Reclaiming Scuba Diving Post-Breakup

I only got scuba certified because my ex-husband asked me to. Since I’d been told my whole life that I wouldn’t be able to dive due to my genetic illness, I was nervous throughout the process, from the multiple check-ups with my team of doctors to the first time I breathed underwater. Sure, I didn’t go through all that just for the relationship—I’d always been called “the fish” by my family because I loved being in water—but I may never have gotten certified without my ex’s desire for me to join in his favorite activity.

For the four years we were married, scuba diving was one of the main things we had in common. We dived together around the world, sharing underwater adventures that ranged from scuba poker tournaments at our local dive shop in Colorado to overcoming nitrogen narcosis in Belize’s Great Blue Hole. Beneath the surface, some of the cultural and linguistic barriers we faced above land (he is from Germany; I am from the U.S.) faded away into a shared fascination with the underwater world.

Throughout that time, I couldn’t help but fall in love with scuba diving, but it was still one of the activities inextricably linked to my marriage. I’d only dived one time on my own while on a work trip in Peru, and there was something about going underwater without my husband that felt as wrong as it would have been to watch our favorite show by myself or dine solo at our favorite restaurant.

Related Reading: Diving in Peru: Exploring the Final Frontier

But as is the case with many marriages, ours eventually fractured beyond repair. I’d pre-mourned our relationship between that final fracture and the day I actually left, so by the time of the breakup, I felt little other than a surge of joy for a life that was wholly my own again. When I did feel grief, it was unexpected. Like the sudden heartache that enveloped me when I stood blankly in front of the washer and dryer a week after he moved out, trying to figure out which buttons to press—that had always been his chore.

Or when I came across my scuba logbook one day while tidying up … Could I ever break my association with my “dive buddy for life” enough to enjoy scuba diving on my own?

As the months passed, the last bits of grief evaporated. Soon laundry was just another task on my to-do list, and I began to forget my identity had ever been so closely linked to someone else’s. By the time I got an offer to go on a scuba diving trip at the Sandals Resort on the island of Curaçao, I had moved on and was in a happy new relationship. I felt only a flash of hesitation before accepting the offer—finally, this would be my chance to reclaim scuba diving for myself.

Related Reading: Guide to Diving in Curacao

To ease the transition into diving without my ex, I brought along my dear friend Rachael, one of the few scuba divers I knew in Colorado. In a strange twist of fate, Rachael would also be diving with my ex-husband’s former BCD and regulator, which she’d purchased from him that cold winter day when he boxed up his belongings and drove away from the life we’d shared.

I was nervous before my first dive in Curaçao, not only because I hadn’t dived in a while, but also because it would be my first time since the breakup. Had I only loved diving because it made me feel more connected to my ex? How would I fare without his knowledge and dive experience to fall back on? Would I ever be able to break the association between scuba diving and my failed marriage?

As Rachael and I walked across the Sandals property’s sprawling lawn toward the dive center, my stomach flipped. We headed down a path lined with flowering bushes and tropical trees, around an iguana sunning, unbothered, in the middle of the way. Despite the idyllic surroundings, my mind was a brewing storm of thoughts and feelings, which intensified as we got our gear at the dive shop, met our divemasters and boarded the boat. Before we traded the resort’s bay of calm Caribbean-blue water for the choppy open seas, we had our briefing. The divemaster went over the hand symbols I knew well—“OK” and “something’s wrong”—then shook his hand in the OK symbol: “This means ‘something’s wrong, but I’m OK with it,” he joked in a lilting accent. I cracked a weak smile.

Related Reading: The Best Scuba Destinations for Beginner Divers

After a somewhat bumpy ride to our dive site along Curaçao’s scrubby coastline, I anxiously prepared my rented gear while Rachael arranged my ex’s gear, ready to rechristen it as her own. This is it, I thought. I’m diving without my ex, and he doesn’t even know! When I reached the edge of the boat for the giant stride entry into the water, instinct from my 20+ dives replaced my anxiety. My hand automatically went to cover my mask and regulator, and soon I felt the welcome splash of sea around me. As I exhaled slowly and let the air out of my BCD, I felt a mix of comfort and excitement. I met Rachael’s eyes and signaled “cool” with a shaka sign.

The next few days, Rachael and I dived as much as we could—which is quite a lot at Sandals Royal Curaçao, as unlimited diving is included in the stay. Each time I felt more and more at ease, not only with the mechanics of the process that were second nature by then, but also in the knowledge I was diving without my ex. Rachael and I swam along steep walls of coral, among clouds of fish and just over the head of an engorged, slithering ribbon that was the biggest moray eel I’d ever seen. One day, we watched our divemasters point out and catch invasive lionfish. The next, we helped clean a coral nursery. And on our last dive, we held hands as we fought the strongest current I’d ever experienced. The more I dived, the quieter my worries about separating scuba diving from my marriage became.

Even so, I experienced twinges of sadness every once in a while. Sitting on the beach with a piña colada post-dive, excitedly chattering with Rachael about all we’d seen underwater, I had the sudden urge to write a message to my ex about the experience. But instead, I sent a little prayer of gratitude out into the universe, thanking him for encouraging me to get Open Water certified—after all, it was thanks to his push that I could eventually savor moments like this for myself. Maybe it wasn’t so much about breaking the association between scuba diving and my ex-husband, but using that as a foundation upon which to build a lifelong personal relationship with the activity, no matter who I get to share it with.