I Believed in Love and Got a Second Chance
Even after divorce, I couldn’t give up on love
I leaned against the kitchen bench, typed and then deleted a message into my phone, struggling to find the right wording. Lately, I’d found myself thinking up reasons to get in touch with Ben and now felt as good a time as any. He’d been a friend for a few years, but in the 5 months since my divorce, I hadn’t seen him. I’d gone off the radar with most of my old friends. People seemed judgemental of divorce in my small town, and I didn’t know where he stood with that.
I hung out with new friends—people I’d met after divorce, who’d never known me as someone’s wife. Who didn’t think of me as a broken half of a couple. People who didn’t interrogate about what went wrong or look at me with sad eyes.
But I was slowly healing and I missed my friend. So I sent him a text.
I suspected finding love in my 40s would be very different than in my 20s. The world was different. The way people dated had changed (Tinder seemed far too scary). And I certainly wasn’t the same person. Like many other divorcees, my expectations of love and relationships had been forever altered.
I scrolled Facebook, joining several divorcee groups hoping to find solace and guidance. There was some of that, but mostly I found dozens…
