Tamara Y. (Williams) Conaway

Did it really take me three years to write about my new man?

Short answer: yes. The love was there, but the nerves took a while to settle. This is a post about triumph and trauma, hope and fear, love and distrust all wrapped up in a pretty package.

Step One: Get Myself Together

I started with self-love. I had been married before to someone who was not self-aware, had no self-love, and had not done the work to heal from his past. I became his vice—the vice he used to get revenge on every other woman who let him down, broke his heart, wounded his soul. I was not a person to him; I was a means to an end. Meanwhile, my life story was being written in the continuous tense. I was happening. My life was my story to be told, but it was being lived in the shadows of suffering for things I had not done. I was being punished for crimes I did not commit. It broke me in ways I do not have time to explain. The only analogy I can think to compare this experience to is someone being locked in a prison for a crime they did not commit.

I spent years trying to prove to my previous husband that I was the good guy. I was not going to let him down or hurt him, but despite my attempts at being the best wife I could be, he was hell-bent on punishing me for crimes I did not commit. One day I let go. I let go of trying to prove myself. I let go of the need for him to love me. I let go of the need to be loved by him. I started to focus on myself. I took a yoga class to heal my breath and connection to my body. I began to change my diet. I listened to several series about starting over, and I prayed. I prayed a lot. I prayed long and hard for the strength to leave and start afresh.

My family did not do divorce. Most of the women took husbands for better or for WORSE. I refused to stay in a loveless, unfaithful, abusive marriage, so I prepared with my children to get free from the chaos of emotional abuse. But even more importantly, I realized that he was in prison too—a broken-hearted prison of having the thing you need most but being unable to embrace it. Having a good woman, but being so broken you cannot embrace the good thing. As I healed, I began to feel compassion and sorrow for his state of being.

My life healed. I began baking fresh blueberry muffins again. I took a clay pottery class. I started to laugh and dance again. I even discovered a love for gardening and plant care. I became the version of myself that my seven-year-old self would be so proud of. I loved being me. I was content with my hair, skin, self—good, bad, all of it—even the broken pieces I still had in my pockets. I did therapy to make sure I took the time to restructure my understanding in a healthy light and settle the matter of broken houses, single parents, the shame of divorce, and the odds and ends of accepting that I had to break my home to save my home. I did it, and I did it well. It took a long time, but I rebuilt my life. I was broken, my children were broken, but we were free and we were happy.

It was not easy. We had a good life. My ex-husband was an excellent provider. I did not have to work. All my money went to whatever I wanted, but the price was too high for me. It was the price of looking away. I had to pretend I did not know my husband cheated to have the comfort. I was not her. I could not look the other way. I refused intimacy, and for at least three years before our divorce, I had no need to take a test for disease. Yes, that’s right. I had to test regularly because my husband was constantly unfaithful. I cried every time I found out about an affair. Each time he swore it would not happen again. I left him many times. He specialized in begging me to take him back. He would fall out, cry, beg, and swear it would never happen again.

It happened again and again. It happened so much that I became numb. Numb to him. Numb to my kids. Numb to life and laughter, and joy, and truth, and me. I existed off the perceived happiness that onlookers thought I had. They were jealous of nothing. There was nothing to see except deception so strong it silenced my voice.

When I met Mr. Right, he was everything I thought I wanted. He was sweet, respectful, and kind. He saw me and wanted me with all my broken pieces. I wanted him with his broken pieces too. We would heal together—no skeletons and no abusing each other in a pursuit to heal from the ones who came before us. We were committed to the process of becoming whole again. We argued, we listened, we made a lot of assumptions based on previous experiences, and we learned each other. Now, after three years, I can say he is the one—the one whom my soul loves, even with all those broken pieces.