Part 2: A Second Chance

at Loving Myself and Being Loved

Photo by 愚木混株 Yumu on Unsplash

When I was 18, my boyfriend and I were engaged to be married; four months later, we were “disengaged.” During my 20’s I was in several short term relationships, followed by another a relationship in my 30’s that lasted for seven years. That, too, led to an engagement, followed by a breakup.

Looking back on that time in my life, none of this surprises me. My father was unfaithful to my mother; they were in the process of a divorce when he died in a car accident. In my mother’s second marriage, she and her husband were both unfaithful. Add child abuse and neglect to the mix and it’s no wonder I struggled with intimacy. It scared me, and rightfully so.

Psychotherapy helped; but it wasn’t until I’d been married myself that I understood how much my childhood had impacted me. Watching other people coupling up and getting married, I wondered when, if ever, it would be my turn. Was I being too picky, not giving the men I met a chance?

So I fell in love again, or what seemed enough like love at the time. In 1996, not long before my first wedding day, I had a nagging feeling that maybe I was making a mistake. But I was getting older; and hoping for the best, I ignored my intuition. I now believe that everything was just as it was meant to be; I was meant to learn the lessons I learned in those 10 years of marriage: to stand up for myself; to refuse to tolerate emotional abuse; and to love myself enough to recognize the truth.

The truth was, I’d married a cruel man. He wasn’t unfaithful (at least not that I know of), as my father had been; but he was as emotionally abusive as my mother’s second husband. He wasn’t consistently cruel, or I wouldn’t have married him. Raised to overlook atrocious behavior, I didn’t immediately recognize it as such. Once I did recognize it, I was too beaten down to extricate myself immediately from the marriage.

“You’re a miserable person,” my ex often said a few years in, when I cried in response to how he treated me. “Your boobs are too small and your butt’s too big,” was another humdinger. Every part of my being was fair game for his scathing critiques.

Enter alcohol. I’d always liked wine, but now—in common with my husband— I couldn’t go a day without drinking. Rather than numbing my pain, drinking too much left me feeling worse, more ashamed of myself for tolerating abuse than I was angry at my husband for dishing it out. By the time I got out of that marriage, my self-esteem, never high to begin with (which is why—duh!— I married him to begin with), was battered and dragging in the mud.

And yet, from going through that, what I gained was something no other experience could have given me: empathy. Never again would I wonder why women stay too long—sometimes indefinitely—in abusive relationships. When a person’s self-respect and self-esteem are hijacked, their will to organize their daily life—-let alone an exit strategy—-is severely compromised. They need and deserve compassion and care, not judgement.

Eventually, with enough therapy and enough encouragement from friends, I left. Continuing in psychotherapy, I addressed the trauma of my marriage which led, of course, to pulling more of my childhood trauma up by the roots. After dating a while, I realized that if I kept drinking too much, I might attract another man like the one I’d just left.

Hoping for a second chance at a healthy and happy life, I gave up alcohol. While I was singing in a Blues band, the man I’d later marry auditioned to be our bass player. Loving, kind, respectful and trustworthy, he was everything I’d longed for but, for years, didn’t know I deserved. When I was 55, we started dating; two years later we moved in together; and when I was 60 (and he was 61), we got married. We’ve now been together nearly 15 years.

Sometimes I look at my husband and wonder if my first marriage was nothing more than a bad dream. Every day I’m grateful for what I’ve learned along the way: I deserve love. I deserve respect. I deserve to feel emotionally safe in my husband’s arms. I deserve this second chance, and I treasure it.