a Big Myth

I was conditioned, via everything from YM magazine to Moliere, to believe that broken hearts, many of them, were a part of life. That feeling one's heart wrenched from one's chest would help a person in their future relationships.

Don't ask me how this happened- I know it's not typical- but my husband and I have both never experienced the break-up of a prior relationship, and now it looks like we never will. I think I initially shied away from dating because I had grown up in the midst of a turbulent divorce and didn't want to repeat the cycle in any form- and this thinking gave way to a more mature viewpoint of why-date-someone-who-will-be-a-future-ex, unless-i-am-ready-to-meet-a-marriage-partner-which-um-i'm-not. Then I started becoming more informed about Judaism, and the Jewish paradigm for the importance of marriage matched the values which I had been cultivating in secret for years.

I am not sharing this to be smug. Just to dispell a Big Myth.

a) we don't feel we've missed out, we are actually infinitely grateful for this

b) our relationship is much better, not worse, for this lack of heartbreaks.

I am sharing this because so many of my single (or intermittently single) female friends are allowing their hearts to be repeatedly trampled on, believing that dating their current boyfriend, though far from marriage material, is a better growth-and-learning experience than being single until someone worthy comes along.

This sounds right. And TV, movies, magazines, literature, and music all endorse it. But I believe this is a big myth. Being single in high school are college wasn't cool or the norm, but now that I am married, I thank G-d ever day that I don't have that baggage. If you have baggage, you have it, and you should learn from every experience in life. But I think it's a myth that you're better off in a dead-end relationship than single.

For a much better look at the subject of the Multi-Relationship Myth, please read:

I Only Want to Get Married Once, by Chana Levitan (available on Amazon.com).