Don’t Blame Yourself for Being a Fool in Love with the Wrong person
Love, marriage, and divorce are all a part of what it means to be human.
My niece recently married her boyfriend of two years. She is beautiful, smart, funny, and has it all. This man adores her but is a bit odd, so naturally, I thought she should hold out for a better match.
My sister agreed that yes, perhaps there was someone better out there. But she pointed out, like me, you love who you love, and there’s nothing anyone can do.
“Look who you married,” she pointed out. “When you said you were going to marry Dan, I was horrified. Mom broke out in hives the night before your wedding. Would it have mattered if we’d said something?”
Point taken.
It was good for all of two years. Then the horror show began. He didn’t come home some nights, was short with me, and often angry.
The problem was, he didn’t have the courage to end it. I had to leave. I don’t know when he started seeing the woman who ended up becoming his second wife, but it was before I was out of the picture.
And still, if I’d had it to do over again, I probably would have married him.
So whom am I to judge?
Almost 50 percent of opposite-sex marriages in the United States end in divorce or separation. Of that 50, 41 percent end in divorce. Typically, the average marriage lasts seven years.
Corrected findings for a study conducted in 2011 on the divorce rate for same-sex-couples showed the same results.
That’s not surprising. Love is love, and chemistry is chemistry. And when it fizzles, it fizzles. We’re all just human, after all.
The United States wedding industry was estimated to be worth $53.4 billion in 2013. The national average cost of a wedding is $29,858, with the highest being $88K in Manhattan, New York, and $13K in Mississippi.
Even at their cheapest, I still say ouch! Think of what you could do for that money.
Included in the wedding budget is the honeymoon at an average cost of between $4,000–5,000. It is also a different industry: $12 billion annually.
Now consider that half of all marriages fail. Then it’s time to spend more of your hard-earned money. The shit hits the fan, and it’s time to call a lawyer.
Like the wedding, the cost is different in every state. In MA, the average divorce costs $15K per person. An uncontested divorce requires a minimum of $1K, with the average being $3,700.
And yet, people will do it all over again.
It reminds me of giving birth and saying “yes” to labor and delivery. Exactly what were we thinking? Or were we thinking?
These facts support my sister’s theory: you love who love, and you may even marry them.
We do it again and again, and there’s no end in sight.
It brings me great comfort to know that my six-year disastrous marriage was not a bizarre twist of circumstances, just another average statistic. I loved who I loved until we didn’t anymore. I’m only human, after all.
So we shouldn’t beat ourselves up.
Like the songs says, Love is a Many Splendid Thing. And “Love and Marriage go together like a horse and carriage.”
It’s a good thing, but half the time it ends often coming to a screeching halt. Then we’re off in search of it again.
We’re not fools. We’re just in love.
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