Moving on after 11 years of marriage...

Tweet

My first marriage produced three beautiful children and 10 years of heartache and pain. I was with my ex for almost 12 years total and 1/12 years I can honestly say was "good." We married young, I was only 19 and he was 20 and 9 days later my oldest son was born. We moved from New York to New Mexico to be near his family. Needless to say, that was probably mistake #1. I had no family in NM at all--and they, I mean his family, knew this and some of them really took advantage of me. I will say that the person I once knew almost changed overnight when I had to learn to defend myself. One of the family members, an aunt, had the nerve to call anyone that married into the family, "Outlaws" instead of in-laws. Over the years we had 2 more children together, one right after the other. If I had to pick a reason why our marriage didn't last, my first response would be because of his mother. She did a lot of damage in the early years of our marriage and that is what laid the foundation for disaster. The only reason it lasted as long as it did, I did it for my children. I did love him, but fell out of love with him and I know it must have been the same or similar for him. A life altering accident happened and it made me open my eyes. It's like I suddenly woke up from a dream. Being through a horrible accident, he could not take care of me physically and mentally. By mentally, I mean being supportive in my recovery. This scared me, especially with having the three kids. He did help the best way that he thought he could, but even after me telling him exactly what I needed, he could not deliver. I made my decision to leave him and finally divorce him. I say finally because he had filed 2 other times within the span of our marriage, but always ended up back together promising each other to make changes. That I will save for another time... I was not looking for love or companionship--it sort of found me. I met a wonderful man that has a heart bigger than life itself. He is six years younger, but if you were to meet him you would swear he was six years older. We are now happily married and this will be our 2nd Christmas together. I have a good "parental" relationship with the ex and he even lives 4 miles away. We make sure we are on the same page with the kids and that the kids know that they can't pull any of that "divorced parents" crap with us. We do still get under each others skin from time to time and I reckon we will for as long as the kids are under the age of 18. For people that have given up on love, please don't. Don't look for it either because it will come to you.