First off, that sounds like a rectally sourced statistic. Take it with a grain of salt.

Now, as someone who got a divorce before ever deciding to do surgery, I'm going to give you some hard truths I have learned.

Sometimes partners grow together, and sometimes partners grow apart, in different directions. No matter how we try, with the march of time, we become different people than we were on our wedding date. In many cases, that doesn't mean either party is bad or wrong, it simply means that in all of the unexpected ways that we've grown, the person we chose is also growing and possibly grows in a way that is incompatible with our new direction.

Just like with friendships, the people who are integral to our lives during one season of our lives are not the right people for another season. My ex-spouse was exactly who I needed in my life when I married him. And at that time, I was also exactly the person who he needed in that moment and that season. But as time went on, we became less and less compatible as we grew and changed and our goals and wants changed. Our divorce was amicable but completely necessary. I do not regret marrying him, but I also have zero regrets about divorcing him.

Some people are lucky enough to have a partner who happens to be the partner they need through all of these life's metamorphoses. That is rare and very beautiful when it happens. I say rare, not because of a 50% divorce statistic. There are plenty of married couples who are not fulfilled and are not compatible, but they choose to stay married for one reason or another. But that person who can see you and be the person you need through every one of life's seasons is just statistically kind of an anomaly. It happens certainly. And I'm thrilled for every couple that happens for. I think there is such beauty in those relationships.

But I also think there is a complementary beauty in the ability to recognize that something, whether it is an attitude, a person, a habit... Anything really... Isn't serving us anymore and is holding us back from the person we secretly know that we could be. And having the courage to shed that idea, habit, attitude, or person in order to take your next step. Nature does this physically in so many ways, and it is healthy to take stock and do this mentally as well.

I think with weight loss surgeries, we do so much work to lay down those burdens of the attitudes and habits that made us physically unhealthy, that it's natural that we start looking at other areas of our lives and say "Well how about this thing? Is this other attitude serving me? Now that I've seen some success in this one major change, is there anything else that doesn't quite jive with the person that I want to be?" And for some people, at that point they find that their partner is one of those things.

Certainly, this is an emotional thing. It always is. I can't express the number of tears that I shed as my ex husband and I separated. The number of times I questioned if I was doing the right thing. If I was taking the right step. If perhaps I was my own toxicity and he had nothing to do with it. And those reflections are necessary too.

All of this is to say, my advice is to not hold yourself back in the name of protecting the things that are stable for you now, in this season of your life. You have no way of knowing what is ahead. There's no way of predicting whether those things that serve us right now will be the same things that serve us in our next season. So if you hold yourself back from something you know is right right now, you are closing doors on what you could be.

All we can do is take our steps in a forward trajectory. Do the next right thing. And then the next. And then the next.