Despite being a happily married woman, I often struggle with the notion of having a spouse that “recognized my worth from the beginning” and didn’t hurt me or betray my trust on the road to becoming my lifetime partner. Why? Because that’s not my experience or my spouse, and my husband would say the exact same about me.
I am conflicted whenever I’m confronted by the notion of a pain free love story, because that story sounds nothing like my own. It leaves no room for my experience and positions the love I’ve come to know as lesser than. Never mind the ways that it has taught me grace and forgiveness. Never mind that it has presented a persistent and positive challenge for my ego and forced me to reconcile the ways I give in to my lesser self.
My husband hurt me and betrayed my trust before we were wedded and after we exchanged vows. Again, he could say that I did the same. However, that does not mean that we chose wrong or were faulty for remaining in our relationship. What it did mean was that we didn’t understand the gravity of our choices and made monumental decisions with the recklessness befitting our 20’s… but God.
The world says that we shouldn’t have to experience betrayal and pain and toxicity before finding our “happily every after.” The world encourages you to leave people when they cross you. The world says people don’t change. That a toxic relationship or unrequited love is not a reflection of you as much as it is a reflection of the person you chose. But can I be honest? Hint: I’m going to be. This world often aint much more than a mash up of social media quotes, self-seekers, and misinformed bias being paraded as God’s truth.
And as a first hand participant in a love story that had its share of nosedives, I know better than to believe that love and pain are mutually exclusive. I also know that the world’s standard for love will have me summoning the magical intervention of Disney princesses and fairy Godmothers instead of recognizing my trauma responses and how they play a hand in the partners I’ve chosen and/or how I show up in relationships.
To be clear, this is not written in attempt to victim blame or relieve abusive partners of accountability. However, this is a call to self-reflect on whether your default setting has you predisposed to foolishness. It seems wholly unrealistic to enter a union expecting wellness when your habits, mental space and capacity for engaging in the key components of a relationship stem from a broken and unhealed place. Ask me how I know.
I entered my relationship with soul ties to former lovers and a tattered womb. Though, I spent plenty of time in the mirror, I had yet to really see myself and was convinced that I was beyond fault or correction. It was absolutely foolish to think that I could deprogram what the world had taught me about love simply by exchanging vows. It was just as foolish to think that I could show up to my relationship unwell and still reap a harvest that is whole and plentiful. Toxicity begets toxicity. I can’t practice toxic patterns leading up to my marriage and expect a sudden outpouring of the blessings set aside for those who move in alignment with God.
Beyonce had me out here thinking “there’s nothing not to love about me,” as if the second half of Lemonade was anything but an ode to the power of redemption and dying to yourself in the name of a love that endures. There’s power in being unapologetic and recognizing your worth. There’s also power in knowing when you need to reconcile a lesser version of yourself before exploring a romantic relationship. How could I expect a love that conquers all without understanding what that love would require of me? Why would I expect something extraordinary despite presenting a lack luster version of myself?
I believe my husband is the man that God intended for me. I also believe that we entered our union as less than the people God had called us to be. As a result, we had to endure the hardships that come with operating outside of alignment. Being on the other side of those experiences has helped me understand that it’s ok to experience pain within your relationship… permitted that pain grooms you and grows you. The pain can’t be the end of the story, though it can very much feel like it when you’re in the middle of resolving it.
So, while I don’t know a love that didn’t summon an oceans worth of tears - I know a love that endured some hits while I matured into the person I had to become in order to maintain it. I know a love that helped me see my faults by mirroring them back to me. I know a love that triggered my trauma and held me in its arms as I went about the work of healing it.
I fear the ramifications of someone reading this and being encouraged to stay in something that doesn’t summon their higher self. But I also serve a God that can use any situation and do anything but fail. My love story is a testament to that. I had to earn every inch of the relationship that we have now. It took endless work, and it required an uncomfortable amount of shape shifting. That’s not easily explained by simply saying that I chose the wrong man. Accountability requires me to recognize that I showed up as the wrong woman, and God decided to honor our covenant in spite of our missteps by helping to shape shift us both.
I understand wanting to champion the best love story. Lord knows I spent more than enough time feeling slighted by the one I have, but the reality is that I had to find value in championing my best self, first. A love story worth the weight of my wellness could only be a byproduct of that.
Leave a comment below if any of this rings true (or contrary) for you, and subscribe to my newsletter if you’re interested in working through a few reflective pages intended to heighten your self-awareness.