Immediately following my divorce, the idea of getting married a second time wasn’t appealing. I’d learned marriage wasn’t a guarantee someone would be willing to work through things rather than giving up and walking away.
Once I started dating again, I found people who would stay committed whether there was a legal contract or not. But not all people willing to stay together are willing to put in the work. Just because it is unlikely to end in divorce doesn’t mean it’s a healthy union.
I ended up in a relationship where my partner wasn’t able to talk about his feelings. When a conflict arose, he just wanted it to end. He didn’t want to understand why it started, how to identify the issue in the future, and how to work on resolving it.
Because neither of us adapted our behavior, conflicts about the same issues happened over and over again.
Despite loving each other very much and wanting to stay with him, I knew the rest of my life would be “more of the same”. I made the difficult decision to leave so I could find a partner willing to adapt with me. Surprisingly, after we split up, my ex made major emotional leaps. We had been caught in a pattern that stagnated both of our personal growth paths.
When I met my now-second-husband and heard he had been in therapy for years, I got interested. Not only could he talk about his feelings, he could identify what he needed for himself to be healthy, and he could receive feedback.
Despite my excitement to jump right in, I wasn’t prepared for a relationship where both partners are open about our feelings. It was difficult from the start. I had to speak up when something bothered me rather than burying my feelings or waiting for them to go away. I also had to learn to talk about my feelings in a way that didn’t place blame for their origin on my partner. I learned to identify and articulate what I needed so my partner could provide it or maintain a healthy boundary.
We were so open, we knew what our major issues would be from the start. Normally you find out these things after a few months or even a year depending on how adept people are at hiding. Here they were in our faces, and we didn’t have six months of shared experiences to anchor us.
We made the decision to stay together and work things out because we knew we shared values. We had discussed in depth what we were looking for in a partner, in a relationship, and in our shared life. Because I had been through a marriage that fell apart due to differing values that were never discussed, I knew what to talk about this time around. And I have a partner willing to work through anything that will come up.
It hasn’t been an easy road to travel, and it has involved a lot of painful blows to my ego and my comfort zone. But when I look at how I felt and behaved in my first marriage, I am intensely proud of my growth.
I would have feared remarriage if there was a danger of choosing a partner for unhealthy reasons and repeating the same pattens that led to my divorce. Once I eliminated that risk, I was ready to commit.