Second marriages often end in divorce.
Cohabitation before marriage ends in divorce.
Intimacy before marriage ends in divorce.
Marrying someone who doesn't share your religion ends in divorce.
Here's some personal statistics:
Number of months the Marine and I lived together before marriage: zero
Number of times we had sex of any kind before marriage: zero
Number of times we'd been married before: zero
Disagreements religiously before marriage: zero
Marital success rate: zero
Forgive me if I seem unconcerned about doing things a little differently this time around.
Another concern often voiced is that I haven't given myself enough time to "grieve" for the end of my marriage. I have two things to address in that regard:
First, I was grieving for my marriage while I was still in it. Anyone who has been married or is married to a military man who goes on deployments knows that each time he comes back, he's not the same as he used to be. Maybe he eventually gets back to normal or maybe, like my ex, he leaves pieces of himself behind in a place where he experienced what most of us will not - the brutality of war. I grieved for a husband who was still alive, but who didn't quite make it home.
Second, the grieving process is not a "one and done" process. A year later, I still weep that my kids have to experience growing up in a broken home. I cry real tears for it. We could have made it, if only one hundred things had been different. As an aside, I will say this for my ex and I: so far, we've done a pretty good job of keeping the kids out of it. They won't hear any trash talk about all his "stuff" from me, and he backs me up when it comes to doing what I think is best for them. Some days that's hard to do (especially this month) but it's a part of the process.
All that to say this: I am aiming to make the second marriage success rate jump a few points up. Who goes into a relationship thinking, "This will be great until the divorce"? Ridiculous.
I'm not a virginal child anymore, and both of my eyes are wide open. I have 12 years experience in what not to do. Thank you for the statistics, but don't worry about Mush and me. There's whole lot of love and whole lot of prayer going into our relationship.
We got this.
