Falling In Love After Divorce

Be warned reader; this could be a very short article.

What does it feel like to fall in love after divorce?

It feels flipping WONDERFUL thank you very much.

In truth; there’s not an adjective or a superlative sufficient to describe how it feels. Friends, long married, some happily, others not so; have asked if it feels like that first teenage love all over again. I don’t think it does. We (the divorced) are of course battered and bruised at best. Scarred and scared at worst. There’s none of the naive innocence of that first teenaged/early twenties love affair. We approach this in the full knowledge that things can, and may go wrong. We’ve been sure once before, you see? Not so cocky now.

I guess it depends largely on the marriage you’ve left behind, and the reasons that it ended. In my case the relationship had been dead for many years. I had not wanted to admit that to myself, nor to my ex-husband. And I certainly didn’t want to admit it to friends, family or Facebook. I look back just over two years on with a smidgen of shame… I had fallen very much into the trap of living a life which was a facade. A life that others likely looked at and though “She’s so lucky”. Nice big house, two new cars on the drive, holidays-a-plenty. I worked part-time and had loads of free time with my three little boys. I was #blessed.

I was also bored rigid, lonely and had nothing in common with the man I lived with. I was staring down the barrel of another 40 or 50 years of this life, and as I approached my 40th birthday, I started to experience what I can only describe as a rising sense of panic. The water was up to my chin and I had no choice left but to pull the plug.

So that’s what I did. I blew up my life and the lives of those around me. Including the lives of my precious children. The guilt that followed would nearly drown me all over again.

But since I’m still here, writing this piece, you can safely assume that it didn’t. Sink or swim. And we swam, me and my boys. A really pathetic doggy paddle at first admittedly.

The divorce was just about as acrimonious as any could ever be, and left me shellshocked. It would’ve been very easy to choose never to trust anyone again.

I knew though, that however I lived my life from now on; I had to be able to look back and say it was worth it. All the stress, all the tears, all the upheaval. It had to be for a life which felt both peaceful and joyful; whether that was on my own, or with someone else. Well let me tell you; the experience of falling in love again after all these years has made every bit of pain it took to get here worthwhile.

Let me try and tell you how it feels.

It feels like a gift. The best surprise present I’ve ever been given. A big box with my name on it, wrapped in the sexiest paper with just layers and layers of tissue before I get to the gift itself. Like a pair of shoes so goddam beautiful I could never have pictured them in my head. I didn’t even know I wanted those shoes, in fact that I needed those shoes, until they turned up on my doorstep unasked for, in all their glory.

It feels like a reawakening. Hell, let’s throw caution to the wind here and at the risk of sounding like a new-age hippie; it feels like a rebirth. And in saying that, I don’t want to again be conning people and creating a facade. This new relationship has not been easy; we started under difficult circumstances and it has involved it’s fair share of pain. But my god I’ve never felt so alive in all of my days. To wake up every morning and feel, really feel something, after years of nothingness and numbness, does feel like a rebirth.

Having done anything in my power to avoid intimacy for many years, this new wild and free me is a whole different person. Like something has been unlocked. Pandora’s box has been opened and I don’t ever want to shut it again thank you very much. You may read into that what you will.

It feels like an opportunity. It’s so easy, in the thick of a divorce/separation to lose hope about how your life could turn out. I was definitely in that place a few times, although I had the most amazing friends and family who never let me be pessimistic for long. Ultimately we have to be able to be happy in ourselves, and take responsibility for our own future of course; but falling in love does feel like a big shiny door opening. It’s the possibility of all the wonderful experiences, days and years that might be ahead. And once the universe (there I go with my hippy dippy stuff again) has presented that opportunity to you, you want to grab it with both hands. It’s an opportunity, at the grand old age of 42 in my case, to create the type of life you really want to inhabit. Not one that just looks great from the outside.

It feels like a risk. Yep; it really does.

So much is at stake here. Not just my heart, which I was reticent to offer up. But my kids hearts too; the most precious hearts which have endured quite enough already.

It feels like a risk because I’ve already failed once haven’t I? That’s the guilt talking again of course. I could flip that on it’s head and say I’ve already succeeded once. I made a decision, and I saw it through, whilst so many choose to bury their heads in the sand and stay in relationship years past their use-by-date.

Anyone who has been divorced before will know how it feels to have all eyes on you, casting judgement, bestowing you with pity, offering advice. Even though lots of this comes from a place of love, it can feel heavy. It’s a hell of a risk to lift your head above the parapet again and start over. To risk this whole new existence you’ve built. What if it doesn’t last? What if you end up hurt, skint and back at square one?

Although it’s impossible to disregard those thoughts; I tried my absolute best, and still do, to acknowledge them and then move on. A life lived in fear after all, is a life half-lived. And I’ve been there, done that, got the Tshirt.

It feels like a forgiveness. As I’ve mentioned, guilt is an ever-present visitor for me. It creeps up on me at 4am in the morning out of nowhere. It taps me on the shoulder when I see my 13 year old packing his overnight bag to go to his dads house. It rolls its eyes at me like a judgemental mother in law when we bump into the kid friends, with their still-together parents.

But being in love is a balm to all of that. It helps me to a certain extent, to tell the guilt to get lost. Because I can’t be that bad a person can I? If I’m allowed to experience love like this? And seeing my partner with my kids, loving them, caring for them, wanting to really know them; watching that growing bond between them allows me to forgive myself, finally.

To tell myself that yes; I did deserve to be happy. I do, we do.

// Sarah Lawton