How to choose love carefully...

I've been thinking very carefully about how to write this particular post.  First, because I don't want to seem disrespectful to my hubby in any way - but also, because I didn't want to write anything that may be construed negatively.  It's truly written with good intentions from my heart.  If it seems negative, read on.

It's no secret, in my blogging, that my hubby was not my first love.  For God's sake, we met in our 30's.  He knows it, I know it - all of you know it.  It is what it is. 

He is my last & greatest love for sure.

Even though I always say that I wish I'd met him sooner in my life, I honestly believe that I would have screwed it up if I met him too soon.  I wasn't ready for the kind of wonderful and caring partner he is to me.  I was crazy, reckless and totally unsettled.  I made bad choices for myself.

It is for this reason I write this now.  For those of you looking for love (in all the wrong places.)

As the now older me, I can look back & say WOW - what the hell was THAT all about??  Sometimes I look on with a smile, other times in horror.

I've blogged about Gary several times.  He was my first true love, God rest his soul.  We didn't split because he died - we split because my dad helped me to see what I didn't want in a relationship.  That just because you love someone with your whole heart doesn't mean you're a good match.

For a while, I had a really good head on my shoulders with regards to what I wanted and didn't want in a relationship.  I always love, love, loved everyone - but it was always different than REAL love for me.  Hard to explain.

Before & after Gary, I dated the same person.  I gravitated back to that person because of heartbreak & familiarity.  When he & I first dated, we broke up because I just wasn't feeling it.  Then I started dating Gary, went totally gaga in love & that was that.  After Gary & I broke up - I went backwards - because of the friendship circle.  The familiarity.  It was a bad mix.  I knew it, he knew it.  He was lazy.  He quit school, didn't work and smoked entirely too much pot!  I stayed because I got to do my thing without questions and I always got to be with my friends.  It was comfortable.  I was young, dumb & I stayed in that relationship entirely too long.

It wasn't until Gary died that I actually broke free of him for good.  The "life is short" thing really hit home for me.  He went his way, I went mine.  Haven't seen or heard from him since.  I can't say that I didn't ever "love" him, because I did - just not the way I should have considering I spent so many years together with him.  I never considered it wasted time, but I've always felt badly that I held him back from real love.  If I hadn't ended it - he would have been fine in his complacency.

When I met my second love - I wasn't looking.  It was a total whirlwind that hit me like a ton of bricks.  I won't go too much into that all that, again out of respect to my dear hubby & because I've written about this before.  In any case, this one caught me totally off guard & I ignored all the warning signs to not fall.  He said he was jealous - bad fit for me, because I'm a social butterfly total flirt bag.  He lived across the country, I didn't care.  He said he hated Florida, I wanted to move to Florida.  He said that he was superficial & that freaked me out across the board, but I chose to ignore that too.  Truth is, I had no control over it.  I listened to & processed all he said to me.  I knew that we had big differences, but the heart took over.  My brain was out of the loop.  I remained loyal to that love for a VERY long time, when I never needed to be, with the hopes that things would turn around.  That his feelings would turn around.  (Yep, I got the ol heave ho that time.)

My heart was truly shattered.  More than I want to remember or go public with on blog.  None of this is a negative on him.  He was never mean or bad or hurtful.  He was actually very sweet.  A good guy, really.  He was always very honest with me.  It just wasn't meant to be, and that's OK too.  To this day, I always say that I hope he's found someone who loves him as much as I did.

I went off the deep end after that & latched onto a really toxic relationship.  Really nothing was good - at all!  I was just messed up & didn't really care what happened.  I was in a bad place.  My fault, no one else's.  This time I got pregnant - got married & stayed in a really bad place for too long.  No elaborations here because it's not just my pain.  We'll just say - I got out & I got my "me" back.

Dating was never something that came easy for me.  I was asked out plenty, but I was always very particular.  Either I was immediately attracted to someone - or I wasn't.  If I did go out on a date with someone & I was turned off, that was it.  I didn't prolong the agony.  All of my relationships (with very few exceptions) were years long, not just days, weeks, months (except in high school & puppy love, of course).  When I really love someone, I stay put.  If I was in it, I was in it.

I continually gravitated to people who wouldn't hold me back in any way.  People who would let me go do my thing and not care where I was going or what I did, or who weren't around to complain about it.

I finally realized how messed up that was.  I took the time to step back & look at my life.  What I learned is that my two greatest mistakes life lessons were related to knock down, drag out heartbreak.  Death & loss that I couldn't handle.  That I didn't deal with properly.  I jumped into the whatever to put a band aid on the hurt.  I was broken.

I decided to take back control of my life.  To figure out exactly what I wanted/expected my life to look like & went back to what my dad taught me.  Then slowly, carefully rebuilt me.

As crazy as it sounds - the bad was good for me.

It was in my total brokenness that I was able to really see my husband.  The man who loves me how I need to be loved & lets me love him back.  The man who is secure enough about himself to let me be me & know that I know where I belong.  To trust me & be my partner.  To be the man I wasn't ready for 20 years ago.

This is what I want for all of you.  To look with not only your eyes and your heart, but listen to your head too.  The heart lies.  All love is good.  Great as a matter of fact - but not all relationships are. 

Find out what you REALLY want in another person. 

Not all heart break is bad, nor are the people who've broken your heart.  They're stepping stones to the great one.  There IS a great one.  Let down your guard.  Don't over think it.  Relax & enjoy and have fun!

If you feel like I'm directing this specifically at you...hmmmm, I may be.  I've got a few people in mind as I write this, people I love to pieces & feel deserve great love.  I'll surely never tell.

Just know that I love you enough to put this out there for you, because I want you to have it all.  Because you deserve it!

Thank you for reading my very long bloggie today!

Have a wonderful day!

Smoochies

~Jenn

PS.  As an aside here... this post was not supposed to fly at all... I haven't finished editing (which is what I was doing when I hit the publish instead of preview) and now I'm just too darn lazy to take it down.  Hope it's helpful to someone (even if it's written poorly)  Smoochies.