If someone looked only at the statistics of my life, they might summarize it with a short sentence: three marriages, three divorces.

Numbers are tidy that way. They flatten years of love, struggle, growth, and change into something that looks like 1 simple fact from the outside.

But real relationships are not tidy. They are messy and human and alive. They begin with sparks and certainty, move through seasons of joy and exhaustion, and sometimes end in ways we never imagined when they began.

And sometimes, they don’t really end at all.
Sometimes they simply change shape.

I have been married three times. Each marriage mattered. Each marriage was real. And each one eventually evolved into something different.

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Mark: Where Everything Began

Mark and I knew each other long before we ever thought about love. When we were kids, my mom and his dad dated for a while. We weren’t close then, but we knew who each other were.

Years later, when we were around nineteen or twenty, Mark and his dad began helping maintain the acreage where my family lived. It was a big job that sometimes took a couple of days. They would stay overnight, and in the evenings Mark and I would hang out in my room, playing video games or watching TV.

Those evenings felt easy. Comfortable. Familiar.

Somewhere between those quiet hours and the shared laughter, we realized we liked each other—really liked each other.

In 2001 I became pregnant. At the time, we believed the responsible thing to do was get married. So in 2002, three days before our first baby was born, we stood together and said our vows.

For about a year and a half, life felt hopeful and full of possibility.

Then reality arrived.

We were young. We were overwhelmed. We were raising babies before we had fully grown up ourselves. The stress of adulthood came at us faster than we knew how to handle. We fought often, reconciled often, and repeated that cycle more times than either of us probably wants to remember.

During those years we had two more children, in 2004 and 2005.

By 2006-07, I realized the pattern wasn’t healthy anymore. Loving someone and being able to build a peaceful life together are not always the same thing. Eventually I stepped away from the marriage.

But stepping away from the marriage didn’t erase the bond we shared through our children. Mark is still the father of my three adult kids, and we share the long, complicated history of growing up together while trying to raise a family.

Our romantic relationship ended. Our shared story didn’t.

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Sean: A Deep Connection

In 2012, I was casually scrolling through Facebook when a friend suggestion caught my eye. He seemed interesting, and we had a mutual friend, so I asked her to introduce us.

That’s how I met Sean.

The connection between us ignited quickly. Over the next few months we became deeply wrapped up in each other’s lives. We talked constantly, shared pieces of ourselves, and built a relationship full of passion and intensity.

We loved each other deeply. But love alone doesn’t remove every challenge.

Life with kids is complicated. Blending lives is complicated. Emotions run high when people are trying to build something meaningful together while also carrying the weight of their past experiences.

Sean and I married in 2014.

But the timeline of our relationship moved quickly, and that pressure created stress neither of us fully understood at the time. Parenting struggles added another layer of tension. The house often felt full of love and chaos at the same time.

By 2016, we both recognized that the marriage itself wasn’t working and he stepped away.

And yet, something remarkable happened after the divorce.

The care we had for each other didn’t vanish. In time, and without the expectations and strain of marriage, we discovered we actually enjoyed each other’s presence again.

Today Sean is still one of my close friends. We talk often. We spend time together. Sometimes we play video games like we did years ago.

The marriage ended. The connection didn’t.

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Jarrod: Love, Pressure, and Pain

Jarrod entered my life in 2017 when we worked together at a pizza restaurant. He was the shift manager. I was a delivery driver.

Within weeks of talking, we discovered we had a lot in common. We each had three kids of similar ages. We both understood what it meant to raise children with emotional and behavioral challenges. We both wanted stability, family, and a sense of home.

At that point in my life, I was also trying to escape a brief but extremely abusive relationship. Jarrod felt like safety. He felt like someone who truly understood the chaos I was trying to navigate.

Ten days after we started dating, we eloped in Colorado.

It was impulsive, passionate, and full of certainty. We were deeply infatuated and absolutely convinced we had found forever.

In 2018 we both went through medical procedures to reverse prior sterilizations so we could try for another baby together. Felix was conceived almost immediately and born in February 2019.

Felix brought enormous joy into our lives.

But within his first year, we discovered he had special needs. That realization reshaped everything about our family. His care required more attention, more patience, and more energy than we ever expected.

I stayed home to care for him full time. Jarrod worked longer hours trying to support us financially.

Slowly, the weight of responsibility began pressing down on both of us from different directions.

I felt abandoned and overwhelmed.
He felt exhausted and underappreciated.

Neither of us communicated those feelings well.

In 2021, Jarrod began cheating. I discovered it quickly. Promises were made and broken. The deception continued. The trust between us slowly dissolved.

For years I remained loyal to the marriage, even after he moved out, hoping something might repair what had been broken. Eventually therapy helped me understand that healing sometimes means letting go.

Our divorce was finalized in September 2025.

Today the resentment is gone.

Jarrod and I share something powerful: we are the parents of Felix. His needs mean that both of us will always be connected through the deep love we have for him. We work together peacefully for his sake, and that shared purpose has allowed us to rebuild a calm, respectful dynamic.

If Felix did not exist, our lives would probably never cross again.

But he does exist.
And because of him, we chose cooperation instead of bitterness.

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Love Doesn’t Always Disappear

My life includes more relationships than these three marriages. There were other meaningful connections along the way—some beautiful, some painful, some brief, some transformative. A couple of those relationships eventually became friendships that still exist today.

But the marriages were different.

I only married people I was genuinely compatible with. That compatibility doesn’t magically disappear just because the romance fades or the marriage ends.

What remains afterward is something quieter: familiarity.

Shared history.
Inside jokes.
Memories of who we were during certain chapters of life.

I deeply value that kind of long-term familiarity.

In a world where people often feel disposable to each other, I believe there is something meaningful about honoring the history we share with the people who once mattered most to us.

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Still Believing in Love

From the outside, three divorces can look like failure.

From the inside, my life looks very different.

One relationship became a lifelong co-parenting connection with the father of my older children.
One relationship evolved into a genuine friendship that still brings joy into my life.
One relationship transformed into a cooperative partnership centered around raising a child who will always need both of his parents.

None of those relationships look the way they once did.

But each of them shaped my life in ways that still matter.

And here is something I want to say clearly:
Just because I have experienced three marriages that didn’t last forever does not mean I’ve stopped believing that a lifelong connection is possible for me.

I still believe in love.

I still believe there is a person somewhere in this world who will fit naturally into the life I’ve built with my children, and whose life I will step into just as fully. Someone whose family and history will blend with mine in ways we can’t fully predict yet.

Someone who feels like home.

My past hasn’t taken that hope away from me. If anything, it has clarified what love really requires: patience, honesty, growth, and the willingness to evolve together instead of apart.

So while my story already holds three marriages, it is not finished.

I’m still hopeful for the future.

And somewhere ahead of me, I still believe my true love may be waiting.