I was married so long ago now that at times I often forget. But sometimes I think, say, or see something and my mind is whisked back to those days, fifteen years ago. Needless to say, we were all very young then. I harbor no malice towards either of them. Yes, I have two ex-wives.

My view of the world has changed drastically since those days. It's all part of growing up and finding your place in the world I suppose. I am not ashamed of my past, I do not try to hide it and I do not regret it. It is simply part of who I am. It does not make me a bad person and it does not make them bad people either.

I was first married when I was nineteen years old. We had known each other for a little over a year. I don't think either of us truly knew what we wanted back then. I was plagued at times by what I called 'black moods' which would basically cause me to shut out the world and not want to speak to anyone or do anything. Whether it was some sort of clinical depression or just general unhappiness I will never know. But I do know that at times I was not easy to get along with. I have not had a recurrence of these moods for many years now and that makes me think it was just uneasiness with myself and my place in the world. This might also have been part of the reason for the first marriage to fail.

My first wife found solace in another's bed. At the time I was fairly devastated by this fact. When I stumbled across a stack of love letters from him I was angry, bitter, depressed. But realization dawned on me then and my course of action was clear. If she did not want to be with me, or still wanted to be with other people and was willing to act on that desire, then I would give her the freedom she needed. So I moved her out of our apartment, I began divorce paperwork and I took a vacation. I did not yell or scream and I would never have thought to become violent. Perhaps that made it all the more difficult for her to understand why I simply packed her things into boxes and placed them near the front door of the apartment. Perhaps she could not understand why I was somewhat unemotional about the whole thing. I was not a very good communicator back then so I couldn't find the words to express what I thought or felt. I have come a long way since then. Now I am unafraid to say what I am thinking or feeling and I have the words to express it, usually.

When I took that vacation I went home, a place I had not been for over a year and a half at that time. I went back to reconnect with my roots so to speak. I went back to forget about the things that had happened. I didn't expect to reconnect with my high school sweetheart on any level, yet I did. It became evident that we still had feelings for each other. Perhaps I was just extremely vulnerable at the time and just wanted to feel loved, to not feel cast aside and useless. When I returned to Florida we spoke on the phone quite often and after several months she said she wanted to move down and be with me. That was great but I had to tell her a few things first, namely that I was married and in the middle of a divorce. Like I said, back then I wasn't a great communicator and I hadn't told her any of that story when I was vacationing back home because I really didn't want to talk about it.

She took the news rather hard, but she absorbed the shock and eventually moved down to be with me. Yes, I was still married and another woman had moved into my apartment. But the divorce was proceeding and we had been separated for months now with little contact and I had no desire to reconcile things. I look back at it all now and often think to myself 'what the hell were you thinking?'

Shortly after the first marriage was legally dissolved I was married for a second time. As if I had not learned my lesson from the first one. My friends all believed me to be suffering from some sort of dementia or depression I am certain. Yet they were friends and let me make my own choices in the matter. I wish someone would have stopped me and asked if I was really doing what I thought was best. I'm sure I would have said yes and even taken offense at the fact that they didn't think I knew what I was doing. That was the type of person I was back then.

The second marriage did last longer than the first, but in the end it ended quite badly. At the time it ended I did not know that she had also slept with someone else, I found that out only after the fact when we were separated and trying to reconcile things. But in my mind it was the icing on the cake so to speak.

Never in my life had I cheated on one woman with another. I would simply stop seeing the first if I really wanted to be with the other. I thought it was better that way. So two acts of betrayal took many things from me the first of which was my naïveté, the second was my confidence probably.

As I mentioned, the second marriage ended badly with many possessions being hurled at me, a baseball bat coming dangerously close to my head at high velocity and what probably amounted to hours of yelling and crying. Hell, we even fought over possession of a lamp. A LAMP! A simple $20 lamp one would find at Target or some other store.

Looking back on it all, I know now I was partly to blame. I was not able to communicate what I wanted and expected of them. I was not always willing to listen or more importantly to understand. I would rather shut out the world than deal with it. I now believe communication to be one of the most vital pieces of any relationship, romantic or otherwise and I will always try to communicate. I go to great lengths to explain things that I think about or feel, sometimes the others listen and sometimes they don't. I have also come to accept that as part of life just like I have come to accept my past.

My view of what makes a relationship has been changed and formed from the clay of my past. I have perhaps become more practical and more realistic. I don’t expect the same things of those I date now that I did of the women I married, because I have changed. As I explained in 'It’s not easy being my Girlfriend' I am able to communicate what I want and it is different than what I have expected in the past.

But from my future wife I will expect a little more, because if she is going to marry me then I would expect her to want to be with me. If we are to build a life and a family then we need to know that we want to be together. I do believe in an open relationship while dating, but I also expect that it will change prior to and while we are married. It will change to an exclusive engagement between the two of us. After all, that is the point of marriage is it not? It is two people, who want to spend their lives together, perhaps have children and grow old together. I think now I am far more prepared for a marriage than I ever was in the past. I am fairly certain of what I want from life and from a wife. If there is some doubt in her about wanting to be with me then I hope she will talk about that with me before we are husband and wife. If doubt develops during the marriage I would also hope she will discuss it with me. But if it’s truly meant to be and we truly want to be with each other then I expect we will know it. I will not enter into marriage again without first knowing it is really what I want and that she is really the woman I want to be with.

I do not know who this mystery woman is that will be my third and final wife. But she is out there somewhere, perhaps even reading this very article. They say the third time’s a charm.