I thought I'd found that person who I would spend the rest of my life with. Instead, I learned a hard lesson, I'm hoping this time for good, to pay attention to red flags, read and interpret the signals my body was screaming at me until I HAD to pay attention. I made myself wrong for not measuring up to her expectations of what partnership or marriage needed to be. And all the things she wanted weren't things I wanted. And I tried and tried to fit myself into her neatly crafted box, until I just couldn't anymore. And I left. And I'm glad that I did. I'm looking at this from many angles. I loved her deeply. She was, in many ways, the best friend I ever had. But I learned a lesson. The lesson is that what works for one person might not work for the other (in both directions) and no one is to blame. And I kind of love being single. Which is not to say that I'm closed to love. I just have much better tools now and I value myself more. Love this story, Rona, and I didn't even notice your thumb! xo
While you have clearly learned from this heartbreak, I suspect you wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Here’s a poem that applies. https://poets.org/poem/failing-and-flying
Aww, thanks, Terri. Starter Dog was born as a series of Facebook posts. Maybe Substack will birth the next book. In the meantime, you might enjoy my first memoir, My Mother’s Daughter, available used or as an ebook.
I had tried. I really had! I married at sixteen to a twenty-one year old felon, sure that he was a better fit than parents that didn't seem to want me at home. This didn't last. Shockers! Then I married again at twenty-six to a boyfriend I had lived with for three years. I had been attending church and soon believed I was "living in sin." This one didn't last either. I tried once more to a talk drink of water who ended up on staff of a church. He was a narcissistic abuser who hid his dark qualities pretty well until the day we returned from our honeymoon. After this failure, I was done. I didn't deserve another chance, as far as I was concerned. Somehow, a copy of "Women Who Love Too Much," found it's way to my bedside table. It explained why I didn't feel that "head over heels" love for the man I was reluctantly dating. I was attracted to "bad boys." Lightbulb!!! This year we celebrate our 31st anniversary (and counting). Loved this story, Rona, and I too and wondering about that couple.
Fourth time lucky? I suspect that each of your failed marriages contributed, in its fashion, to making you the persin you are today in a marriage that works.
Yes...I know they did. I became someone who has a very low tolerance for BS. LOL (And yes...I think these "failures" helped me change in very important ways and in ways I"m proud of. Thank you, Rona!
Rona, this is lovely. Like you, I wonder what happened to the couple. I hope they’re well and happy, and that the wonders of the internet might carry this to them like a message in a bottle.
I like to think that because this marriage followed major disappointments, they had the emotional wherewithal to see it through the first seven years. I think it was Esther Perel who said that a marriage is many marriages, each one a remaking of the last,and I believe her.
Rona, that's a powerful idea for me, too. I try to see the hard seasons at home as a growth spurt into something else...although some things are simply annoying! Here's to that couple!
I don't know if anyone is ever ready for marriage, but marriage + parenthood was our downfall. We married two weeks shy of my 22nd birthday. For five years, we lived a carefree life - squash games in the evenings, dinners with friends on weekends, summer vacations, etc. Our son was born on our 5th anniversary and we never adjusted.
I think I focused too much on motherhood and neglected our relationship. On the other hand, he wanted to continue living as if we'd never had a child, so we were doomed. We split and I started over a few years later with a man who had full custody of a daughter. She was six and my son was four at the time. Step-parenthood comes with its own set of challenges, but we've been together for 30+ years. It hasn't always been a smooth journey, but this time I rubbed the stars out of my eyes before embarking on it.
While it’s entirely possible you’d have parted anyway, children are a major disruption yo the strongest marriage. We were too poor and inexperienced to be parents at 22, and the strain broke us up for a while. We didn’t yet know who we were to ourselves and each other, let alone to a tiny dependent human.
In 1980 when we wed, my bride was a virgin, and I was not. She was 25, and I was 23. All through my youth that I'd misspent seeking sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and never getting enough to make me happy, she'd been saving herself for the husband she'd promised her Jesus she would one day marry if He brought her a man who also loved Him like she did. Into her church and into her life I came a newly minted "born again" believer in Jesus Christ, having committed my young 20-year-old self to Him and we spent our first year as friends as we served together in our church. She saw in me a love for Jesus Christ that matched her own, and when I finally worked up the nerve to tell her that I loved her too, she said "yes" when I asked her to marry me. We then were engaged for a year while we saved up for our wedding and honeymoon and start of a life together and while our passionate kisses had to suffice for a time. Almost forty-five years later, as the then fires have turned to embers, I look back on that year of our engagement and wish that we had eloped instead so that we could have better enjoyed that first flaming desire. When young people ask how we've made it so far together as husband and wife, I used to say, "Don't die and don't get divorced." She would add, "It's love and tender mercies and learning how to forgive one another." Today, I'm 68 and she'll turn 70 this Spring. She's still beautiful . . . and I'm still lucky.
Who among us can't picture the Second Chance Inn and imagine ourselves giddy with new love? Universally compelling, Rona, and simultaneously intimate -- your gift for crafting a wonderful story shines yet again here.
Though no statement about those who needed to get out of a disastrous marriage, I'm glad you and Paul managed to keep yours together. Your parents must have been proud, whether they showed it or not. We celebrate our 34th next month, and there have been a lot of gas station sandwiches and traffic jams along the way, but also plenty of inspiration.
You have such a plain spoken but beautifully conveyed way of writing that just hits the right notes every time, Rona. I look forward to your Sunday emails so much and dig into your latest offering immediately.
I love that you saw the magic in this message and still reflect on it. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Thank you, Pamme. I like to take photos of the amazing discoveries I make on my walks. It helps imprint them on my memory, especially if I share them with others to magnify the glow. Like this message, not all are conventionally beautiful.
This past week I realized my husband and I have been married longer than my parents were and that I am slightly older than my mother was when she became a widow. Somber midwinter thoughts. Or they could be. As I said to my husband of 37.5 years, I was sure way back then when we said our vows that our marriage was “way richer and healthier than theirs.”
“Don’t all young people think that about themselves and their parents?” he asked.
Always interesting how perspective changes with time.
Thanks for another beautiful and moving post, Rona. I look forward to reading the memoir.
Glad you enjoyed this, Etta. My husband and I fought loudly and repetitively in the early years, but at least we believed in the possibility of two whole humans within the marriage. My mother assumed a caretaker role early on, and over time she lost patience with his alcoholism and narcissism.
This illuminating detail leaped out at me. “Paul and I had no sooner left Odessa than I opened Facebook and posted my photo of the honeymooners’ white Subaru. I never meant to include my thumb. Chalk it up to the excitement of discovery. I had stumbled on a thing of beauty and was not about to lose it.”
When my 22 year marriage proved (overnight) to be a sham and a fantasy of my own design, my world shattered and I found myself in an unknown landscape. It took a lot of deep personal introspection and some bad choices to dig my way out of that place. This was 20 years ago, and I have come to celebrate and embrace this solo independent life I have created.
I'm grateful for all the stuff I've been through and what I've learned... ! Also-- wanted to let you know I'm reading Joyce Kornblatt's book "Mother Tongue." What spectacular writing... how sad that she is gone. Thank you for sharing your memories about her.
For some reason or other (there's no major anniversary in sight, nay, there is no anniversary at all in sight), Ray and I have recently been reliving our early years together, what we saw in each other before deciding to marry and whether we really knew what we were getting, age 21 and 22. We certainly did not know ourselves, much less the other, yet to a certain extent, I think we knew enough that the fact we are still together after 61 years is not a complete surprise. We both took life seriously and liked mulling issues over, both had open minds and both had a sense of fun about which I hope to write one of these days. Yet there is a HUGE amount of luck along the way. BTW, we didn't part early on, unlike you, but only because I didn't want to prove my mother right! Perhaps there is something to thank her for after all!
When someone makes you feel alive again ... Those words, Rona. They sing to the broken places and offer hope. Fiercely, defiantly seeking the people, places, activities that make me feel alive. Thank you for sharing this story.
I thought I'd found that person who I would spend the rest of my life with. Instead, I learned a hard lesson, I'm hoping this time for good, to pay attention to red flags, read and interpret the signals my body was screaming at me until I HAD to pay attention. I made myself wrong for not measuring up to her expectations of what partnership or marriage needed to be. And all the things she wanted weren't things I wanted. And I tried and tried to fit myself into her neatly crafted box, until I just couldn't anymore. And I left. And I'm glad that I did. I'm looking at this from many angles. I loved her deeply. She was, in many ways, the best friend I ever had. But I learned a lesson. The lesson is that what works for one person might not work for the other (in both directions) and no one is to blame. And I kind of love being single. Which is not to say that I'm closed to love. I just have much better tools now and I value myself more. Love this story, Rona, and I didn't even notice your thumb! xo
What a perfect poem! Yes.
While you have clearly learned from this heartbreak, I suspect you wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Here’s a poem that applies. https://poets.org/poem/failing-and-flying
Indeed. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. She was/is a wonderful woman. No regrets. Thanks for the poem, Rona. I’ll read it now. xo
I hope you plan to assemble all these achingly-beautiful weekly posts into a book. I would buy it. It would sit next to my copy of Starter Dog. ❤️
Aww, thanks, Terri. Starter Dog was born as a series of Facebook posts. Maybe Substack will birth the next book. In the meantime, you might enjoy my first memoir, My Mother’s Daughter, available used or as an ebook.
Yes to this.
You would know, Eileen.
I had tried. I really had! I married at sixteen to a twenty-one year old felon, sure that he was a better fit than parents that didn't seem to want me at home. This didn't last. Shockers! Then I married again at twenty-six to a boyfriend I had lived with for three years. I had been attending church and soon believed I was "living in sin." This one didn't last either. I tried once more to a talk drink of water who ended up on staff of a church. He was a narcissistic abuser who hid his dark qualities pretty well until the day we returned from our honeymoon. After this failure, I was done. I didn't deserve another chance, as far as I was concerned. Somehow, a copy of "Women Who Love Too Much," found it's way to my bedside table. It explained why I didn't feel that "head over heels" love for the man I was reluctantly dating. I was attracted to "bad boys." Lightbulb!!! This year we celebrate our 31st anniversary (and counting). Loved this story, Rona, and I too and wondering about that couple.
Fourth time lucky? I suspect that each of your failed marriages contributed, in its fashion, to making you the persin you are today in a marriage that works.
Yes...I know they did. I became someone who has a very low tolerance for BS. LOL (And yes...I think these "failures" helped me change in very important ways and in ways I"m proud of. Thank you, Rona!
Rona, this is lovely. Like you, I wonder what happened to the couple. I hope they’re well and happy, and that the wonders of the internet might carry this to them like a message in a bottle.
I like to think that because this marriage followed major disappointments, they had the emotional wherewithal to see it through the first seven years. I think it was Esther Perel who said that a marriage is many marriages, each one a remaking of the last,and I believe her.
Rona, that's a powerful idea for me, too. I try to see the hard seasons at home as a growth spurt into something else...although some things are simply annoying! Here's to that couple!
I don't know if anyone is ever ready for marriage, but marriage + parenthood was our downfall. We married two weeks shy of my 22nd birthday. For five years, we lived a carefree life - squash games in the evenings, dinners with friends on weekends, summer vacations, etc. Our son was born on our 5th anniversary and we never adjusted.
I think I focused too much on motherhood and neglected our relationship. On the other hand, he wanted to continue living as if we'd never had a child, so we were doomed. We split and I started over a few years later with a man who had full custody of a daughter. She was six and my son was four at the time. Step-parenthood comes with its own set of challenges, but we've been together for 30+ years. It hasn't always been a smooth journey, but this time I rubbed the stars out of my eyes before embarking on it.
While it’s entirely possible you’d have parted anyway, children are a major disruption yo the strongest marriage. We were too poor and inexperienced to be parents at 22, and the strain broke us up for a while. We didn’t yet know who we were to ourselves and each other, let alone to a tiny dependent human.
In 1980 when we wed, my bride was a virgin, and I was not. She was 25, and I was 23. All through my youth that I'd misspent seeking sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and never getting enough to make me happy, she'd been saving herself for the husband she'd promised her Jesus she would one day marry if He brought her a man who also loved Him like she did. Into her church and into her life I came a newly minted "born again" believer in Jesus Christ, having committed my young 20-year-old self to Him and we spent our first year as friends as we served together in our church. She saw in me a love for Jesus Christ that matched her own, and when I finally worked up the nerve to tell her that I loved her too, she said "yes" when I asked her to marry me. We then were engaged for a year while we saved up for our wedding and honeymoon and start of a life together and while our passionate kisses had to suffice for a time. Almost forty-five years later, as the then fires have turned to embers, I look back on that year of our engagement and wish that we had eloped instead so that we could have better enjoyed that first flaming desire. When young people ask how we've made it so far together as husband and wife, I used to say, "Don't die and don't get divorced." She would add, "It's love and tender mercies and learning how to forgive one another." Today, I'm 68 and she'll turn 70 this Spring. She's still beautiful . . . and I'm still lucky.
Happy birthday, Majik! Nothing like a happy love story to make a fine day even better. I wish you years of joy ahead.
Thank you, Rona.
I loved reading your love story too.
Who among us can't picture the Second Chance Inn and imagine ourselves giddy with new love? Universally compelling, Rona, and simultaneously intimate -- your gift for crafting a wonderful story shines yet again here.
Though no statement about those who needed to get out of a disastrous marriage, I'm glad you and Paul managed to keep yours together. Your parents must have been proud, whether they showed it or not. We celebrate our 34th next month, and there have been a lot of gas station sandwiches and traffic jams along the way, but also plenty of inspiration.
In a weird way, I think the traffic jams and stale sandwiches are sources of inspiration. If you can laugh at them, they strengthen your connection.
Absolutely!
Totally rare … a Subaru with Texas plates :)
Never thought of that before. Maybe they’re from Austin.
You have such a plain spoken but beautifully conveyed way of writing that just hits the right notes every time, Rona. I look forward to your Sunday emails so much and dig into your latest offering immediately.
I love that you saw the magic in this message and still reflect on it. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Thank you, Pamme. I like to take photos of the amazing discoveries I make on my walks. It helps imprint them on my memory, especially if I share them with others to magnify the glow. Like this message, not all are conventionally beautiful.
I love that you notice.
This past week I realized my husband and I have been married longer than my parents were and that I am slightly older than my mother was when she became a widow. Somber midwinter thoughts. Or they could be. As I said to my husband of 37.5 years, I was sure way back then when we said our vows that our marriage was “way richer and healthier than theirs.”
“Don’t all young people think that about themselves and their parents?” he asked.
Always interesting how perspective changes with time.
Thanks for another beautiful and moving post, Rona. I look forward to reading the memoir.
Glad you enjoyed this, Etta. My husband and I fought loudly and repetitively in the early years, but at least we believed in the possibility of two whole humans within the marriage. My mother assumed a caretaker role early on, and over time she lost patience with his alcoholism and narcissism.
Beautiful reflections and memories, Rona.
Wendy, it’s a pleasure to share memories with readers like you.
This illuminating detail leaped out at me. “Paul and I had no sooner left Odessa than I opened Facebook and posted my photo of the honeymooners’ white Subaru. I never meant to include my thumb. Chalk it up to the excitement of discovery. I had stumbled on a thing of beauty and was not about to lose it.”
Thanks, Pamela. I learned that day that there are no boring places, not bored people.
Wow, what a story. I’m so glad you captured that message on that car so that you could share it with us.
Thank you, Holly. This discovery made me grateful for the challenge of walking a dog in a dismal place.
When my 22 year marriage proved (overnight) to be a sham and a fantasy of my own design, my world shattered and I found myself in an unknown landscape. It took a lot of deep personal introspection and some bad choices to dig my way out of that place. This was 20 years ago, and I have come to celebrate and embrace this solo independent life I have created.
A wise woman (Gloria Steinem?) once said that a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. Well done, Karen.
I'm grateful for all the stuff I've been through and what I've learned... ! Also-- wanted to let you know I'm reading Joyce Kornblatt's book "Mother Tongue." What spectacular writing... how sad that she is gone. Thank you for sharing your memories about her.
Karen, I am thrilled that you are reading the book and savoring Joyce’s gifts as a writer and storyteller.
Amen sister. You got it right.
For some reason or other (there's no major anniversary in sight, nay, there is no anniversary at all in sight), Ray and I have recently been reliving our early years together, what we saw in each other before deciding to marry and whether we really knew what we were getting, age 21 and 22. We certainly did not know ourselves, much less the other, yet to a certain extent, I think we knew enough that the fact we are still together after 61 years is not a complete surprise. We both took life seriously and liked mulling issues over, both had open minds and both had a sense of fun about which I hope to write one of these days. Yet there is a HUGE amount of luck along the way. BTW, we didn't part early on, unlike you, but only because I didn't want to prove my mother right! Perhaps there is something to thank her for after all!
Ann, what a lovely irony: the disapproving mother as a force for marital longevity.
Yes. Nice, isn’t it.
When someone makes you feel alive again ... Those words, Rona. They sing to the broken places and offer hope. Fiercely, defiantly seeking the people, places, activities that make me feel alive. Thank you for sharing this story.
Here’s to feeling alive, Julie. I am honored to be part of your aliveness.