When I married Ed in September 2017, it wasn’t the first time I had been a bride. I was married to someone else a few years before and it didn’t work out. I feel that there is a bit of a stigma around getting married more than once, especially for somebody my age, so I wanted to confront the taboo around the breakdown of a marriage and discuss the positives of ending a marriage that isn’t working whilst looking at how it helped shape my second marriage. I’ve also spoken with a few other bloggers who have been married before to get their take on marriage after divorce.
It is Important to Be Yourself
In most of my previous relationships I tried to be someone I wasn’t in order to please my partner. I pretended to like the same films, the same music, the same hobbies. I tried so hard to be something I wasn’t that eventually I lost sight of who I really was. It was this loss of identity that made me finally see that things weren’t right in my first marriage. How could I expect to be happy, and for my partner to love me if I wasn’t even able to be honest about who I was to myself? Since meeting Ed, I have been able to fully open up to him and to 100% be myself, without the fear of him rejecting me. It feels amazing to be with somebody who I can be myself with, who encourages me to like different things to him, and understands my quirks without judgement.
You Deserve to Be Happy
As a result, I am so much happier these days. Being true to myself has allowed me to relax and enjoy the person that I am, and to enjoy my relationship. Finding the right person has shown me how right I was to trust myself and let go of something that wasn’t making me happy. When people have questioned how sure I was about getting married a second time after a previous failed marriage, I explain that this time I am happy and it is so different to the first time. It is hard to put into words, but I truly believe that when it comes to love you just know when it is right. I knew it wasn’t right first time round but I was scared and unsure of myself.
You Are Stronger than You Think
I now know that I don’t ‘need’ a man. I do need Ed in the sense that I love him to pieces and I would feel lost without him, but I have been a single mum, I have handled things on my own and I know that if something were to change in our relationship, if we couldn’t be together and I needed to be alone once more, I could do it because I have done so before and survived. There have been situations I have been in since my first marriage ended, which I have not enjoyed, but which have shown me how strong and resilient I am. When kids are involved, it is not possible to sever ties with your ex partner, but you have to make it work and find your inner strength to carry on.
You Don’t Have to Keep it All In
Anna, from Me Annie Bee, “learnt that a bit of disagreement, dare I say arguing even is actually pretty healthy. If you aren’t letting the niggles out then they are sat inside you festering and will manifest into resentment. Also, if the tears you’re crying at the alter don’t feel like happy tears then you should probably walk away. It’s never too late!”. I totally agree. Ed and I have disagreements. I don’t try and avoid them or bottle up my feelings as that only leads to resentment and ultimately bigger arguments. Instead I work hard to resolve any issues we have, finding the root cause of any unhappiness. Marriage isn’t always plain sailing, but with the right person it is possible to move through rough patches and come out of the other side stronger.
It’s Important to Feel Equal
You Can Take it Slow
It’s Important to Make Your Relationship a Priority
The Marriage is More Important than the Wedding
Thank you to the bloggers who helped with this post – Anna, Tanya & Penny.
