Have you ever wondered why anyone would marry the same person twice? We hardly wonder why one person agrees to marry another person – we assume they fall in love or that an arrangement has been reached where marriage is the mutually decided upon choice. But when that couple separates and divorces – why would they then marry each other again?
An Imperfect World
There can be any number of reasons why a couple once divorced, may reunite. Two reasons offered by two different couples who married, divorced and then remarried offer some insight into this question. I recently discussed this subject with two different couples who married, divorced and then remarried again.
The first couple met in high school. They married the summer before they went into college. They shared their college experiences together and they enjoyed it. They both pursued degrees using student loans and scholarships. By the time they graduated and dove into the professional world, they felt like they could achieve anything. But they became so used to working apart from each other that they forgot how to be together. They divorced before their seventh year of marriage.
The divorce was not acrimonious, but over the next three years, they would call and reach out to each other. They both went through relationships with other people, but they missed each other. They couldn’t get the type of comfort from others that they received from each other. After three years apart, they started dating seriously, got engaged and then remarried – because what their lives lacked, was each other – but it wasn’t until they’d been apart that they realized that.
This week they celebrated their second third anniversary and are expecting their first child together.
Too Busy Fighting With Each Other
The second couple both came from abusive families and they didn’t have the skills to cope with disagreement between them. From the first day of their marriage, they fought and they argued. They never quite descended into the level of physical abuse, but they were both mentally and emotionally cruel to each other.
They managed three years of hell with each other before they divorced and they both felt well rid of the other. Within six months though, they were talking to each other on the phone and those phone conversations led to coffee dates and lunch meetings. For some reason, outside of the bonds of matrimony, they were remembering all the reasons why they came together in the first place. They were able to enjoy each other and recapture the love that brought them together in the first place.
But they were afraid – afraid that marriage would tear them apart once more. So they both sought counseling, individually and together. Six months after their first counseling session, they made a breakthrough – neither came from a family with a positive way of handling conflict. When they were just dating, they could both suppress the conflicts between them, but marriage didn’t allow them to do that and that’s when things got ugly.
They spent another six months with a counselor, learning how to manage their conflicts in a positive manner and developing the skills to cope with their disagreements. 18 months after entering counseling, they got married again. Their counselor attended the wedding. For the last two years, they’ve attended counseling sessions every month to do maintenance checks and to keep their conflict resolution skills honed.
They’re doing well now, but neither wants to relax their vigilance and descend once more into the ugly mess that ended their marriage the first time. They’ve decided to wait until their fifth year of marriage before having children – but they honestly feel like they will make it this time and when it comes to talking an issue to death – they can do it – but the open hostilities that marked their first marriage are no longer present.
Do you know anyone who married the same person twice?
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