Ashley Crookham's Writing

Note: The Western Maryland Writers Group Fairy Tale Anthology with the “Elaty Riaf” short story is out. Get it in print, or on your kindle.

We began dating 11/23/2005. I was still a teenage. We got married, got separated. Our divorce came through exactly 11 years later.

Since my short story “Elaty Riaf” dealt with this subject, I thought I’d write a brief post about my experience.

Divorce is the abortion of marriage. It’s a choice and will cause you to doubt yourself. There is power in the choice you may wish you didn’t have.

For us the cause was that he needed to be on his own, and, afterwards, I needed to not take him back. We both could have tried harder to find another way. But we failed. Together.

There are few comparable situations in which you have the chance to discover so much about you. The uncertainty of the future, the depth of pain from the past, what you are capable of, what you don’t want to endure.

What I’ve learned is that you should not be with someone who comes to you looking for something, but instead commit yourself to someone who found something in you.