I have to thank the exes. I am not broken. I do not feel inadequate nor unloveable... I have also started in the middle of the story.
I recently spent time with a long time acquaintance that promises to become a good friend. We share a complex history and have found ourselves at similar points in our lives. Kids getting older. Life changes and a kind of reckoning with middle age (dependent on your projected death date). We have also recently emerged from marriages. What surprised me was how vastly differently we had emerged from the event. And thus the story begins.
I do not think of myself as having failed in marriage. This is probably part of some internal flaw on my part given that I have been married and divorced twice. Perhaps it's my eternal optimism and love of humanity. Perhaps it's my belief that if you love someone you will always love them and that love is never a waste of time. Perhaps I just have a soft spot for my failings.
This is not to say that my divorces didn't hurt, that I wasn't disappointed, or spend a lot of time meditating on how to be a better human so as to bring my best self to the next relationship. It's not to say that it didn't feel like a shattered happily ever after. It did. But I was not left bereft nor questioning my worth. And I have to thank my exes for that.
I believe in love. I believe in marriage. I believe in happily ever after. My first marriage happened too soon almost as a statement that I would not be dictated to by an upbringing that I had deemed confining. We were 19 and 20, from different worlds and headed down different paths. I regretted neither the marriage nor the divorce. I didn't question the original exes love for me, only his maturity and fidelity. In a world full of half truths and outright lies, loyalty and fidelity are a non-negotiable in my world. We parted amicably (I like to think anyway given that he wanted to stay married and I didn't). My children's half sister was born less than 6 months later. But I wasn't angry. Sex is what 22 year old men, especially ones with quasi- celebrity status, do. We stayed good friends for a really long time.
The most recent ex struggled with an illness called addiction and depression. He hit a really rough patch and lost the battle towards the downward spiral. He felt and I agreed or I felt and he agreed that it wasn't fair to drag the family along for the ride. When he was being honest, he could admit that he liked his addictions. And when I was being honest, I could admit that there was a part of him that was defined by his addiction that was interesting. We hugged it out and he left. Again, we parted on amazing terms, he maintained my car and I ran his errands until he moved from the state. Even with that we visited him and his new girlfriend in Arizona and they invited us back anytime. How can I be mad at that?
I understood clearly at the departure of both relationships that it wasn't me. They were who they were and I was who I was. We loved each other enough to not kill that thing inside that made us unique. It wasn't like they hated me and wanted to be rid of me, the opposite in fact. Wilde said that each man kills the thing he loves. Typically because you love the life out of it, you suffocate it. I believe that true love frees, not binds. What kind of love comes with shackles? I feel like they loved me enough to not kill my soul. They loved me enough to set me free.
I realized after talking to my friend that that isn't generally the case. Most love ends in tragedy. And lots and lots of pain. I feel like mine ended in hope. Hope because since I wasn't broken and I don't feel inadequate I spring back ready to love again and again some more whenever I feel like it. That's a wonderful gift. And again, maybe it's my rose colored glasses but pink glasses are a fashion statement that work for me.
So to the exes, original and recent, thank you.
-Dewb
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