Read Online Happily Ever After: The Life-Changing Power of a Grateful Heart by Trista Sutter - Free Book Online Page B

looks, a charming personality, a loving mother, a bright future on the football field, and friends in every corner of the school. For about five years, we rode the roller coaster of a high school relationship, going from boyfriend/girlfriend, to boy-interested-in-other-girls/girl-still-infatuated-with-boy-and-acting-like-she’s-not, back to boyfriend/girlfriend, then to just friends, and so on and so on. No matter our status, I wanted to be with him.
    My diaries from that time period are filled with hearts and smiley faces, even when he either intentionally orunintentionally hurt me. I was so blinded by puppy love that I couldn’t see the bottom line: he wasn’t as in love with me as I was with him. It didn’t matter if he had moved on to a girl from a rival high school, or was dating one of my close friends. If he gave me even a morsel of sweet attention, I clung to it, and I’m pretty sure he knew I would.
    For most of those five years, I allowed my boyfriend/friend/subject of infatuation to motivate my decisions and most of my happiness, and as it tends to do if we aren’t paying close enough attention, history repeated itself. This time it was with a guy I met during my second year of graduate school. He was new to the University of Miami physical therapy program, and I was new to the single world after ending a two-year relationship. We hit it off and stayed together for nearly two years, but a string of straws in the form of tangible evidence that he was less than faithful broke this camel’s back.
    One straw was a handwritten letter from one of his lady “friends” who had been visiting while I was away, saying “be good, or at least be good until we can be bad together.” Other straws included pictures I found of him on spring break dancing in a not-so-innocent way with a girl I had never seen before, and a chain of e-mail messages that discussed what he and his best friend jokingly called “orgy at the Colony.” The Colony was the apartment complex where we lived together, and the weekend they were discussing inviting over a bevy of beauties was one that I had invited him to a wedding and he’d declined, saying his sister would be visiting. Yep, he played the family card, and yep, I bought it.
    I continued to deny my instincts and trust that the love I felt for him was mutual. But his actions repeatedly showedme that I wasn’t a priority in his life, and he wasn’t ready to commit. I just didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to be alone.
    Over and over again, for years and years, I sacrificed my psychological well-being just to be in a relationship. I blindly loved both of these men to the detriment of my own personal happiness. I deserved more. We all deserve more.
    I wish I could spare my younger self the repeated smashing of all the eggs I put in those baskets, but I’ve settled on taking the lessons I learned from them (and the rest of my failed relationships) and using them to be the best wife I can be. Without those failures, I wouldn’t have found relationship success. No experience, no matter how bad, is a waste—unless you waste the lesson. It took a few lessons, but in the end, I couldn’t be more grateful that my broken road led me straight to Ryan and my happy ending.
    M ODERN F AMILY
    For more and more couples these days, divorce ends up being the only option left in creating a future with hope and happiness—my parents included. Whatever the reason, some couples decide that their lives would be better without the person they once said they wanted to dedicate the rest of forever to. And for some, it’s the wise choice.
    Having lived a short forty years, I can count on one hand how many of my friends have decided to end their marital relationships. One of these is a friend from college I became close with through Redsteppers, otherwise known as the dancers who performed with the band during halftime at Indiana University football games in bright red