Life after divorce!

“I will never marry again! Who needs a wife with two kids!? Three for the price of one, in this case, is a doubtful bonus!” This is what I was telling my friends and my parents two years after divorce. Why two years later? Because in the beginning I didn’t even want to think about it!

I got divorced when my elder son was three years old and my younger son was three months old. I was on the edge of an emotional collapse and had to save my human dignity and my integrity! I have been trying to strangulate, to eliminate, to alleviate the pain for too long.  At that point the last thing I was afraid of was to be a single mother. I was wounded and bleeding and all I wanted was to get rid of that pain!

Emotional instability, depression, oblivion, psychological help, return to the reality and slowly but steadily I started recovering from the pain shock. I had experienced everything any single mother in any country of the world goes through – material problems, parental failures, vulnerability, feeling of guilt, regrets and forgiveness! And I’m thankful for every test and for every failure as it made me a much stronger person! Thanks to divorce, I have discovered a new me! I have reconsidered my values, have accepted the reality, have found peace within myself and a certain state of serenity and thankfulness for everything I had – my Faith, my children, parents, friends, my job and my home. Still. However, there was still something missing ….

I could have continued living alone with my sons. It was no longer scaring. I was no longer insecure. I have even found some pleasure in the fact that I was independent, could take decisions by myself, was the owner of my time and could raise kids without a husband. However! Was I really happy? Didn’t I want to have a sterling family? Or am I just a coward who is afraid of new relationships, commitments, consequences and eventual pain they might bring!? Why should I leave my comfort zone, where I’m more or less secure and emotionally protected!

Well, as long as I felt so and thought so, absolutely nothing changed in my personal life. Of course, I had couple of dates and even a proposal within this period, but I was absolutely not ready to start a serious relationship, or, God forbid, a family! The fear, dwelling deep in my subconsciousness, paralyzed me. I was observing with awe and amazement how I failed not only to build a normal relationship, but merely to let it go and give myself a simple right to be happy!

Time heels! It’s an absolute truth! Time came and I didn’t only find emotional balance, I have clearly and acutely realized that I was ready to start a new family, but this time DIFFERENTLY! First of all I nullified all my expectations! I no longer wanted to take, I wanted to give! The biggest mistake a woman can do is to think that the man next to her owes her something. I have realized that an attempt to change your partner, or even worse, a hope that he will change is a total wastage of time and an useless exercise. He will NOT change! It’s absolutely impossible to transform someone else! The only person you can transform is yourself! You can change your attitude to marriage and to the person who is next to you! If you are not ready to give, you can’t build a sane family! A healthy relationship is hard work multiplied by love, trust, respect and empathy! It’s a boring truth! How many times I have heard about it, read about it … I knew about it! But until I went through divorce, disappointment, pain and reassessment of my values, these were just somebody’s words, somebody’s experience. Now these are my lessons and my experience – obtained through tears, sufferings and agony! It belongs to me and it is well deserved!

Six years passed after divorce and I no longer said silly things like: “Who needs a single mom with two kids!” I knew there was definitely somebody who needed! Because this time I had a lot to give! Because my children were ready and they couldn’t wait till their mom found her second half. When I just met my future husband he came for one week to Moldova to get to know my family, and most importantly, kids. They found common language immediately. I couldn’t help smiling watching him communicating with boys as if they have always been in his life. When he left I asked my sons if they were ready to accept the probability of him, may be, one day, becoming new member of our family. My elder son, who was nine years old back then, told me: “Mama, I am the elder man in the family and I’m your helper. I help you out with chores, with my younger brother and I take care of you, but you need a man who will love you. We want to see you happy.” These were exactly those words I needed to hear in order to give myself back the right to be happy.

P.S. I am happily married for almost three years now and I’m endlessly thankful to the destiny that I didn’t hurry to alleviate my pain by means of new relationship, that I gave myself time to come back to normal, to believe again in myself, that I was open and recognized my future husband, that I gave him and myself a chance to build our lives together. Now I have a family I have always dreamt of. But I have it not because I met the man of my dreams, my kids are perfect and I’m a super woman. I have it because I chose reality over dreams, trust over demands and simple thankfulness over groundless expectations!