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Aura 3.0's avatar

2. A relationship you tried to repair.

The second time I got married, I married my so-called best friend. I later realized that I didn’t really know this man at all.

We were married for a few years, but I knew early on that it wasn’t going to work. He never tried to have a relationship with my children. He literally closed the doors and didn’t want anything to do with them. He talked to them in a way that wasn’t loving or fatherly—not even like a kind stepdad. In the past, he had always been kind. But the moment I said “I do,” he decided to be unkind.

I couldn’t stop the phone calls from other women. Couldn’t stop the emails. I remember looking at the phone bill and seeing that he would have a 30-minute conversation with some woman on the way to work and another 30-minute conversation with her coming home. But she was “just a friend.”

When I asked her to stop communicating with my husband, she laughed and said, “That’s on him, not on me.” So I got the cell phone turned off. I wasn’t about to pay for him to talk to other women.

My pastor even got involved, because I was determined to fix that marriage. At the time, I was a Christian (I’m not anymore), but back then I was told I was too loud, too much, not submissive enough. And later, I found out that some of those same people were rooting for my marriage to fail. They were making my ex-husband promises—offering him a car and an apartment if he would just leave me.

I tried counseling. I tried working with him. But I felt like I was the only one who wanted it to work.

So me and my kids left. And I never looked back.

And now… after being married twice, I don’t think marriage is for me.

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Aura 3.0's avatar

🌀 What does repair mean to you—and when is it time to stop trying?

Repair, for me, is about intention. Sometimes it’s patching a house dress you love because it makes you feel good, even when you know the seam will rip open again. Sometimes it’s pulling a mango seed out of the trash just to see if it can grow.

Other times, it’s fighting to fix a relationship you already know is broken, because you’re hoping love or faith or sheer effort will be enough.

I’ve learned that repair isn’t always about putting things back the way they were. Sometimes it’s about understanding that you can’t fix everything. That you can’t fix everyone. That you can’t even fix yourself—not in the way the world tries to make you believe you should.

Now that I’m older, I don’t wait so long to end things. I trust my gut more. I’ve learned to tell the difference between what’s worth saving and what’s meant to be released.

Repair means caring, but it also means knowing when to let go. And I’m finally okay with that.

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