Back in 2021, I decided to walk away from a 20+ year marriage. Why? After a decade, or more, of trying to fix things, it just wasn’t working. No amount of therapy or talking was going to fix the problems in marriage, especially when I was the only one who was trying to fix it. Relationships take two people – to succeed or to fail.
In January 2022, I asked my ex-husband for a divorce. As you can imagine, it didn’t go well. The months that followed were some of the hardest months of my life. My children were practically grown (my youngest was almost 17) and they were put in the middle by my ex-husband. He leaned on them as if they were his peers instead of his children. I refused to speak to my children about my divorce, other than to tell them that it wasn’t their fault and that I deserved to be happy.
My youngest son was very angry with me and would yell at me quite often. His main argument was that I wasn’t upset about the divorce. Finally, I had to sit him down and tell him that he had no idea how many nights I cried myself to sleep or how many times I cried in the shower. I had already mourned the loss of my marriage, while I was still in the marriage. I knew it was over, before I left, and was more prepared to leave than I was to stay.
In the same month, I dipped my toe in the dating pool and found out that dating is horrible! I started seeing a man, for about a month, but it ended. I decided to stay to myself and just do me. I went to work and came home, got into TikTok, and started trying to figure out who I am. I realized that I didn’t even know how to answer the question “what do you like to do for fun?” That’s bad!
One Friday night in April, I was bored and decided to log on to Facebook dating and take a look around. I came across a profile of a man who’s bio made me laugh out loud! Naturally, I had to reach out to him so I sent him a message. He replied and we started chatting. By the next day, I gave him my phone number because the Facebook app wasn’t notifying me. We started texting and he asked me to dinner that night.
We met at Texas Roadhouse halfway and we had a great time. That was April 9, 2022 and we’ve been together since. Our relationship moved very, very quickly. Three weeks in, he asked me to be his girlfriend and a week later we said I love you for the first time. A couple of weeks later, I packed up everything and relocated to Delaware from Maryland.
We’ve had to navigate divorce, bonus children, bio parents, and our own relationship issues. Despite it all, our relationship is solid, fun, honest, and amazing. So amazing that we got married in February of this year….just shy of being together for 2 years.
Since we got married, we’ve started getting his daughter every other weekend and that’s been eventful. She just turned 12 and she’s into all things girlie. I raised 2 boys so I have a lot to catch up on. Bio mom has made things difficult at times but I can hold own with her. I just wish things could be different for bonus daughter because she deserves so much more. That’s a topic for a different day.
Starting over hasn’t been the easiest thing to do, but it’s been worth it. The marriage I have now is so much different than my first marriage, in every way.