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Is Your Relationship Being Hurt by Ghosts of Relationships Past?
In order for us to be truly present for our partners, we need to come clean about our heart’s history.
Stumbling upon an old period dress photograph of a family wearing turn-of-the-century clothing, I saw my bearded self in a top hat, standing beside my young son and daughter. We looked like a nice family. But, standing next to me, in an over-sized bonnet, was a woman who didn’t seem to belong in the picture. I had married her in a storefront “Marrying Sam” wedding mill in Reno, Nevada, not because I was in love with her, but because she hadn’t obtained a visa when we moved to the United States. There was a good reason for the sour expression on her face. She didn’t really belong “in the picture.”
Although it had been more than twenty years since we parted company, I still felt the same repulsion seeing her face in that photograph. It brought back the years of defending my children and myself from someone who was emotionally, and I think mentally, wounded. I am still making apologies to my grown children for having subjected them to someone I am sure they regarded as a “wicked step-mother.
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