Marriage is hard. Really hard. That’s why it’s called a commitment. If you’re married, you know what I’m talking about. So, when a marriage ends people can feel like failures. This was true for me. However, when I look back now, I know I’m not a failure. When I reflect back on everything my marriage taught me, I can bravely say it was worth it.

 I should’ve ended my marriage before I ever got married. There were danger signs everywhere, but I was just too close to the fire to see them. My ex-husband and I met when we were seventeen. He had the “bad boy” allure and I was naïve and innocent enough to think I could help him. Our teenage romance didn’t last long, only a few weeks. Then he went back to New York and I went away to college. We wouldn’t reconnect until my last year of college. Our connection was still strong, and we decided to pursue a relationship again. This was a bad move that taught me lessons that are too familiar to many, and yet still ignored.

 Lesson 1: Red Flags Mean Run

 Even before marriage, my relationship with my ex-husband was rocky. There were a million red flags I chose to ignore because I was “in love”. I stayed to prove my parents wrong. They’d warned me that he was not a good guy. I stayed because he said he loved me, but his words rarely matched his actions. I stayed hoping he’d want to get married and have a family with me, even though he’d made it abundantly clear that was not in his plan. I stayed in spite of his verbal and mental abuse, that would eventually lead to more violent abuse. He presented me with a lot of good reasons to leave. In addition to being abusive, he actually had tried to force me to become a stripper (those who know me, know that’s not gonna happen). A couple of times he flat told me to leave, to breakup with him. But I stayed because you don’t just give up on the ones you love. Looking back on my relationship with my ex-husband, the red flags were everywhere, and I should’ve left before we ever got married. Note: I didn’t yet know the difference between real love, lust and whatever this asshole was. I honestly believed I could change him or save him from himself. I was wrong! When I look back on our relationship prior to getting married, I should’ve run far, far away.

 Lesson 2: Don’t Stay Just Because You’re Pregnant

 Over time I started to notice other guys were paying attention to me and that made me feel good. These guys were showing a genuine interest in me and wanted to get to know me better. I was ready to leave and see what these potential suitors had to offer. Then I found out I was pregnant, so I stayed.  

 When I found out I was pregnant I was so happy. It didn’t matter that we weren’t married. In today’s world having a child out of wedlock is pretty normal. It’s still frowned upon, but normal, nonetheless. However, when I divulged my pregnancy to him, he was less than happy. He immediately told me that I had to “get rid of it”. I said no, and he proceed to tell me that he wanted no part of it. I wouldn’t budge on my stance of keeping the baby. He ended up staying with me, but would constantly tell me I should have an abortion. He kept on saying this until I had reached the point in my pregnancy where that was no longer an option. It was at this point he conceded that we were going to be parents. The irony was that he had been intentionally trying to get me pregnant. So, he shouldn’t have been surprised when I told him.

 While I was excited and telling my family, friends, and coworkers, we didn’t tell his family until I was almost seven months along. He didn’t want his family to know until I couldn’t physically hide my pregnancy. It was also around this time we had to move into his parent’s house due to financial reasons. His parents weren’t exactly thrilled, but they allowed us to live at their house. Since his dad is a devout Catholic, we were forced to get married or move out. Since we weren’t in the best position financially, we got married.

 Lesson 3: Shotgun Weddings/Marriages Should be Avoided at all Costs

 I got married ten days after giving birth to my son. I remember this day vividly because like most women I had visions of what my wedding day would be like. I never really wanted a big wedding, but prefer more of a small backyard wedding – just immediate family and close friends. That is the wedding I dream of, but my “wedding day” was not anything like I’d envisioned. There was no special dress (I wore my best fitting jeans and a top that looked good on me), no music, no friends or family. The only thing that synced this wedding day to a special wedding day was the stress. Since our son was a preemie I had to stop at the hospital to drop off milk for him and make sure he was doing good. The main attending nurse looked at me, told me I looked pale and asked if I was feeling alright. I told her I was fine. I went back to the house to pick up my future husband and my future mother-in-law looked at me and told me I looked pale and asked if I was feeling alright. I told her I was fine. Apparently as the day worn on I had turned whiter and whiter by the time we went to the Justice of the Peace’s (JP) location. When we arrived at the JP’s office I must’ve looked like Casper’s older sister because the nice ladies that would be our witnesses kept asking me if I was okay. Again, I told them I was fine. We were taken to the conference room and waited for the JP. The JP walked in, took one look at me, and asked if I was feeling okay. I said I was fine. He said, “You don’t have to do this,” and asked if I really wanted to get married. I said yes, but as soon as we said “I do” I instantly regretted those words.

 I ignored my gut. NEVER, ever ignore your gut, it is very rarely wrong. My stepdad always told us to listen to our gut because nothing is worse than looking back at a situation and saying, damn I should’ve listened to my gut. If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve found another way to ensure a safe place for my son and I to live.

 Lesson 4: An Abusive Control Freak and Parenthood Don’t Mix

 A few days after getting married, we brought home our son. Things were good. My husband was being nice, normal actually. However, that only lasted for a few weeks. Once the realities of a baby crying in the middle of the night and disrupting his sleep set in, he became a nasty bastard. He insisted that I ensure that I keep our infant son quiet at night. The parents out there know that infants rarely sleep through the night and their only means of communication at this stage in their life is to cry. So, keeping an infant quiet at night so that my husband gets a good night’s sleep was not a truly feasible task. I’m not really sure why he was making this demand on me because: a) he knew infants don’t sleep through the night and b) he wasn’t working at the time, so why the hell did he need to ensure he got a good night’s sleep? Still, I tried to keep the baby quiet at night.

 As our son got older, my husband’s controlling and abusive tactics changed. Once our son was of the age to start learning how to feed himself, my husband insisted that I still feed our son because he didn’t like the fact that our son was going to make a mess. Duh! I knew that and I was prepared to clean said mess. Then there were the times my husband would try to stop me from providing affection to our son when I returned home from work as punishment to our son for crying or behaving badly in some way in his mind. This was something I would ignore, and he would hit me because I went against his wishes. Our son was so scared of his father that he would cling to me all night until bedtime. In my husband’s mind he thought he was God’s gift to fatherhood. However, his words rarely matched his actions. Since we lived upstairs, away from his parents and brothers, nobody in the house really knew the extent of his abusive nature at this time. They had an inkling, but pretended it wasn’t that bad, even when he threw our son’s crib literally out the window of our apartment! The situation escalated over the next eighteen months to the point I had to get an Order of Protection (Restraining Order) against him.

 The Order of Protection was a blessing and curse because it gave us time apart. During this time apart we each had time to reflect. As much as I hated my husband’s abuse and nasty behavior, I missed him. Don’t ask me why, I don’t have a good answer. I think it had a lot to do with my lack of self-confidence.  Also, during this time, I was preparing to divorce him. This was a frightening position for me to be in because trying to figure out the logistics of being a single mother on Long Island, NY were overwhelming. At the time I felt very much alone and couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

 My husband was ordered to attend mandatory anger management classes during this time, which he did. These classes seemed to help for a while. Between his anger management classes helping him to behave like a normal person, and my vacillating regarding getting divorced, I took him back.

 Lesson 5: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing is Still a Wolf

 Taking my husband back was a mistake of the epic kind. While it didn’t happen overnight, his abusive nature started creeping back into our relationship, and this time the abuse was more vicious and sadistic. It started out as snide comments that would lead to threats. As time went on he’d trap me and our son in our apartment so that he could be in complete control of the situation. He’d force me to do things sexually that I wasn’t comfortable with, and eventually he’d just rape me to get the satisfaction he wanted. Again, he was very careful at first to make sure his family wasn’t privy to his abuse toward me. However, over a period of nine years he started to become aggressive toward his family as well.

 I’m not sure what he would say about me or the stories he’d tell them about our relationship, but I always felt energetically attacked by them. The glares and stares were intense and uncomfortable. At first his family didn’t believe me when it came to my husband’s behavior, but once he started behaving aggressively toward his family, they believed me more. I was no longer seen as crazy or a liar in their eyes. This was a relief. They actually became my allies, which was great because what to come was going to a bumpy, scary, turbulent time!

 Lesson 6: Dangerous Situations Means It’s Time to Leave

 Married people don’t just wake up one morning and think to themselves, I’m going to file for divorce today. There is usually a buildup over time and the reasons vary from relationship to relationship and for each individual within the relationship. The reason may be as simple as they’ve grown apart, or one cheated on the other, or it can be as serious as physical and mental abuse. Whatever the reason may be, coming to terms with the decision to end a marriage is rarely easy, in fact it can be downright hard.

 The day I had to file a petition for a second Order of Protection (Restraining Order) from my husband was the day I knew I had to file for divorce. The night before was terrifying. My husband woke my son and I up at around 3am and started terrorizing me. He was kicking the bed and threatening to kill me. Our son was glued to my side, trying not to cry (he knew crying would only incite his father more). I did tell our son to go downstairs and stay with his grandparents, but my husband wouldn’t let him. My husband proceeded to terrorize us for two hours. In the morning I got our son on the school bus and went to work. While I was at work, I tried dealing with work concerns and not thinking about the night before. However, that was impossible because my husband kept calling to berate me. It was just about 9am when my husband called and started yelling at me, again. I was in the process of telling him that I had to focus on work when he threatened to pick up our son from school and leave, just disappear. I immediately hung up, looked at two of my co-workers that were aware of the situation with my husband, and I said, “I have to go.” I explained what happened over the past 24-hours, including the phone call that had just taken place, and that I needed to get a Restraining Order.

 While I was waiting to go before a judge to get the order, I experienced a myriad of emotions – fear, sadness, anger. When I finally went before the judge she granted me a Refrain From Order, not a Restraining Order and it only covered me, not my son. Unfortunately, it was the best I was going to get at the time. The next order of business was to find a good divorce attorney. I was lucky enough to secure a great divorce attorney and got one of the fastest divorces of 2018 in the state of New York. I was divorced before the end of 2018 and rang in 2019 joyfully!

 Lesson 7: It’s Okay to Love Again

 After my divorce was final I swore off dating until my son graduated from high school. Six years should be enough time to figure out if I even want to be in a relationship again, right? I knew it was okay to date again, however, I’d just gotten out of what must be hell and I really didn’t want to press my luck.  I just wanted to raise my son to be the opposite of his father. When I would tell my friends and sister of my game plan, they laughed. My sister would giggle or snicker and say, “we’ll see.” Several of my friends kept telling me that it was okay to date again – this time just date for fun, not a relationship. Well, the Universe was also laughing at me, and then the Universe blessed me.   

 I met my now boyfriend 14 years ago while we were coworkers at an ad agency on Long Island, NY. At the time we met I was in the rocky relationship with my now ex-husband and that was a boundary that was not to be crossed. I secretly had a crush on him – I think it was the worst kept secret in the office, as many of our coworkers figured it out without me telling them. In spite of my less than secret crush on him, we established a friendship. Like many friendships, he and I stayed in contact and would keep in touch with each other, primarily through Facebook, throughout the years.

 Once I became a certified Usui/Tibetan Reiki Master Teacher, I started offering my Reiki services to all my family and friends, and my boyfriend was among my friends that I offered a series of sessions to in exchange for a professional photoshoot from him. It took a few months, but we worked out the details and made things happen. All the while the Universe was conspiring for a more intense (and intimate) connection. Over the course of four weeks we went from being friends, to dating, which has led to a committed relationship. Our relationship is strong and the opposite of my previous relationship. I feel safe, loved and respected. It is a loving, peaceful, respectful relationship with open, honest communication – even when we disagree, we can do so without yelling or screaming. I’m not afraid of saying or doing the “wrong” thing. I’m not afraid he’s going to abuse me. He is a truly loving, caring and compassionate partner.

 These seven rules are redundant to some, but sometimes you make your way through the situations, learn the lessons and come out stronger than you did walking in. I know that even if my current relationship doesn’t last, that’s okay, I can always start over. Starting over is way better than staying stuck.