Craving My Ex

I’m craving my ex. Not the ex I divorced, I don’t crave him. I mean the other ex. Everyone has one

right? Maybe it was your first love from high school, college, or university. Or perhaps an ex from your more recent past. The long-term ex who you nearly made it through with, but in reality you met too young, even if you weren’t actually that young. You both still had so much to learn and explore; eventually you went your separate ways.

I know I’m not the only single mum/ divorcee who thinks like this, so why is it? Why is the grass always greener? Were they actually “the one”? Maybe, but I doubt that explains these complex emotions. It’s more than a green grass syndrome. So much more. It’s about trust, of yourself and of others. It’s about knowing yourself, or not. It’s about losing your way and not knowing how to find the path back. It’s about the essence of your very being.

Since becoming a single mum, which in my case involved divorcing, I’ve lost a lot of trust in myself. I’ve lost trust in my decisions and my relationships which means I lack trust in others around me too. Not my ex, though, I trust in him. I chose him before I made the most monumental mistake of my life. Perhaps when I was with him was in the days when my decision making ability could be trusted. Or perhaps our relationship ended because I am so bad at making relationship decisions. Either way I look at it, it seems our ending was one of those bad decisions and represented the start of my journey to eventual relationship disaster.

My ex is from a time before I was broken. We used to laugh. I can’t remember the last time I laughed properly from something unconnected to toddler anecdotes. I know my ex cared for me and wasn’t afraid to show it. I haven’t felt cared for in such a long time, I’m not even sure if there was a time when my ex-husband showed me he cared regularly and lovingly. Perhaps my ex could remind me. Perhaps he could coax the laughter out of me so I can remember my soft spots. Maybe he could care for me and show me how it is to love and be loved on an equal pegging. We used to talk. Really talk. Perhaps he could remind me what it was we talked about. How do couples talk to each other and care for each other in a healthy way? I seem to have forgotten. Perhaps he could show me the way back there? All mums lose themselves to a lesser or greater extent after the birth of a child, as a single mum I have no-one to remind me of the good parts I have hidden away, or to help me recognise the lovely ways in which mothering is allowing me to evolve for the better.

He loved me. Before this. Before everything came closing in. He loved me when I was worth loving; when I was fun and witty, outgoing and adventurous. He loved me. Perhaps he could love me again. Not only the current me, but the past me. The me that I miss. Perhaps if I felt that love again I’d be able to find her, the old me. A new man wouldn’t even know she existed so how could he love her – the old me? That’s why I can’t imagine a new man’s love; I can’t imagine a man loving a broken version of me. But I can imagine that my ex could love the memory of me and that together, through memories, we could bring her back to life. Bring me back to life. He could offer me love of my entire being – past, present and future. I can’t imagine another man giving me that chance.

My son is amazing. Any man would be beyond lucky to have him in his life, but that’s not how our society treats step children, especially when it’s a man ‘inheriting’ them. How many people reading this have had negative thoughts when they’ve heard a male friend has got together with someone with a child? How many have thought it’s a burden that isn’t worth fighting for? I know there are many men who rise above this and make the most amazing (step) dads imaginable*, but when you’ve lost belief in yourself it’s hard to believe in anyone else.

As a fragile, single mum with no social life, the only dream I can allow to blossom in my head, is of a love returning – a soft, gentle, familiar love. Not a new unknown love with all the risks that entails. However implausible this dream is, it is somehow more plausible than finding a new man. How could I meet, let alone attract a new man? There are so many practical barriers in the way, but it’s more than that, so much more. The confidence in me as a person worth knowing is gone. The belief in me as someone’s ideal partner is smashed. Unless, of course, that someone is someone who has believed in me before, then, maybe, just maybe, I could allow myself to trust that one day they may believe in me again. Perhaps they could find those elements of myself that are worthy of believing in, hiding in crevices unknown to the untrained eye. Slowly this dream is fading, after all, memories are made for the past.

*You are fucking amazing.

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