If you are happily remarried, does the love feel more authentic than it did in the first marriage?

[Anonymous]

I am one of only three people in my very large family to ever divorce. I am now happily remarried. My great grandmother divorced in the 1930s and it was scandalous back then. One uncle divorced after a brief marriage in the 1980s and it too was scandalous. My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and most of my 35 cousins are still married to their high school or college sweethearts. My family is religious, many of them are from small working class towns. I went to a family wedding every year of my life until I was 30. My childhood was full of nonstop, unquestioned messages that marriage happens to everyone and it lasts forever as long as you work hard at it...sometimes really really hard. Sacrifice. Tolerating disrespect. Not wanting much for yourself. There is a sort of mythology attached to meeting and marrying young and making it last into your senior years until death. The first and only love fantasy runs deep in my family.

Well, that framework just did not work for me. I met my first husband somewhat young (mid twenties) and attached the same sort of fantasy to it...in the end hard work did not save it....he was an irresponsible a*$&-+&.

I've been in my second marriage for a little over a decade and I'm struck by how good we are together and how easy marriage with him is. No sacrifices. No disrespect. We resolve problems relatively quickly and without any drama. Sex life good. We make a good team. I sometimes though have grief over him not being my one and only husband who I met when I was very young. I accept and I'm grateful for what we have but I so wish I had met him in college....that he had been my first love. I felt a twinge of sadness about it when my 6 year old asked me about my wedding to her father. My divorce is not a family secret that we will hide from her..but she was so innocent as she imagined our wedding being the only one.

Can anyone relate? Or share a different worldview that will shift this narrow way of thinking for me?

Anyone relate?

[Anonymous]

Nope, not as authentic the second time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of only three people in my very large family to ever divorce. I am now happily remarried. My great grandmother divorced in the 1930s and it was scandalous back then. One uncle divorced after a brief marriage in the 1980s and it too was scandalous. My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and most of my 35 cousins are still married to their high school or college sweethearts. My family is religious, many of them are from small working class towns. I went to a family wedding every year of my life until I was 30. My childhood was full of nonstop, unquestioned messages that marriage happens to everyone and it lasts forever as long as you work hard at it...sometimes really really hard. Sacrifice. Tolerating disrespect. Not wanting much for yourself. There is a sort of mythology attached to meeting and marrying young and making it last into your senior years until death. The first and only love fantasy runs deep in my family.

Well, that framework just did not work for me. I met my first husband somewhat young (mid twenties) and attached the same sort of fantasy to it...in the end hard work did not save it....he was an irresponsible a*$&-+&.

I've been in my second marriage for a little over a decade and I'm struck by how good we are together and how easy marriage with him is. No sacrifices. No disrespect. We resolve problems relatively quickly and without any drama. Sex life good. We make a good team. I sometimes though have grief over him not being my one and only husband who I met when I was very young. I accept and I'm grateful for what we have but I so wish I had met him in college....that he had been my first love. I felt a twinge of sadness about it when my 6 year old asked me about my wedding to her father. My divorce is not a family secret that we will hide from her..but she was so innocent as she imagined our wedding being the only one.

Can anyone relate? Or share a different worldview that will shift this narrow way of thinking for me?

Anyone relate?

Yup, definitely better in so many ways. I suspect because I settled with first marriage, was young (mid twenties) and didn't really know what kind of adult I would turn out to be. My ex and I grew apart over a ten year period after two kids and we weren't even friends, at least unless you count me faking that I still liked spending time with her. Fast forward twenty plus years into my second marriage I can't believe how well we get along and how everything is so effortless. I really love this person, and I mean insanely in love with her, definitely not like my first marriage. From the moment I had my first date with my current wife I felt like I had known her all my life. I do wish I had waited to marry until I was a little older, I think it would have made a difference in who I married the first time around.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, OP. Divorced and engaged again now. It seems much easier but I also feel I'm more grown up, more confident, and I am very direct about my expectations and wants. I don't play games, I don't keep things to myself. I think that being authentic from the start has been a big help. I also think it helps that I feel like I've been through what I once thought was the absolute worst thing to happen to me, and I turned out completely okay! So I know that I'm okay being alone if that's what happens. I'm with my fiancé 100% because I want to be. Not for any other reason. And I know I don't have to settle.

[Anonymous]

Much, much better. But in my case, I never felt that giddy, stars in the eyes stuff with their one. I haven't felt that for anyone since age 23. I thought husband #1 and I had a shared vision of family and friends for the future. It was always about the future or past with us. Arguing over past grievances or trying to hold on until things got better. We didn't share values. When I met DH, it felt like coming home. We just get each other. So much is seamless and needs no words. Neither of us thinks the other is perfect, but to me he's all those cliches: safe harbor, compass, bedrock. I'm really in the present with him.

[Anonymous]

Always easier if you aren't doing the baby, toddler, young kid thing! I feel bad about what a toll kids took on my first marriage and how totally easier my second married life is with much older kids and less worries.

[Anonymous]

Off topic, but I think you are doing your dd a disservice if you let her believe the fantasy of the prince.

[Anonymous]

Your child is your DH's child. She does not care you had 2 weddings. Don't you have bigger problems to worry about? Asking in all seriousness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Off topic, but I think you are doing your dd a disservice if you let her believe the fantasy of the prince.

OP here. Thank you for that...

While no one explicitly said I'd find "my prince" it was, now that you point it out, implicit in my family culture and (disturbingly) in the slight sadness I felt about my daughter's starry eyed expression that showed she thought my wedding day to her father was just like Cinderella. Ugh. Hmm.....going to be more cognizant of this...because the messages I got were pretty warped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child is your DH's child. She does not care you had 2 weddings. Don't you have bigger problems to worry about? Asking in all seriousness.

OP here. I do! I think I'm just bored today

[Anonymous]

I can totally relate. I hate that I made a huge mistake and got married when I was younger.

Also, many of the marriages in your family were probably not happy. You just had the balls to stand up for what you knew was right for you.

[Anonymous]

Yes, 100%. 2nd marriage is a breeze!

I always said I wouldn't get married until I was 30, but then I got married at 26. Should have listened to my own advice.

Young & dumb.

At least I didn't marry the first guy who proposed at 19.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I was young and clueless the first time around. Second time I understood that it's a partnership that's about much more than giddy butterflies.

[Anonymous]

I get it. I'm so happily married to my second husband. Like a PP said, it's line coming home. We have so much in common, we enjoy each other's company, the sex is good, and we have a beautiful child.

My first husband and I didn't communicate well, we didn't have common interests, the sex wasn't that good. We got married on a fantasy. I was 23 and had just graduated from an evangelical college and thought this is what I'm supposed to do now. (I'm agnostic now.)

But even though I'm so much happier now, I still grieve at times the first marriage. The loss of that first wedding and uniting of families. The loss of my first set of in-laws, who were wonderful people.

Life isn't black and white. I take the memories and sadness as they comes. This is part of my past and I'm allowed to have mixed emotions about it. But then, I snuggle my precious baby (who wouldn't exist had things not occurred as they did), kiss my amazing husband, pet my dogs, and give thanks for the beautiful life I've built.

[Anonymous]

Are women capable of rewriting history to justify their current choices?

Why yes, of course they are!