Looking for Marriage In All the Wrong Places

Looking for Marriage In All the Wrong Places

Just when you thought it was safe to use the "Marriage" word again, someone goes and does something really stupid. Like my friend who’s talking honeymoon with a guy who would be her husband number two. The man I repeatedly refer to as Mr. Mistake.

Any one of the three big Ms can get you in trouble. Whether it’s marriage, money, or midlife crisis, each can result in the fourth big M (madness). There are no easy answers in the psychological jungle of singledom, just tools – like perseverance and attention to detail. But add that to the list of “the things my mother never told me.”

The most obvious M word, marriage, is why we’re all here. Letting go of the old life, watching a new life emerge is much more than patiently nurturing the bud of a cocooned caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. 

I know my transition was more like a train wreck than a gentle transformation from one state to the next. Patience, my dears – patience! My phone and email jump with stories of women age 35–50ish that are going completely bonkers, jumping into second marriages for all the wrong reasons.

I’m a year and a half out of what was one of the messiest situations of my life. I dragged the kids from my girlfriend’s, to my cousin’s, and even to sleep in the back of my store for a while. Granted, this wasn’t a long-term solution to hosting a new lifestyle, but at least I didn’t move in with anyone, or worse, consider marriage for the sake of a safety net.

Leaving my marriage has meant building a bridge to a much more balanced, safe, happy and peaceful existence, even if it seems the bridge is nothing more than a swinging rope sometimes.

Things usually get worse before they get better. (I hope my girlfriend is reading this). I’m proud that even in my lowest points, I haven’t given up or given in to the M word in order to jump-start a new life. Instead, I’m taking the slow necessary steps to rebuild this life, which include steady focus, some therapy and constant attention on the biggest M of all – me!