Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

It really wasn’t the story I expected…

Author: thenicknick

I’m not sure what I expected when I began reading This is Not the Story You Think It Is, by Laura Munson.  All I know for sure is that I find myself at a crossroads in life.  I am about to get remarried.  And the fear for me is that I could fail at the marriage thing all over again.  Maybe I will find that I once again can’t make a relationship work.

If you fail at marriage once, if you’re divorced, you can blame it on any number of things.  You can say that you outgrew each other.  You can claim that you were never truly compatible.  You can blame it on having married too young, even.

If, however, you remarry later in your life and that relationship crumbles like a sandcastle built too close to the sea, suddenly there are less excuses.  Suddenly there is the fear that maybe the only common denominator between the two failures is you and maybe you really are the problem.  It would be difficult to face that truth.

I needed to believe that I was making the right choice this time.  I needed to know how I could make this marriage work, last, endure, and be something special, something I know it already is.  I needed to conquer those fears.

That is why I read the book.

It wasn’t easy.  The author asks that we not pick sides, that we not lay blame, that we not see fault.  Instead, we are given the opportunity to look at the situation from another perspective.  Instead we are shown how to make a choice that can change the course of our future.

When her husband comes home one night and tells her after twenty years together, two kids later, a life built on the promise of forever, that he doesn’t love her any more and isn’t sure if he ever did, Laura responds.  And her response is one that I understand.  It is one that I, too, have given.

Laura: I don’t buy it.

How many times have I said that to HIM out loud or in my head?  I can’t keep track.  He told me once that he didn’t see us being together forever.  I didn’t buy it.  He told me once that he didn’t love me, wasn’t in love with me.  I didn’t buy it.  In all of those situations, I recognized that what we had was completely different from what he had ever experienced before.

I chose not to believe him.  More than that, like Laura, I chose to be happy.  It wasn’t an easy choice.  It went against everything I believed.  In the past, I had counted on the power of words to help him see the truths of our life.  In this situation, I had to rely on his reasoning skills, that deeply analytical side of his nature that he would come to the real conclusion on his own.

He did.  He has.  He still does.

He knows now that we truly are supposed to be together.  He understands that sometimes the best love is a warm comforting blanket and not a rug to be ripped from beneath his feet.  He gets that sometimes, the best things in life are completely unplanned, wholly unexpected.  That’s why I claim to be the woman he never knew he always wanted.

Still, we face moments where stress takes over and boredom sets in.  I have learned to recognize that the dissatisfaction he tries to find in me is really a dissatisfaction he has in himself.  I have learned not to bite back or skulk off to nurse my wounds.  I have learned to choose happiness.

Sometimes this happiness comes in the form of a spontaneous day trip that steers us back on course.  Sometimes this happiness can be found in the comfort of a simple family night watching movies and pigging out with the kids.  Sometimes the happiness is discovered in a new project we tackle together.  Sometimes the happiness simply has to be intrinsic, knowing that I am loving him the best I can, even when he’s hardest to love.

After the book, after putting it into practice, after fine tuning what I was already doing right, I’m less afraid.  I don’t worry that ours will be another story of a good love gone bad.  I don’t worry that he’ll crumble our castle.  We’re not building it in the sand, or in the clouds.  We’re building it on a firm foundation that though sometimes tested, promises to weather the challenges of time.

This book was freely given to me as a member of the From Left to Write Book Club.

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