My partner asked me the other day if I was tainted by the betrayal and loss from my first marriage. I was asked whether my views on love and relationships were "damaged" in some way by the way my marriage ended.
I thought it was a very interesting question and it took me a while to be able to find words that could even approach an explanation of my feelings.
My thoughts are like this: - in my previous marriage, I didnt really understand how love works. I didnt understand that every day, both my ex and I had the choice when we woke up of whether or not to be in love. Every day, I woke up, I was making a personal choice to be "in love" with that person I was sleeping next to. Wht I didnt realize was that my ex was making the same choice every day. And so I took that love for granted. As a given.
- By doing that, I learned bad habits. Lots of them. I equated it to getting an A without studying. If I take 7 tests and get A's without studying, whats my incentive to study for the 8th test? So, I stopped studying in my previous relationship. I stopped working on being a good partner, and as a result, my ex woke up one morning and didnt chose not to love me anymore.
- So, I said that my view on love isnt tainted. Im not any less "in" this relationship than I was in the other one. But Ive "learned my lesson" about what can happen when you take another persons' love for granted. Ive learned how relationships can fail. Ive become smarter in how I love.
So, no, I dont think that my abilities to trust or to love are broken or tainted. I choose instead to believe that they are enhanced in that I can administer those gifts onto someone else in a way that is healthy and sustainable.
