Why it Took Me to Lose the Love of My Life to Discover Love

My life has always been driven by love. Since I was a little girl, I have fantasized about falling in love and what it would be like to experience such a spark with someone.

I have loved many people in my 33 years of life. Some romances exited as quickly as they entered, but many seasons of love lasted years for me. When I was younger, my desire to connect with men was an underlying coping mechanism for never loving myself. I had a hard childhood with many people disapproving of me for countless reasons. Rejection was embedded upon my soul. Fear and attachment became the outcome of that critical embroidery.

Lesson after lesson entered my life. Only I didn’t see them as lessons. I eventually saw them as validations to complete the notion that I was “unlovable.” Years of my life were wasted trying to force people to stay in love with me. I fantasized about marrying each one of them until I realized it just wouldn’t work out.

I not only had codependency on men, but on alcohol, self-harm, and eating disorders as well. When I finally tried to submerge those toxic habits deep within me and turn a new page in my life, I meant my ex-husband. I was 26 years old. He was such a breath of fresh air compared to the men I had seen walking around the bar scene. Not to mention I had just broken off a fling with a man who struggled with heroin addiction. He was stable, sweet, kind, and took amazing care of himself. He was the one I had been waiting for.

Sparks flew as they often do at the beginning of a new relationship. For the first time, I finally felt secure with someone and knew I could trust him not to break my heart. Two years into our relationship he purposed to me on a beach in Mexico. It was everything I had ever dreamed of. A year later I was walking down a beautiful deck draped in white silks while soft violin music playing the melody from, “Beauty and the Beast,” waltzed me to meet his hands. The walk to him felt like an eternity. Almost as if I was floating. Tears flooded my eyes as I couldn’t believe I was getting married. I’ll never forget how much fun we had that day and how we both cried tears of joy on the way home saying, “We did it! We’re married!!!” It was a beautiful memory, but little to my knowledge, that was all it was ever going to be. A memory.

To the naked eye, we looked happy. One might even say “Picture perfect.” We had a house, two nice vehicles, a dog, and the glorious foundation to begin building a family on. Life happened. My old habits from my past reemerged when things began to go downhill between my ex and me. There are many times we almost didn’t get married because we butt heads on how we each prioritized our spare time and how I handled stress or feelings of loneliness with alcohol or going to the bar. We got married anyway, and on the honeymoon, while it was beautiful and we did a lot of amazing things together, I think we both realized my drinking had been driving a wedge between us for a long time now. There were many arguments and frustrations on our 9 days in St. Lucia together, not to mention a total lack of intimacy. When we got home, things just felt, different, and space began to take place.

It wasn’t until we were married for 8 months that I decided I needed to become sober if I was going to make our relationship work. I quit cold turkey and within the next few months, I got pregnant with my daughter, Pennie. By then, while we were both so excited to be parents the damage between us had already been done. The fire was just embers that were barely able to stay ablaze. My pregnancy felt lonely, and I often watched TV and surfed Amazon for new baby items. We had some good memories, like painting the nursery or reading a natural birthing book together, but something felt off throughout my pregnancy. There was still a loneliness there that constantly hovered over me like a dark cloud.

After I had Pennie, I was no longer a wife but a mommy too. My days were filled with tending to my newborn, trying to get sleep while figuring out what the hell I was doing, and desperately trying to squeeze in the time to make me feel like ME again. I lost the baby weight fairly quickly and between fighting Mastitis after not being able to breastfeed, trying to tighten everything up again by working out a ton, and doing my best to keep this little human alive and well, I felt lost.

My life revolved around dirty diapers, zero sleep, spitting up, and constantly reading in mom groups about what I was doing “wrong” online. I felt like I was drowning and that my identity of me, Amanda, had disappeared.

My marriage lacked passion, excitement, and desire. I began to feel completely overlooked and alone. I couldn’t blame him for all the years of hell I had put him through with my drinking. He put up with a lot, but I was sober for almost two years at this point, and it was as if we became strangers who were just trying to raise this baby under the same roof. Aside from the lack of connection, outsiders would look in and see that I “had it all!”

I had a cute family, financial stability, and complete trust to know that I could come home every night to a husband who wasn’t out screwing around on me. I had a beautiful daughter who lit up my life and ignited a love in me I never imagined. I had comfort and security which was something I had always lacked in life. Yet, something major felt like it was always missing.

When I’d put my daughter to sleep, I’d take a shower or bath and look at my body. I stand in disbelief at what it’s gotten me through. Not just growing and birthing a human, but surviving things like alcohol poisoning and continued abuse I inflicted on myself in years prior. Through healing, I found my love for fitness and channeled all my pain into weightlifting and running. My body had been through the wringer, but I had acquired strength, muscle, and overall health. Something I never thought I’d be able to do given my track record for shot gunning beers and eating too much fast food.

I’d run my hands over my skin and feel this NEED to be desired and appreciated. I wanted someone to know my life and see the “ugly” parts of me that had turned into my most beautiful parts. I wanted someone to see me as more than just a mom or a wife. I wanted to be seen for me and have that be enough for someone to want me and love me. I wanted to be touched as if my body was a temple that had hands to worship it. I wanted to feel something entrancing. I wanted my soul to feel free and intoxicated but not due to something like drugs and/or alcohol.

Then I met him. Initially, a burst of intrigue and excitement ignited in knowing he was a seasoned parent. He had first reached out to help give this struggling momma some advice on a road trip I had taken my newborn on. My husband had decided not to go somewhat last minute, and I was an anxious mess on this two-week trip with a 5-week-old baby who constantly cried. My nerves were shot, and I felt like I was going to have a mental breakdown. He had a family of his own, so it brought me comfort to get some advice from a father who had already gone through this struggle twice before. It was nice to be noticed and comforted. However, after that encounter, months went by without talking again. I couldn’t help myself but randomly think of him though. Something about him felt magnetic.

During that first encounter, we didn’t realize our marriages weren’t the strongest or happiest. After months passed, we began talking regularly and filled each other in on our fears, worries, and problems in our relationships. I ended up filing for a divorce when my daughter was 7 months old, and his wife served him with divorce papers around the same time. We had confided in each other before the divorces were filed for a few months and over time long conversations led us to open up about our hopes and dreams for our independent futures. When the divorces were filed, we finally hung out in person.

Guilt has followed me for years and I have asked God to forgive me more times than I can count for selfishly pursuing another man while I still had a wedding band on. I have always held my faith close, and I knew that God was not supporting the way I went about this new relationship so fast or how much we chatted before divorces were filed. It was almost as if that piece of me that had been missing in my marriage was reborn the moment I met “him.”

Upon meeting up in person, his eyes burned through my skin, devouring every inch of me, and for the first time in what felt like forever I felt treasured, but more importantly, I felt alive. I experienced desire on a level I never knew existed before. It was in the first time our souls connected I left the comfort of my stable situation to pursue an unknown one with him. I fell for him fast and was always convinced that he completed me in a way no one had before.

Passion filled my days and nights. Excitement, mystery, love, thrill, spontaneity, and ecstasy all encompassed my life for a solid couple of years. We blended our children and created a family where my growing daughter gained two older siblings and we made our own picture-perfect life together. We traveled, we explored, and we loved deeply. It wasn’t always comfortable or ideal at times, but I think I secretly liked that about it. Our kids all fell in love and the memories we made together were something for the books.

I gave up stability, I gave up seeing my daughter every day, and I gave up safety to pursue a life of love, risk, and adventure, but it came at a major price. I sit here writing this only to find myself struggling to get around in one vehicle with a person who barely looks at me anymore, living paycheck to paycheck, and spending every other weekend wondering what my daughter is doing with her dad.

At the time it all felt worth it just to feel that sense of aliveness he gave me until it all blew up in my face. As life stresses occurred, he no longer found the comfort he used to feel when talking to me about his problems. Space got wider and wider and eventually; we became coexistent people living under the same roof just like what happened in my marriage. This pain feels deeper. This pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt during a breakup before. This time around I am completely alone. My dog is no longer alive, and I no longer have my daughter to hug up on when I need extra loving.

That thrill left me feeling more alone than I ever have felt in my life. It left me drowning in things like heartbreak, pain, guilt, shame, and regret. I wanted it ALL. The stability and comfort with someone but also whose hands constantly devoured to touch my heart, body, and soul. What I didn’t realize was that the only way we can “have it all” is to receive it from ourselves first.

While sitting day after day in this tear-filled state reflecting upon my life asking God, “Why do men never stay devoted or in love with me?” I was handed an epiphany. My relationships never work out because I’ve always abandoned myself first, so everyone I try to share my life with does the same thing (either emotionally or physically). I have never felt a soul commitment to my heart that lasts forever, because I have always been looking for someone else to complete that commitment for me.

It occurred to me…

That exhilaration I seek from someone else can come from me stepping outside of my comfort zone to pursue a new dream. That unconditional love I desire to feel from a man can be felt through me accepting and choosing myself regardless of the mistakes I’ve made in the past. Stability would come to me if I just focused on my goals instead of trying to merge them with someone else’s. That fiery passion can be felt by me taking care of my body and appreciating it without anyone else’s approval of it. And the comfort will come when all these things are my priority and not something I constantly try and place in someone else’s hands.

I’m 33 years old and I see that sparkle of wonder in my daughter’s eyes when we watched a Disney movie that ends in “happily ever after,” but what I hope to teach her is that she is the key to her own happily ever after. I don’t want her heart broken as many times as mine has needed to be for her to realize she can “have it all” with herself. Hopefully, due to my failures, I can help more people realize this about themselves and the lives they live. And if one day someone comes along to enhance all the things you can provide yourself with, you can be eternally grateful that for the first time in your life, a man/woman didn’t need to complete you. You can also be certain they weren’t sent to you just to teach you another lesson. No, this time, they came into your life to spend forever with you feeling just as lucky to have you as you are to have them.