Shortly after my divorce I began dating. Once again I married a man that, looking back, I realized wasn’t the man that I thought he was. I have to admit, I was so desperate to have my faith in a ‘perfect family’ restored that I repeated my first bad decision. It only took six months for the abuse to begin. At first it was just verbal. Then he became violent. It turned out he wasn’t my ‘forever love’ either. Just another ‘in the meantime’.
After the divorce from this abusive man was final, I moved my children into a small apartment just down the street from the school they attended. This was one of the best times of our lives.
We enjoyed our time together and took up bike riding and running. We went on what my children called ‘midnight …show more content…
During the couple of years that I was single, I had taken ballroom dance classes and this is where I met him. It was a whirlwind romance and I jumped at the opportunity to start forming my ‘perfect family’. It wasn’t long until I realized that I hadn’t used my brain to make this latest decision, and that husband number three was no more my ‘forever love’ than he was my ‘in the meantime’.
We began having trouble after our first anniversary. He was a public figure, and with that came the responsibility for me to fulfill the role of a pastor’s wife. I was a great pastor’s wife and I loved the members of the congregation, but I soon realized that I didn’t like my husband. We didn’t have much of anything, other than dancing, in common.
We didn’t share the same dreams, lifestyle choices, and other ideals that you must have in common with a spouse if your marriage is to survive, let alone thrive. We soon grew apart, not even sleeping in the same room. He filed for a divorce and we parted ways.
Divorce number three brought with it an entirely new sense of failure. I felt unlovable and it was high time that I realized, through a lot of counseling, that I had in essence married the …show more content…
I wrote their names down one side of the spreadsheet and listed over a hundred different traits that people possess across the top. These ranged anywhere from ‘loves the outdoors’ to ‘loves dancing’ to ‘treats me with respect’ and ‘loves me unconditionally’. I went through this exhaustive list and put a check mark by the qualities that each of these men possessed.
Wouldn’t you know it? They were almost all the same. Sure, there were areas where one former spouse had more marks than another, but those basic qualities, the ones that were so important for a marriage to succeed and that I had desperately wanted in a spouse, were blank.
This shouldn’t have come as a shock, still, in some ways, it did. That was when I began to do what I needed to do in order to feel proud of myself and confident in myself. This way I would never need a man again. Instead, I chose to want one if I ever decided to take a chance on love
After the divorce from this abusive man was final, I moved my children into a small apartment just down the street from the school they attended. This was one of the best times of our lives.
We enjoyed our time together and took up bike riding and running. We went on what my children called ‘midnight …show more content…
During the couple of years that I was single, I had taken ballroom dance classes and this is where I met him. It was a whirlwind romance and I jumped at the opportunity to start forming my ‘perfect family’. It wasn’t long until I realized that I hadn’t used my brain to make this latest decision, and that husband number three was no more my ‘forever love’ than he was my ‘in the meantime’.
We began having trouble after our first anniversary. He was a public figure, and with that came the responsibility for me to fulfill the role of a pastor’s wife. I was a great pastor’s wife and I loved the members of the congregation, but I soon realized that I didn’t like my husband. We didn’t have much of anything, other than dancing, in common.
We didn’t share the same dreams, lifestyle choices, and other ideals that you must have in common with a spouse if your marriage is to survive, let alone thrive. We soon grew apart, not even sleeping in the same room. He filed for a divorce and we parted ways.
Divorce number three brought with it an entirely new sense of failure. I felt unlovable and it was high time that I realized, through a lot of counseling, that I had in essence married the …show more content…
I wrote their names down one side of the spreadsheet and listed over a hundred different traits that people possess across the top. These ranged anywhere from ‘loves the outdoors’ to ‘loves dancing’ to ‘treats me with respect’ and ‘loves me unconditionally’. I went through this exhaustive list and put a check mark by the qualities that each of these men possessed.
Wouldn’t you know it? They were almost all the same. Sure, there were areas where one former spouse had more marks than another, but those basic qualities, the ones that were so important for a marriage to succeed and that I had desperately wanted in a spouse, were blank.
This shouldn’t have come as a shock, still, in some ways, it did. That was when I began to do what I needed to do in order to feel proud of myself and confident in myself. This way I would never need a man again. Instead, I chose to want one if I ever decided to take a chance on love