'd never been before. If you've never read it, it is exactly what it sounds like — an extended lament over destruction, desolation, and loss. It was written after Jerusalem fell, after catastrophic violence, after everything the people had built and hoped in was taken from them.
It doesn't moralize. It doesn't rush toward a lesson. It just sits in the wreckage and describes it, honestly and at length.
"Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow." — Lamentations 1:12
That verse hit me hard the first time I read it in this season. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? That is exactly the experience of grieving something that no one around you seems to think you have the right to grieve. Everyone is moving on. Everyone is relieved on your behalf. And you're standing in the wreckage wondering why no one is stopping.
God included this book in His word. He preserved it. He didn't edit it down to the hopeful parts. The grief is sacred text.
The Turn That Doesn't Erase the Grief
If you've read Lamentations 3, you know there is a turn. After verse upon verse of raw grief, the writer says: "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:21–23)
I want you to notice the structure. It is not: I have stopped grieving, therefore I have hope. It is: I am still in the middle of this, and I am choosing to call this to mind, and therefore I have hope. Grief and hope coexist in the same breath. One does not cancel the other.
Your grief does not mean you lack faith. Your faith does not mean you cannot grieve. Lamentations 3 was put in the canon specifically to hold both of those things together.
What the Grief Might Actually Be About
I've thought a lot about what I was actually grieving after I left. Some of it was him — or rather, the version of him I'd believed in at the beginning. Some of it was the future I'd imagined. Some of it was years. Some of it was just the rawness of change itself, even wanted change.
But some of the grief — the deepest part, I think — was for myself. For the woman who had walked into that relationship not knowing what was going to happen to her. For the years of trying so hard to make something work that couldn't be made to work. For the ways I'd changed myself trying to be enough. For all the times I'd needed someone to fight for me and had to fight alone instead.
That grief is holy. It is honest. It is you finally letting yourself feel what you have been carrying.
You Are Allowed to Mourn This
I want to say this as plainly as I can: you are allowed to grieve after leaving. Leaving was the right thing. Grieving is also the right thing. Both can be true at the same time.
God does not only show up for the relief part. He is present in the mourning. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." (Matthew 5:4) Not blessed are those who have mourned and are now over it. Blessed are those who mourn — present tense, ongoing, right now.
You do not have to be over it. You do not have to perform recovery for the people who wanted you to be fine by now. You are allowed to let this take as long as it takes.
The grief is not failure. The grief is part of how you get through.
If you're looking for a community that holds both the grief and the hope without rushing you past either — women who have walked the grief of leaving — nobody talks about this grief, but it is real and it is holy and come out the other side, and women who are still in the middle of it — we'd be honored to have you in The Prodigal Path membership. You don't have to be okay yet. You just have to come.
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