Why My Second Husband Is My Great Love

People love to tell you high school sweetheart love stories, stories of years of perfection, struggles, and a great love. Those stories are beautiful but, often not very honest. I married my "high school sweetheart" and it was not a beautiful love story, it was hard, exhausting, and abusive. We fought like we hated the sight of each other. He wanted to be a free spirit and never experience the restrictions of a job or bills. I wanted to be a regular person, with a career and a house. It took a lot of years for me to decide, I couldn't live through it anymore. Coming home to a house that didn't have electricity but had beer became so exhausting. Working myself to death to pay for another human's habits, while supporting a family of five, became infuriating.

I remember when I left, people were so shocked. I had been so embarrassed through the years to admit what life at home had become. I had pretended everything was great. For years, I had only blasted the good parts of an otherwise awful marriage. I wanted so badly to have that amazing love story. I loaded three tiny humans into a car with nothing but a garbage bag of clothes and no idea where I was going but, I knew I couldn't stay. Over the years the abuse had become very physical.

I met my now husband in the months before I left. I didn't fall in love with him. Falling implies that it happens quickly and uncontrollably, that is not what happened at all. I always tell him, I walked into love with him. In the beginning, it was slow and guarded, but I walked in eyes wide open, knowing exactly what I was doing. I remained fully aware I could have my heart ripped out and stomped on. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything, at whatever cost. Tim was a good man, with a good heart. He welcomed my children with open arms and loved them, more than me. Our story doesn't have the rustic first love element but boy is it special.

He showed me an honest love, one with compromise and understanding. He opened doors for me that I didn't know existed. He found beauty in me when I didn't know how to be a person. It is not to say there are no arguments, there are but there is also love, laughter, and the will to work through it. I had lost all hope for that "great love" and here it was. The first year was everything, I had never loved another human this much. I was finally getting the hard working man I had always dreamed of.

There were even times when I would push him away to see if he would break, to see if he would become what I had always known a man to be, he never did. In therapy, there is a phrase; waiting for the other shoe to drop. It describes a period of time in an abusive relationship where things are "good" but the abused party can't relax because they know the "bad" is right around the corner. What they do not tell you is that you have that same feeling with your next relationship(s) too. Often times, you do not realize it but the trauma sticks around for years to come. I was lucky enough to find someone to love me through putting myself back together.

Statistically, 50 percent of first marriages and 67 percent of second marriages fail, the spike is said to be because a person learns that they can survive a divorce and are less afraid to go through it again. Those odds are intimidating, but I'm willing to take that chance. What else is living a great life but taking the chance? You only get so much time to find the person who loves you when you are having a hard time loving yourself, even if you get it wrong the first time. You are not used up, tainted, or broken. You have a purpose in life.

Statistics are from the National Center for Health Statistics.