I never would have thought it: Me, single...and loving it! Both of my marriages had been bad choices based on my low self-esteem, one husband abusive and the other a philosopher who expected me to worship at his knee, intellectually (whenever he wasn't out being a "free spirit.") As a young woman, I never felt complete without a man in my life, and I was convinced that it always would be that way.

It helped, in the long run, that my second marriage, like my first, had become a daily ordeal long before it ended. Each day I would awaken thinking, "I cannot do this one more day." But each day, I would try. My husband would come home from wherever, and ask me what I had done that day. If I included in the list, "Washed a couple loads of clothes" he would ask, "WHOSE clothes?" Washing a load of my own clothes did not count. Nothing that was about me, had any validity. My daily agenda was focused on the needs of others, and the idea of putting myself on my own agenda never even occurred to me!

In the end, there was no big bang to end the marriage, just a matter of his being away more and more, and my coming to enjoy those times rather than dreading them. At length we found ourselves living at two different addresses on a permanent basis, and a few years later I moved out of town.

Freedom! More than 20 years later, I still get a lift when I think about the fact that no one ever again will sit in my living room, eyes focused on the TV, silently holding out his coffee cup for a refill with the understanding that, when I get it for him, I'm not to speak or in any other way distract him from the program he's watching. Nor will someone return from his wanderings expecting the intimacies due to a husband from his wife, while offering none of the things due to a wife from her husband.

Being divorced might feel different if I had been happily married and then been left for someone else. I have nothing like that to spoil my pleasure in the life I now enjoy. I have a home of my own that I love, and that I can manage to suit my own interests. Although I talk with my children about projects I'm working on, I love making decisions without asking anyone's permission, or being asked a zillion questions that suggest I don't know what I'm doing.

My neighbor and friend has a hard time accepting the fact that I truly do not want a man in my life. But when she asks what I would do if I met someone who I found terribly attractive, I can answer without hesitation, "I'd run as fast as I could in the opposite direction!" I know from experience that behind a charming smile would be the question, "What's for dinner?" or, even worse, "Honey, I'm so-o-o ready for you... Can't you finish that article later?"

Learn more about this author, Angelica Weathersby.
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