The Book That Destroyed My Marriage (and Saved My Life)

How a Chance Encounter Changed My Fate Forever

It sat there, right at the entrance of Barnes & Noble—

Codependent No More.

It felt like a divine conspiracy, like the universe had left me a message I couldn’t ignore.

I picked it up, skimmed the first few pages, and something inside me shifted. The words reached into my chest and pulled at a problem I couldn’t name until that moment.

For years, I had lived my life in someone else’s shadow. We were attached at the hip. I had no friends, no social life, and no time for myself. And I called that love.

I didn’t know it then, but buying that book was the beginning of the end.

At the time, I thought I had everything I wanted. A partner who loved me, a marriage that looked solid from the outside. But beneath that was a constant, quiet pressure—a slow erosion of self.

It wasn’t just the little things—like never choosing the music on road trips or being unable to have a night to myself. It was bigger than that.

She dictated where we lived and who we saw. Who I could still be close to.

At some point,…