When we were together, we broke up three times. We simply couldn’t find a way to stay together. The first breakup was about a guy he thought I was dating. He asked me to stop seeing the guy. I asked him, “If I do, will you also stop talking to all your female friends?”.....CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE>>>>>
He said I wasn’t ready to keep a relationship if I wouldn’t let that guy go. We broke up briefly—for almost two weeks. I think I missed him. I was expecting him to call and tell me to come back. When he didn’t, I called and said, “Fine, I’m no longer friends with him. I’m doing this because I want us to work on our relationship.”
We got back together, only to break up again a few months later. This time, I left. I felt he didn’t care about me. He cared more about his friends, his dog, and everything else than he did about me. He even forgot my birthday because, according to him, birthdays weren’t that important. I ended the relationship amicably. I told him he didn’t like me that much, and I was hurting, so I would rather leave than stay and be ignored by him.
A month later, we were back together again. He was the one who initiated it, telling me he would do better. I told him, “Until I see that change in you, no sex.”
I was lying. I wanted it just as much as he did, so in no time, we were back to being intimate as if we had never broken up. I begged him to stay. He promised to be a better man for me. I believed him until the third breakup.
I told him explicitly that nothing would bring me back to him again. He said awful things. He even promised that even if I were the last woman on earth, he would rather die single. I blocked him. He deleted my number. Two months later, COVID hit, and we went into lockdown.
I heard through his friends that he had contracted the disease. I didn’t care. I met his sister after the lockdown. She was happy to see me. She recounted how ‘Opana’ nearly died because of the virus. She told me he was recuperating and doing better. I told her, “Tell him I’m praying for him. He’ll be better in no time.”
When life started returning to normal months after the lockdown, we met at a mutual friend’s wedding. He said hi through a face mask. I smiled behind mine. After the wedding, we talked. He pleaded with me to unblock his number. I did. He told me he had deleted my number from his phone, but his memory had kept it intact.
We started talking occasionally until my birthday, when he brought me a gift and apologized for everything he had ever done to hurt me. He told me, “I was angry when I made those statements, but on my sickbed, when I thought I was going to die, you were the only one I thought about. I’m not asking you to take me back. I’m only saying, open your eyes and see who I’ve become. You’ll love me again.”
This time, he didn’t push it, and I also didn’t rush in. I had matured. He acted clean and consistent. I evaluated his efforts without letting my emotions cloud my judgment. I wanted to be sure about him, but most importantly, I wanted to know if I was ready to love him again. Slowly, we let go of the inhibitions between us and said to ourselves, “Let’s try again and see how it goes. This one last time.”
This one last time brought us to where we are now—married with two children. Twins, actually. A boy and a girl.
We matured through breakups more than we did while together. It seems like every time we went our separate ways, something bad fell away from our character. We kept shedding those flaws until the last time, when we realized there was nothing left to drop.
I’m not saying it’s been perfect. I’m not saying we’ve done this without struggle. I’m also not saying we woke up every morning loving each other more than the day before. We’ve made it work this time because we knew what we stood to lose if it didn’t. What we stand to lose has kept us going until now. There’s love, there’s hope, there’s family. There’s a home to come to when all is said and done. We couldn’t ask for more than this.