**This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events that I have experienced firsthand; used with permission.
People change you. They can transform your emotions, energy, and life trajectory in unbelievable ways — especially when you engage in intimate relationships with them.
My parents were the first ones to influence me, followed by my closest friends, teachers, and extended family members along the way.
My first love was another person who became forever imprinted upon me — shadowed by subsequent boyfriends after that. Then came my first husband, who altered the direction of my life in extreme and significant ways. I moved to another country to be with him, for starters.
Ultimately, that relationship was utterly doomed— abusive and corrosive — but still undeniably impactful in regard to the life lessons I learned along the way and the interesting places I ended up in.
All that being said, none of my past relationships have thoroughly transformed me as a human being in the way in which the one with my current husband has. His presence in my life has had a stunning impact.
Initially, I resisted the relationship because he wasn’t my ‘type’ — meaning he wasn’t fickle or abusive like the other men I had dated in the past. I never wanted to get married — especially after my disastrous first marriage.
However, my now husband was persistent and I eventually gave in to the love he had to offer. The rest is history.
My husband has somehow been able to crack open my most vulnerable self — the parts of me that I attempt to keep hidden away in secret places. He has been able to calm my worst fears and insecurities that brew just beneath the surface at any given time.
My husband has accepted me for who and what I am — literally for better and for worse. And when those worst parts of me creep in, he will let me know when I’ve gone too far. He’s not afraid of who I am in my darkest hours and, believe me, he’s seen the darkest of the dark.
He has made me a mother — which wasn’t a role I thought I’d ever play. He held my hand as I gave birth to our daughter and he has observed my evolution both as a mother and as a stepmother to his son. Both of these mothering roles turned me inside out, upside down, and I have been irreversibly altered by these experiences.
My husband has shown me patience, forgiveness, humor, and stability. His presence in my life has brought out the best in me. Whereas many of my past relationships were hurtful and rocky, the relationship with my husband has caused me to blossom without hesitation instead of cowering in fear or angst.
I have had many moments where I found myself trying to sabotage this partnership— simply because I felt that I somehow didn’t deserve it.
After you’ve experienced an abundance of destructive and volatile relationships in the past, sometimes you feel a weird itch to just burn everything down for fear of losing it.
But my husband hasn’t let me do this. He doesn’t play that game.
This is what my husband has done to me. He has been the partner I never thought I could have. He has been the man I never thought I could find. He has been the friend I never thought I depend on so much.
Sometimes in this life, we meet truly formidable people who change the course of our lives. Unfortunately, this can often go in an opposite direction which creates negative or even dangerous situations when we meet people who alter our direction in an unhealthy way.
Rarely, though, do we meet such a person who can manifest so many significant and positive experiences for us in so many different and luminous ways.
This is what my husband has done for me — and I couldn’t love him more for it.
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The wife of the man I was seeing showed up at my workplace in her pajamas
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