Until one Sunday, after years of conversation, repeated attempts to better compliment each other, counseling and soul searching — my husband and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes. Walking away from life as I knew it was never something I’d envisioned. I expected to feel regret and to build stronger boundaries, but instead I found my heart more open than it had ever been. And shockingly, my divorce, more than my marriage, taught me about love. Here are some of those lessons: You wouldn’t sign a contract that said, “I agree to do X,Y, and Z. But if I don’t want to, you still have to hold up your end of the bargain.” So we can’t rightfully expect that out of our relationships. I married a man I met when I was 20, and we were both banking on one another’s potential. As we grew up together in our relationship, we both realized the relationship wasn’t what we had signed up for. I had stopped caring about my body the way I had when I met my husband. He’d stopped pursuing his passion. Within weeks of separating, we were both happier, healthier, and pursuing our passions again. I found a new identity through CrossFit and dropped excess weight that hadn’t budged, despite past efforts. My ex-husband finally found a career he was excited about after years of trying various opportunities. All the love in the world couldn’t make us work together, but our love allowed us to let the other go so we could flourish independently. My family still hesitates to bring up my ex-husband, fearful it will send me into a sobbing fit or a bout of anger. But we figured out how to end a marriage peacefully, and in our divorce, we were probably more united than in our relationship. We were simply done with that chapter, but not with each other. We were kids when we got together and will always share a history. Falling in love with your best friend is magical, when you’re actually falling in love. But butterflies matter, as does the absence of them. When I was working on our marriage, my therapist would ask me to go back to those feelings of first falling for him. But they weren’t there. Instead of marrying someone I was crazy about, I had married someone I was comfortable with. And what I know now, is, you can always grow to be “comfortable” with someone, but you’re either crazy about them, or you’re not. In those first nights by myself, it was a gut check of who I was, and who I wanted to be — not for my husband, not for my son, but for myself. For the first time, I didn’t have the shield of being my husband’s wife, and I had to stand on my own. Truth is, I didn’t love the woman I was, and until I did, falling in love with who I was and the choices I made had to be my first priority. Because, at the end of the day, we spend every moment of our lives with one person: ourselves. I remember after getting married, the most asked question was when I would have a baby. When I had a baby, the next question was when I would have another baby. No one asks you anything after divorce; they tell you. They tell you that you’re ready, you’re not ready, you’re repeating the same patterns. It’s as if because you’ve “failed” once, you need a beginner’s guide to relationships. The only way to traverse these waters is to sink into what you actually feel, and keep your heart as open as possible. Someone will always have an opinion about what you’re doing, and ultimately, opinions matter far less when you believe in your choices and your journey. I was so afraid that my ex-husband was the only person who might ever put up with (let alone love!) my eccentricities. But love is the great phoenix; whenever you need it, or seek it, it’s yours. Love then turns into the problem, not the solution. Because the objective should not be finding any love, but rather, the objective should be to live fully and only allowing love in when it surpasses your expectations. I know now that my eccentricities are not just traits for someone to “put up with,” but are rather divine characteristics for the right someone. Great love is possible, but you’ve got to demand the “great” in all areas of your life, and let the love part work itself out.
