Love is Wanting the Very Best For the One You Love Even If They Are Not With You

Divorce is an ugly thing where some sad things are said and sadder things are done. For those of you going down the path that is called divorce proceedings I can share with you some of the things I learned from my divorce and how I came up with my definition of love that is the title of this article.

It was one of those nights, the choice was to forgive my wife and speak of my being upset with something she did and make love to her, or to get angry with her and dress her down and go without the sex. I chose to get angry that night and I got worse then I expected, not only did I go without sex that night I was given my marching orders. My wife was sick of my temper and my hangups and told me that I was to move out of the apartment or she would. I was struck to the heart with grief and sheepishly asked if I could still sleep in our double bed that night and promised I would be going the next day, and she agreed. In the summer my wife had a freedom to sleep naked and I had to laugh to myself that even on that night, half an hour after the marching orders she was naked next to me totally trusting me to sleep next to her and not touch her.

I know in sharing this state of dress of my wife you might think I have been too honest in my writing and not appropriate but even fourteen years later, it still strikes me that even though she wanted me gone she still was comfortable enough with me to sleep naked next to me. Most men would be sleeping in another room that night, on the couch but here I was next to my perfect figured wife as she slept in peace, trying to come to grips with finally losing her.

We had separated twice before that night, so it was of no surprise to me to be told to go again, and like a drunkard I was thinking there was still hope in the future, but somewhere in side of me I was thinking it was really like the cliche, three strikes and you are out.

My wife was pretty to me. She had a slim figure, perfect olive skin that was always tanned and dark brown eyes. She had one quality of personality that I admired, she had real spirit, she was a real fighter that once she set her mind on something she wouldn't give up. One day three and a half years before she had set her sights on having me as her new love and now here I was sleeping my last night with her.

Well two weeks later I was speaking to her best friend on the phone and saying how much I love her and her friend revealed to me that she had a boyfriend and he was on the scene before I had broken up with her. That broke my heart and dashed my hopes of coming back to her. I persisted with her friend and told her how much I wanted my wife back. She informed me as my wife's friend she was bound to keep secrets from me but now that I was gone she was no longer bound. She told me that my wife had been with five other men while she was my wife.

I was heartbroken.

I never knew that and never expected it to be true.

Her friend said that I simply didn't have what Sharryn felt that she needed. My wife was looking for someone better then me. And now she had someone that was committing to be with her, a single mom and I should just try to get over her and make my own way in life.

Once again that was something that rings with me fourteen years later. What a friend Sharryn's best friend was to me that day. Breaking her confidence with my wife with me and telling me the truth that I didn't have what was making Sharryn happy and she was searching for another man that would be good enough to make her happy. I loved Christine for that. One time I wrote a novel and I named one of the nice characters and heroes after her.

It's a hard reality to come to grips with. You simply are not good enough to make your partner happy anymore. Sure you can change, you can get better, you can go to counselling and fix your baggage and pain that you brought into your marriage, but you might have to accept right now that it might all be too late to ever get your partner back.

It's hard to write this to you. It's kind of really blunt. But you who were once good enough have done either too much damage to your partner, or she has grown away from you.

There are many reasons marriages breakdown. I can't give them all here.

I was a loser when I was married. Sure I did my best, but I wasn't a very together guy, I was addicted to sex, I was addicted to my wife and I needed her to find a reason to love myself. I was half a man.

Right now, I have done a lot of work on myself and faced some of those demons and done a lot of crying in counseling, and I have a number of wonderful Christian women that love and respect me. I have taken a vow to God that I will never re-marry, I am happy single and very fulfilled in the relationships that I have with these single women that love and respect me, I have got lust under control and fortunately for me one of my medications for my Bipolar Disorder has an effect on my sex drive and so I am blessed not to be harassed by hormones.

It's hard to let someone go.

I got my wife back twice but I am sure she did it out of fear or me and the fact that I could not give up on her. But when she had her new boyfriend, she had protection in that now she had no room for me to come back to as she already had another in her life now.

I think that is what she was looking for in those other five guys. But those guys were happy to have sex with a married women but didn't have the love for her to commit to be her new boyfriend so she could make the jump from wife to ex wife.

You see I don't think my wife could cope leaving me being single when she left. She needed the strength of another man to come home to and the protection another man would bring her.

I respected this man that was the new boyfriend of my wife. I didn't like to think of him sleeping with her on weekends when she went to his house, but I respected that he took an interest in my son as well as my wife. I thought the best way to make the transition from full time father to part time father was to get to know the other father to my boy.

We started to meet up and play tennis together. My son was the ball boy and ran all around the court picking up our balls happy that his two daddies were such good friends. I was upset the first day we were both together with him alone and he said "hey daddy/" and I went to answer him and realised that he was looking at Brian. I asked him what he called me now. He said. "Oh, I call you Matthew daddy and I call him daddy." It broke my heart that day. I wasn't even daddy anymore. But guys that's one of the things you have to get used to if your wife or husband has another partner that is committed to them. Your children will come to love and respect the new partner.

I loved Brian. He was a locksmith. He showed me how he could pick any lock and break into my apartment. He showed my he could touch his nose with his tongue. He showed me many good qualities that I didn't have and he was wonderful with my boy. He really loved my boy as his own son. I loved that about Brian. He was so good to Sharryn.

One day he turned up with a hand in a cast. I asked him how he did it and when we alone he asked me. "Does she ever make you so angry you want to punch her?"

I said yes. I told him I had put holes in doors with my anger. Well Brian, much I pitied him had broken his fist.

I don't think he ever hit her.

And guys I have to admit one day I punched my wife in the leg. She punched me straight back. One day I slapped her across the face after she had said something so insulting to me. I still regret that and that makes me a women hitter. The guilt that assails a man about that. A weak man hits a women. You see women hit a man across the face in movies, but you don't often see the man do it, and if you do he is the villain.

Well sadly for Brian he wasn't good enough and he was replaced in time by another man. My wife after about three years with that man married him some eight years ago. A month after she married him she told me I couldn't see my son again. I told her I would see her in court, but God told me to walk away, leave her and her new husband in peace and not to fight to see my son in court.I haven't seen my sixteen year old son since he was eight.

Have I painted Sharryn as a bad woman?

She was just doing what her mother had done before her. She had two unsuccessful marriages and denied the father of her children access by moving 650 miles away from him and disappearing. Sharryn got all her advice from her mother who had known best.

I adore my former wife. I pray that her husband has been very good for her. I hope that he doesn't get angry with Sharryn and she finds no need to provoke him to anger. I asked Jesus to make sure my Son becomes a born again Christian one day and have suffered like most dads that don't see there children for eight years.

I am hoping this year after he turns 17 on the 17th of May to find them and write him a letter and asking him to read some of my articles online to learn more about me. I hope he can forgive me for respecting his mothers wishes for me not to be part of his life for all this time.

The new guy that she married was an apprentice carpenter when I met him. Sharryn never let the two of us talk without her being in the room. I never got to know him in any way as I never said more then hi and bye.

I pray that he is all that she was looking for. She certainly spent a good three years checking him out before she married him. With me it was only six months.

Can you wish your partner the best with their next partner?

I hope you can

May you find forgiveness in your heart in time for the person that was and maybe still is the love of your life.

With Peace,

Matthew Payne

If you have enjoyed my article you can read the book "The parables of Jesus made simple" for free here in its entirety or just selected parables in chapters at http://www.parables-of-jesus-christ.net/ The book will be published in book form in January 2011