Did your second love feel different to your first love, if so, in what way?

Earlier this year I kicked my husband out for having cheated on me and fallen in love with her. We'd been together 6 years, married for one. He was my first everything: first boyfriend, first kiss, first sex. I thought I'd lucked out on my first try. We were on fire, I was obsessed, jealous, and possessive. I didn't realize how negatively being in love with him robbed me of my life and being the person I wanted to be. I threw everything away, my hopes and dreams and passions because he was all that mattered. I didn't listen when people pulled me aside and asked if I was ok, because he'd become verbally abusive in front of others. I just made excuses, he's drunk, etc. I didn't care when my friends quit hanging out with me or deleted me from Facebook. He was all I wanted and fuck everyone else. When I kicked him out, I contemplated killing myself. I was destroyed from within. He took my heart and threw it back at me, broken in to pieces, held together by fuzzy pieces of scotch tape that were barely hanging on.

I wanted to die. I thought, he may have been mean, abusive, a drunk, but he was loyal and that's all that mattered and then one day she walked in to his life and then he wasn't loyal anymore.

I never wanted to love again. Then someone else, a stranger from Reddit, offered an ear, and I called and he listened to my hysterical cries for an end, the pills in my hand, ready to go. He cried with me and begged me not to hurt myself. I didn't, I said ok. And a few weeks later, we were still talking on the phone every day. I asked him to meet and be my SO.

I didn't think I'd ever fall in love again. It felt so different from the first one that I wasn't even sure if I was at first. It wasn't this erupting volcano of passion and anger and love hate and abuse. It was just steady, calm, and quieting. Where was the drama? You mean I'm allowed to get a tattoo? Allowed to see my friends? You mean you're not angry at me for speaking my mind? You're not going to throw me to the ground for losing at Dota2? "I'm not him."

We're still early on and some days I still feel the cracks in my heart left from the first love but my second love is the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing on my mind when I go to sleep. He's different and special and I'm happy to find someone who cared enough to help a stranger. The falling in love part was am accident but I'm happy and I'm feeling more and more like my old self again, the person I was before the abuse.

It's been hard and confusing but I'm glad it's not the same. I'd run in the other direction if it was.

Thank you every one who read this and for everyone who shared as well, it was comforting reading your stories.

/r/AskWomen Thread