Shaila Kibria

I now know why my ex-husband left me. It took me this long to figure it out.  There is the bigger plan. Whether we write it or whether God writes it (depending on what you believe) there is a bigger plan.  My ex-husband announced the end of our marriage three days after I lost the provincial elections - although he supported me, worked hard with me, and helped me like crazy during the campaign - he decided it was over. This is when I went to my moms with the kids.  My mom and many others blame the elections, the political party, and me for being a candidate.  The common saying I heard from the moment I moved into my moms was “You shouldn’t have run for the elections” or  “a husband never wants his wife to succeed more than him” or “you should have been a better wife”, or finally, “Shaila, isn’t home and family more important than community work”.  These words plagued me for the next two years, even after I remarried and settled into a new home with my new husband. I used to think about my ex-husband over and over, thinking “I never made myself to be more important than him”,   or “I never made the community work more important than my children and husband”, or “blah blah blah”……..

With my current husband I went to visit my ex-husband last night.   I looked around and realised (almost two decades later) why our marriage didn’t work.  I held his new wife’s photo in my hand and it hit me that I wasn’t what he had wanted.   She looked so different from me.  Just from the way she dressed and styled herself I realised that I could never do and dress or be the way she is.   I also saw that if he didn’t decide to leave me, I would never have been able to be me.  My current husband is not just tolerating me, but is happy to support me, to elevate me in my work, and to help me in my work because he also believes  my work is his work.  We share the same passions in the same way.  A friend recently told me that you need a team in anything you do, and I have learned that.  My ex-husband and his wife are now a new team, and my current husband and I are a new team.   These teams needed to be formed in order for our life to carry out whatever it is that we are supposed to carry out.  Maybe if I had stayed with my ex-husband, if he never decided that it was over, than our work of reaching our goal would never have been reached. My ex-husband can now reach his goals without worry about my work interfering with that, and I can reach mine without feeling guilty that my spouse is unhappy.