Our Second Wedding
All. Only. Forever
March 19- This is our anniversary, but not the day we were legally married, but the day our marriage truly began. We were officially married in 2018 in a way that, at the time, felt necessary but not fully ours. There were legalities that forced our hand, and threats —ahem—“circumstances” that required the day to be kept quiet and protected. Don’t get me wrong, it was meaningful in its own way, filled with symbolism and moments that reflected who we were, but if I am being honest, it never felt like the beginning of a marriage. It felt like something we had to do to survive what was happening around us.
What followed was a chapter of life that reshaped everything I thought I knew about love, safety, and trust. Our lives were burned to the ground in ways that still feel hard to accurately describe. If you are new here, let me recap— there were threats, stalking, counter-parenting, false allegations, courtrooms, oh and the reality of dropping my husband off at jail for 30-days. All of that coupled with the crushing death of my big brother in 2019, while every day life stressors were popping off all around us as we were desperately trying to blend a family. Those were the kind of experiences that change you at your core, that make you question not only the world around you but also your own safety and worth within it. For a long time, I believed I would not experience a safe, lasting love. I did not believe I was worthy of the kind of relationship that most people imagine leads to marriage. When I wrote my book in 2025, it was, in many ways, an attempt to process that time, to make sense of what we had lived through, and to begin to release the weight I had been carrying for years.
But this story and March 19th are not about what broke us. I’ve been there, wrote a book, and have the T-shirt! March 19th is about what we chose to build after everything had fallen apart. In 2022, after we got our lives back, we stood facing each other again. This time, there was no urgency, no pressure, and no outside forces dictating the moment. There was only choice. What we experienced that day was something entirely different from our first wedding. It felt grounded, intentional, and real in a way I had never experienced before. It was not about proving anything or making a statement. It was about standing in the truth of what we had endured and choosing each other again with full awareness of what that meant— we had experienced almost nothing but the “worst” in the for better or worse section. We had survived everything sent to destroy us.
That day marked a shift in me as much as it did in us. I had to learn how to trust myself again after living in a constant state of survival. I had to regulate a nervous system that had been conditioned to expect chaos and loss. I had to confront the parts of me that believed love would always come with pain or be taken away. Rebuilding our relationship required more than just time. It required intention, honesty, and a willingness to rewrite the story I had been telling myself about what I deserved and what was possible for me.
What we have now was not given to us. It was created in the ashes of everything that burned us to the ground. It was built through small, consistent choices to stay, grow, communicate, and trust again. There is something deeply different about a love that has been tested in that way. It is not based on illusion or expectation. It is rooted in truth, resilience, and a shared understanding of what it took to get here.
March 19 represents that choice. It represents a version of love that was not forced, hidden, or shaped by fear, but one that was fully claimed. It is a reminder that even after everything is stripped away, you can rebuild. You can learn to trust yourself again. You can create something steady and real out of what once felt impossible. For me, that is what it means to rewrite your story. It is not about erasing what happened or keeping things hidden from the light. It is about deciding that it does not get to define how your life unfolds from here.
If there is one thing I would say to the woman who is still in the middle of it, still questioning if her ever after even exists, it is this. It may be closer than you think, but it is not something you should rush toward or force into place. It is something you intentionally need to become ready for. My final pieces of wisdom, do not do it the way I did. While I wouldn’t sacrifice what I have now, the road to get here was long, dark, and life-altering in a way that the scars will never fade. I will forever carry tiny pieces of ash in my pocket. Reminders of the life I once knew… Do not build on survival and hope it turns into safety later. Give yourself the time to heal first, to regulate, to come back home to yourself, so that when love meets you again, you can receive it from a place of wholeness instead of fear. And most importantly, trust that you ever after is out there…and you deserve to find it.
