DIVORCED & LOVING AGAIN BUT MORE AUTHENTICALLY

After a divorce, I’ve heard people say they would never do it again. While I could appreciate this sentiment, I cannot shake my faith in marriage or my faith in love. I could have chosen to go the other way, but I choose to be open to love for all its glory.   

Most of the time, marriages end badly. Mine did not. We gave ourselves time to live separately after I recovered from two surgeries. We could have fought. We could have had an ugly divorce. But we made a choice. There were some moments when I questioned whether we were going to successfully do this, and I am sure he had his doubts too. At the end of it, we made a choice. 

It is funny how we commit more to some  choices  than others such as marriage vows. Do you ever wonder why?

I did. I was so curious how we made vows and life just changed ... so dramatically ... in what seemed like a short period of time.

To figure out how I went from being happily married to being on the verge of divorce, I had to examine how it all changed. How I changed! And, whether I was meant for married life?

I couldn’t help but go back to the beginning. In love and newly wedded, I embraced the institution of marriage seeking a healthier, happier relationship with my husband than the example set for me growing up. I was adamant that I would have a strong relationship and never get divorced. Obviously, things did not work out like I expected.

In a way, I think we were both guilty of taking our marriage for granted. Even though we made vows to each other to be there for one another through the good and the bad, the reality of such a vow is perhaps unfathomable. No one knows how bad things can get. And bad is relative.

What happened?

To be honest, I did not really change. I simply grew.

Once we moved overseas, I had the chance to explore my secret self that I had neglected in pursuit of a more stable private life and successful professional life. Considering we lived in Saudi Arabia, I spent most of my time at home since there were no movie theaters and no gyms for women to train jiujitsu. The more and more I got to know myself made me realize I wanted things I never realized I did before.

Living in Saudi Arabia only exacerbated my unhappiness. I gave up training jiujitsu. I pretty much gave up working out. I barely talked to my friends back home. It was more than culture shock.I had no way to explore myself outside of going to restaurants and spending time at home. I felt more alone than ever. 

I lost myself amidst moments of wanderlust, lasting just long enough to distract me from the memories of myself.

I realize now that I compromised myself in the name of vows. I did not realize I was breaking a vow I made to myself long before I got married. Growing up, I watched my mother put herself second, actually fourth to everyone else. I remember she always got herself new clothes last, if there was any money left. Not knowing she had a brain aneurysm growing in her brain, I vowed to myself to never compromise my own happiness for the sake of someone else as I watched her depression worsen over the years. I compromised myself without realizing. In a way, I think I felt being a martyr to my vows would lead to my happiness. Or maybe compromising myself seemingly came naturally based on the standard set for me by my own mother.

I learned firsthand that being that someone whom a loved one compromises themselves for never leads to happiness for anyone involved.

I compromised too much of myself, a bad habit I realize I had cultivated as a victim of previously failed relationships. While I concede some degree of compromise will always be needed when you live your life with someone else, there must be clearly drawn boundaries. To do this, you must be aware of your own boundaries before you can communicate them to your partner.

It is not easy to appreciate your own boundaries if you live life with everything in reach.

What happens when you can no longer do things as you please?

You cannot move just anywhere to take an amazing job opportunity.

You cannot enroll in school because you need two incomes to maintain living expenses for two people.

Life is very different when you are supporting two or more people, compared to just yourself.

Life is also different when you are the one dependent on the other, for whatever reason.

I still believe two people who start off passionately in love could have a successful marriage. That may make me a hopeless romantic but fear not. I learned love in a successful relationship is more than passion. Successful love is a choice.

The choice to not just commit to someone, but to make the effort to regularly connect emotionally, intellectually, and physically.

The choice to show your love, rather than just recite it with three words.  

The choice to know your authentic self in the present and in its unfolding glory.

The choice to allow your other half to see you for who you sincerely are.

I now believe that our relationships with others are as strong as the one we have with ourselves and as strong as the one they have with themselves. If one person in a relationship is not in tune with their secret self, I doubt they can be their authentic self with you. For me, it took being free from the chains of my past (which I give credit to my ex-husband with giving me the strength to do) for me to know myself. 

Just because I did not realize I needed to explore myself more as a person in my twenties and ended up divorced in my thirties, I am not scared of committing again.

Life is about choices. Whether you are talking about love, marriage, or divorce or any other aspect of life, it is the choices we make that define how we live.

For me, I live to embrace love. I can not imagine a life without love. I choose to live life to the fullest with that person I want to spend both my best and worst days with because I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was open to it and it happened.

I am now in love with a man I believe embraces my authenticity as much as I have. 

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash