I Was Wrong

I got married young. I had just turned 20 a few weeks before (he was 2 months shy of 24). I thought I was in love. Maybe I was....but knowing what I know now, I doubt it. I was anxious to start a family (and was actually about 5 months pregnant with our first baby, a surprise....we had been engaged for a year when I became pregnant) because that's all I really wanted. I don't remember having any doubts about marrying him, but I should have. I really should have. I couldn't talk to him. Not about anything important. And he never talked to me. The line of communication just wasn't there. It never was and it never got better. I'm really not sure why I was so happy about marrying him, but I do remember thinking it was the happiest day of my life. I was excited to start our life together, but I'm not really sure what I expected that life would be like with how our relationship was. I guess I thought all you needed was love and the rest would come. W-R-O-N-G. So very wrong.

After we lost Zachary, I thought it brought us closer and maybe it did for awhile. But the communication never got better. We got pregnant with Ryan 9 months later. We were both cautiously excited. Then he was born just as early as Zachary and spent 6 months in the NICU, which again I thought brought us closer. But by the time Ryan was a few years old, I was starting to become miserable and so envious of couples that could talk to each other and supported each other emotionally....we did not have that. At all. And I desperately, desperately wanted it. I NEEDED it. Not only was he not supportive, but he even started to put me down it seemed every chance he could and was just negative and hurtful a lot of the time. I thought I needed to tough it out, at least for the kids. But there were other (major) issues and by the time Brooke was a little over a year old, I knew I needed to get out. For my sanity. And for the kids' well being. They didn't need to be living in such a tension-filled environment.

I had stuck it out for a long time, but to me our marriage had been dead at least a year, maybe two, before I actually moved out. A week after I did move out, I signed up on a free online dating site, the first night (and only night then for almost 2 months) that the kids were with their dad. I, myself, even thought it was crazy and didn't even feel ready to date, but I *was curious and I guess maybe I was sort of testing my self confidence, which had gone way down the tubes during my marriage. I figured it was pretty harmless to just talk to someone online.

I got a lot of messages that first night, but only one of them really struck me as someone I would want to talk to because most of them didn't have proper grammer/punctuation/capitalization, etc. and that drives me CRAZY, especially considering the fact that one would assume they would be trying to make a good first impression, right? LOL. I'm sure I sound crazy :-P. And then of course there were the perverts and yes, there are a lot of them.

So anyway, like I said only one really caught my eye. His name was Joe and he was a divorced dad to a then 3 1/2 year old son. We started talking on AIM and we talked for a few hours if I remember correctly. I think it was around 1am (LATE for me) that I finally signed off and I can't remember what time we started chatting. It was all "getting to know you" stuff, basically. But he was funny and fun to talk to. He lived an hour away and I figured the chances of anything happening between us were slim to none with the distance, but I liked talking to him and thought he could at least be a friend, if nothing else.

We talked just about every day at some point, usually at night, about all kinds of things. After a couple weeks, he asked me about driving up here and taking me to dinner one Saturday night, but I couldn't get a sitter that night and to be honest, I was kind of relieved because I was scared to death about meeting him. Not because he was scary (that wasn't it at all), but because I get nervous about meeting new people in general (there's that whole self confidence issue). I did want to meet him, but I didn't think I was quite ready yet. A couple weeks later, he asked again and even though I was nervous as heck, I accepted.

As I got ready for our date, I couldn't remember the last time I had been so nervous. I was excited, too, but more nervous than anything. My parents came over to watch the kids and he picked me up (he was shocked I would let him and not meet him somewhere, but I had no reservations about letting him do so). We went to dinner and then just walked around the mall and talked, then grabbed a movie from a Redbox and headed back to my place to watch it. He didn't leave until about 1am. I think we spent about 7 hours together that night and I had so much fun and could not believe how easy he was to talk to, even in person. (It is always pretty easy to talk to someone online.)

The rest is pretty much history :-). That was just over 8 months ago and we are still going strong with no plans in stopping. I have never felt such a connection with somebody before. I've never been able to talk so openly (about anything and everything) with somebody before. I've never felt so loved and supported before. I don't know how I went 7 1/2 years in a marriage lacking all of that. I really don't know how I didn't totally lose it. But I've got it now and I know this is "it". I don't know how I got so lucky as to find it so quickly after moving out and finding "it" with the first guy I dated....but I'm not complaining. I know there's no "settling" involved when it comes to him and our relationship. I could not ask for anything more from him. Our relationship is so different from the one I had with my ex that I can hardly even compare the two. I haven't ever been this happy in my life. I not only have two amazing kids here with me, but I have the man of my dreams too, as well as his amazing little boy.

I used to think I had somehow failed my kids by our marriage not working out. But now I know that you can't make things be what you want them to be and someday you will realize that it never could have been what you wanted or dreamed of anyway and sometimes you just have to move on. I also used to think that nobody would want someone with the baggage I had from my marriage, plus two kids and the inability to have anymore (I had a tubal ligation after Brooke). But I was wrong. And this time, being wrong was a good thing :-).