Author’s Note: One more follow-up story of an amazing and extraordinary lady who found her way back to happiness by finding herself. She’s a blogger in her own right now, and I felt the rest of her story should be told in her own words. Every one of my women with spunk stories are true stories, narrated to me by the women who went through these challenges in life, and overcame them with sheer grit and determination. Names have been changed to protect their privacy.

If you would like to catch up to Simran’s story before you read on, here are the links :

Broken Dreams – Part 1 | Broken Dreams – Part 2

Without further ado, presenting the rest of Simran’s story, in her own words!

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My story ended at the point where I found out in the worst possible way that the man I married was not the husband I lived with. The controlling, suffocating and patriarchal man who stood before me was a stranger. He not only disrespected me at every turn, he forced me to give up children and I found myself looking elsewhere for the companionship and love that I wasn’t getting from my marriage.

This too did not last, as I went back home for my son’s sake, deciding not to pursue a relationship with Raj. In those days, I realised what I was actually missing.

I was missing myself. Somewhere in the need to confirm, to mould myself as per someone else’s expectations, deciding to live just for my son – I had completely lost myself and my identity.

It took a few years, and it wasn’t easy. But eventually, I found myself, my identity and my purpose. The emptiness within me led me to look above to my Creator and my Almighty and in Him I found the strength and courage to go on. I was at home for over a year, struggling to keep my head above the treacherous waters that surrounded me, before I switched my career to the education field, a decision guided from above.

I began to teach at a local school and studied simultaneously to acquire my basic qualification. This helped me to focus my attention on myself and my development. I was recognised for my efforts in school and at my training centre. I developed enough confidence and attempted to try out new things, growing as a person with every newfound knowledge.

As expected for someone who wasn’t a part of this field, I faced a few challenges professionally in the process of finding my hold in a new field of work along with finding myself simultaneously. I chose not to look too far into the future and contemplate and worry and get stressed etc. The mantra I followed was ‘one day at a time’ and that really helped. I started maintaining a daily journal, not exactly penning down all my thoughts, but writing down positive things that happened daily, no matter how small.
I also recorded setbacks and negative feedback if any, with a purpose to work on the same and improve.

Although I walked out of Raj’s life the day I returned home to my son, I could not completely close the door on him, as I was still in self-discovery and finding myself in the middle of all this. Whenever I got a chance off and on, I called Raj to check on him. These calls couldn’t happen from his end for obvious reasons, so I called. He was doing fine, officially separated from his wife, moved to a new city, a new job, new house. He had finally been able to come out of a bad situation marriage-wise and I was happy for him.

At my end, the guilt of not being able to get over Raj completely continued to haunt me. I was still living a half-life. All said and done, after all that happened, my husband had accepted me back into his life and home, which is no mean feat for a spouse, especially a man. Forgiving me took him a while obviously, and I knew he would never be able to forget.

At the same time, somewhere somehow in this entire process, he had begun to change. I felt like he had gone through some introspection too like I had, and found areas that he needed to work on within himself and in our relationship, which again was guided from above, an answer to prayers, not only mine, but of family and dear friends.

Almost a couple of years back during one of my calls to Raj, he told me he had succumbed to family pressure and agreed to remarry someone! I wasn’t exactly expecting that development, but realised that was bound to happen at some point. I was clear this time though that I would not do anything that threatened to disturb my new found sense of balance of self, family and work – all of which I had found with great difficulty.

I called him once after that a couple of months later to reconfirm if he was actually going ahead with his plan, and realised he was. He didn’t seem too happy about it, which I felt was strange because after all that we had been
through, happiness and peace should have been his first choice, but then I guessed he had his own reasons, which I didn’t want to get into. Didn’t tell him at that point, but decided that I would never ever call him back and would cut off completely, finally this time. After all that had happened I didn’t want to be the cause of any disturbance or unhappiness in this new relationship, didn’t want to hurt the new person who would be entering his life, who would be completely clueless perhaps of all that had transpired.

Even if he wasn’t too happy about entering this relationship, it was a decision he had taken and needed to stand by it and be completely true to it. Whether he realised it or not, I certainly felt it, so decided to step back
completely. It would be only fair to let them have a chance at a happy relationship, which wouldn’t happen if I would be part of the equation.

Thinking back, sometimes I feel I should have told him all this, and then cut off. But I somehow didn’t land up doing so and by now am sure he has figured out why I didn’t call ever since or try staying in touch via any other medium. I will always wish him all the happiness and health and peace and success in life.

Once I had cut off, the vacuum within me obviously deepened. But slowly but surely it was getting filled in with the presence and blessings of the Almighty and the ways in which He was working.

I developed severe joint pains towards the last quarter of that same year, which threatened to get serious. My husband took a lot of effort to ensure I got the right treatment, massaged me daily and did so many things selflessly, even after coming home late from work and being tired himself. My health condition became the medium that helped us both to break the ice which had now developed between us. Moreover, the pains were a wake up call for me to look at my lifestyle and make changes for the better around my food and workout choices.

While I went through my journey of self-discovery, I think to a large extent he did too, and approached our relationship now with more maturity and a determination to make it work for both of us. He no longer chose to force himself on me, he had kind of decided to back off on that front, waiting for me to take the first step now, if ever. All of this slowly helped me heal from within and in the process, forgive him and rediscover my initial love for him, which had somewhere got lost along the way. Only this time, the love was more mature and much more stronger. Spiritually healed, then mentally and emotionally, I was finally prepared for physical intimacy too, this time mutually and with happiness. And I can
see that love and happiness in his eyes too.

And not to forget my son, who was not exactly aware of a lot of details, but has somewhere observed and sensed that the obvious animosity between his parents had slowly thawed and changed into true love, caring, affection and companionship. Now that I had found my identity, I could voice my opinions, disagree wherever I did, and yet maintain the affection and bond, something like we agreed to disagree. Life has its ups and downs, financial issues, daily concerns, but together we deal with them. By God’s grace, am doing great professionally also, getting to do a lot of stuff that I always wanted to.

I’ve made some great new friends along the way, while still cherishing the old ones. I have always been selective in that area, it takes me time
to make friends, but once I do, then the few that they are, they stay for life. And not to forget my blog, a long cherished dream!

Like Henry Kissinger says, “A diamond is just a chunk of coal that did well under pressure”, we came out sparkling after all this turmoil in life. I am therefore able to see the silver lining in every cloud, look for the
positive in every negative and never stop hoping or believing, no matter what. I also now consciously face my fears, push myself out of my comfort zone, go against the flow and take up new stuff. Making up for lost time, trying to further discover myself is helping me grow. And all of that is what I try to reflect in my life, in my work, in my daily interactions with peers and friends and acquaintances and of course, in my blog.

I almost lost everything. But all it took to get my life back, was to find myself first.