I’ve spent the last few posts talking about the searing grief, the impossible Love, Forgiveness, Trust equation, and the painful process of walking away for good. I’ve talked about the agony of losing Jasper and Mateo and the unexpected terror of a quieter house.
But today, I need to talk about the deeper wound this separation inflicted—one that has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me.
The moment I looked at the wreckage—the fractured family, the legal battles, the constant emotional strain—and made the final decision to end the illusion, a tiny, deeply conditioned part of me screamed:
“You are a failure.”
This one hit deep because it’s not about the man I lost; it’s about the narrative I’ve carried since childhood, the story of “Diana, the Successful One”.
The Burden of the Straight-A Life
From a very young age, I somehow began to believe that life was a series of achievements to be flawlessly executed. I was “the smart one” in my family, and with that label came an immense, internal pressure to always live up to my potential. In my mind, everything has always been a metric: report cards, career progression, the size of the house, and, yes, the stability of the family.
My entire sense of self became inextricably linked to my ability to achieve a tidy, linear, straight-A life. I spent nine years giving everything I had to my first marriage, losing myself in the process, trying to mold it into that perfect A+. When I finally walked away with my two oldest boys, MJ and Matthew, I could swallow the failure. I told myself: It was a correction. You learned. You are moving on. Divorce is, unfortunately, very normal.
Could I Just Be… Normal?
It took me a while to even accept myself as “normal”. I was supposed to be exceptional, successful, always coming out on top. So, while I let the divorce be the black mark of my normalness, I pushed forward with even more drive than before. I wasn’t going to let divorce be the end of the story, I was going to find someone who was willing to give to my family as much as I was; someone who was going to propel us forward, lead us to even greater success as a fully, functioning family unit. We, I, would come out of this failure even better.
And I got exactly what I went out looking for. Enter Papi; he came into my life in a whirlwind, a chaotic romance that resulted in the greatest gift—our youngest, Jack. Suddenly, I wasn’t just healed; I was fixed. The A+ life was back on track! Five boys, a deeply involved partner, a life of adventure. I had corrected the past, built the fortress, and achieved the ultimate success metric: the thriving, beautiful family unit I craved. There I was, on top of the world with my A+ life back on the forefront. Actually, I have to admit, it was even better than before. My ego could rest assured that Diana was, in fact, not normal. She was the successful one everyone expected her to be. Phew, take a deep breath, you didn’t fail after all. Slowly look around, is anyone judging me? Did I disappoint anyone? Are they seeing how worthless I am? Thank God, no one noticed that F… let’s move on!
The F-Word That Set Me Free
But now, as I stand here today, separated from Papi and left to navigate the agonizing reality of three children from two different fathers—three kids with two dads—it’s more than my ego can take.
The first divorce was a devastating chapter. This second implosion feels like a complete F-grade on the entire life plan. The internal critic whispers, “The successful one doesn’t end up alone twice. The smart one would have seen the signs. The planner would have engineered a single, stable home. You were supposed to be the one who had it all together. You, my friend, are a complete failure. Your biggest nightmare was real all along… you are worthless just like you’ve always known.”
For months, I was paralyzed by that sense of failure. I was grieving the loss of the life, yes, but I was also grieving the death of the easy, linear, successful narrative I’d been writing for 42 years.
I spent too long trying to earn back the “A” by forcing a solution, by giving Papi a second chance despite the lack of trust. I was prioritizing the optics of a whole family over the safety of a functional, peaceful one.
But somewhere in the messy middle, during the quiet moments I am now learning to tolerate, a quiet realization began to take hold: My success was never supposed to be measured by having a flawless life. It was supposed to be measured by how I navigate the life I actually have.
Diana, Redefined
Clearly, I’m not living the straight A life, that’s not who I really am. And obviously I could never call myself a failure when I look at the faces of my 3 beautiful boys. So, I needed to look at what I’m doing right now, through the lens of real adult success. And when I do that, the picture changes completely. That messy, imperfect life looks like:
- Resilience: I am raising three boys and creating stability where there was chaos. I am their unwavering anchor and now I stand even steadier on my own than I ever could before.
- Boundaries: I am co-parenting two children peacefully while fiercely setting boundaries for my sweet Jack, even though it rips Jasper and Mateo away forever.
- Rebuilding: I am working, healing, and building my business back up—a business that now stands on a foundation of reality, not fantasy.
- Strength: I am still showing up every single day, even when I’m hurting and utterly exhausted. When my heart is in pieces, resting at the bottom of my chest, I’m still laughing with my boys and adventuring like nothing ever happened.
- Wisdom: I am choosing peace over chaos and my children’s emotional well-being over holding onto a title or an image.
This is not the tidy, high-achieving story my childhood imagined. It is a raw, non-linear, and deeply human story of transformation.
The failure of this relationship was the shockwave that broke my old identity—the identity tied exclusively to achievement—and allowed a much stronger, wiser woman to emerge.
I am learning to measure success not by the absence of struggle, but by the presence of courage.
I am no longer just Diana the successful planner, desperately trying to maintain an A+ facade. I am now in the messy middle, where:
- Old expectations fall apart, and new strengths reveal themselves.
- Identities break and reform.
- The story changes direction, acknowledging that the path to true happiness is rarely straight.
I am now Diana the mother, Diana the protector, Diana the survivor, Diana the builder, and Diana the woman learning her worth independent of any partner. I am Diana, the woman who has never been 42 before, who has never been a single mom of 3 boys with 2 dads, who has never loved herself unconditionally. And look, this Diana is doing all of these things for the first time in her whole life, and for once, she’s not scared of failure.
There’s no such thing as failure if you get up every day and try again. It is simply transformation.
I am not done becoming who I am meant to be. This is not the final draft of my life. It’s the courageous chapter where I finally stopped chasing the A+ life and realized that true success is found in the resilience, and the JOY, of the rebuild.
And if you’re out there feeling like a failure because your life doesn’t match the neat story you were supposed to write, please know this: You are not a failure. You are a builder. Keep going. (And it’s also ok to ugly cry the whole way through, just get up every day and try again!).