Tracey Alley's Blog - Posts Tagged "learning-from-mistakes"
There's a reason 1 in 2 marriages fail.
I'm onto my second marriage. That's not a situation I ever thought I would be in when I was younger and much more naive. I honestly believed, as a teenager, that if you were 'in love' that was all that mattered and that, like Cinderella, you'd live happily ever after. I found to my great shame and enormous hurt that it doesn't quite work that way.
I was fairly young when I first married, only 19 and my husband was only 18 but we were convinced we were in love. We'd only been dating for about 5 months and were crazy about each other. The fact was though that we didn't really know each other. We were both caught up in a whirlwind of lust, charm and the idea of being in love. I didn't really know him as a person any more than he knew me but we did get to know each other - oh boy did we get to know each other.
There's something about living in the same house and the mundane routine of life that breaks through the rose coloured glasses of puppy love. When you have to clean the house and pick up his dirty socks somehow his kisses don't tingle quite so much any more. Especially when you find that you don't really have all that much to say to each other.
I'll never deny that my first husband and I were deeply in lust with each other. I thought he was the best looking guy I'd ever seen and we had a lot of sexual chemistry. Now that I'm a little bit older I've realised that sexual chemistry is pretty easy to manufacture but it doesn't equate to real love.
To be completely honest though if I had the chance to do it all over again I probably would. I learned more lessons about relationships from that bad experience than from all the good experiences I'd had then or since combined. The number one lesson I learned, which I wish I could've learned another way, was that for a marriage to really work you have to first of all be best friends.
My current husband, Robbie, and I haven't been married all that long so I can't point to us as a shining example yet but I know in my heart it's a forever thing just because of how close we are as friends. I'd never want to lose his friendship, any more than he would want to lose mine.
We have a connection that's based on similar interests, mutual respect and yes, there's a lot of lust, charm and sexual chemistry too and I think he's the best looking guy I've ever seen :)
Primarily though, we've been through a lot of testing times in our marriage as well as the mundane of day to day living yet I still long for him to come home at night. I look forward to telling him about my day and hearing about his and just spending time in his presence.
Sometimes I feel guilty when I have to work nights on my writing but Robbie always reassures me that just having me in the same house is enough for him. I don't mind doing his laundry and picking up his dirty socks because his kisses do still tingle and because he's my mate.
It may have taken me 30 years of living but at least I did finally learn that the old adage is true. Marry your best friend and you'll be married for life. Relationships are hard and you'll always have to work at them but when you have that real friend connection you'll find that it generally comes pretty easily.
I'm not trying to sound preachy. I just wanted to share my experiences with love and happily ever after.
Cheers from a 41 year old Cinderella,
Trace :)
I was fairly young when I first married, only 19 and my husband was only 18 but we were convinced we were in love. We'd only been dating for about 5 months and were crazy about each other. The fact was though that we didn't really know each other. We were both caught up in a whirlwind of lust, charm and the idea of being in love. I didn't really know him as a person any more than he knew me but we did get to know each other - oh boy did we get to know each other.
There's something about living in the same house and the mundane routine of life that breaks through the rose coloured glasses of puppy love. When you have to clean the house and pick up his dirty socks somehow his kisses don't tingle quite so much any more. Especially when you find that you don't really have all that much to say to each other.
I'll never deny that my first husband and I were deeply in lust with each other. I thought he was the best looking guy I'd ever seen and we had a lot of sexual chemistry. Now that I'm a little bit older I've realised that sexual chemistry is pretty easy to manufacture but it doesn't equate to real love.
To be completely honest though if I had the chance to do it all over again I probably would. I learned more lessons about relationships from that bad experience than from all the good experiences I'd had then or since combined. The number one lesson I learned, which I wish I could've learned another way, was that for a marriage to really work you have to first of all be best friends.
My current husband, Robbie, and I haven't been married all that long so I can't point to us as a shining example yet but I know in my heart it's a forever thing just because of how close we are as friends. I'd never want to lose his friendship, any more than he would want to lose mine.
We have a connection that's based on similar interests, mutual respect and yes, there's a lot of lust, charm and sexual chemistry too and I think he's the best looking guy I've ever seen :)
Primarily though, we've been through a lot of testing times in our marriage as well as the mundane of day to day living yet I still long for him to come home at night. I look forward to telling him about my day and hearing about his and just spending time in his presence.
Sometimes I feel guilty when I have to work nights on my writing but Robbie always reassures me that just having me in the same house is enough for him. I don't mind doing his laundry and picking up his dirty socks because his kisses do still tingle and because he's my mate.
It may have taken me 30 years of living but at least I did finally learn that the old adage is true. Marry your best friend and you'll be married for life. Relationships are hard and you'll always have to work at them but when you have that real friend connection you'll find that it generally comes pretty easily.
I'm not trying to sound preachy. I just wanted to share my experiences with love and happily ever after.
Cheers from a 41 year old Cinderella,
Trace :)
