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R-E-S-P-E-C-T
By Bethany J. Royer

Aretha Franklin sang about, R-E-S-P-E-C-T to wild acclaim and fame, but did you know the song was written by a man?

I've been married and divorced twice. Certainly not one of those things one wants to brag about or shout from the rooftops. In fact, I'd rather say I'm a nun and that my children are immaculate conceptions.

Oddly enough, no one ever believes me on the latter.

I was very young when I went through my first divorce, or dissolution if you will, twenty-four, in fact, and it took a very long time for me to heal. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of trying to heal by being not only a robot in terms of emotions but jumping head-first into another serious relationship.

More stories of other divorcees : Marriage on Tap Now Serving : Fences Divorce Taught Me about Being a Man It's complicated but it is family

My second mistake was the refusal to see how I had contributed to the destruction of my first marriage. It was always easier to point the finger at him and call it a day, so I was well into my second marriage, with two small children, before my heart finally softened enough to see the mistakes I had made.

It was a wonderful thing to finally have peace and to forgive my first husband for walking out on our marriage for someone else and for a long time afterward I thought I had it all figured out.

Nope, not even close!

In fact, I was missing one enormous piece of the puzzle that would not come to light until six months ago when my second, ten-year marriage fell apart.

The thing I've come to realize is that I've never really had any respect for myself. I've caved to argued issues, immediately assume I must be wrong and the other person right. I have wilted beneath scorn and bully when I should have stood straight on my own two feet and defended myself. I've allowed others to tell me I'm not good enough from what my parents' did for a living, to my weight, to the number of times I've been married. Over and over, again and again, I gave and gave and gave endlessly, with absolutely no R-E-S-P-E-C-T for myself.

It's funny, life is never so easily cut and dry, is it? A divorce isn't anywhere near so easily defined as to have any one particular reason for its conception. There are always a multitude of reasons for a marriage to fall apart. Like death, divorce has a way of making you look in the mirror and question everything, to look in the smallest of places for an answer. I truly believe if you allow yourself enough time to look, if you give yourself the time and R-E-S-P-E-C-T you deserve, you'll find more answers than you could ever dream of finding.

Bethany J. Royer is an independent contractor and writer currently studying psychology with Florida Institute of Technology. She is actively seeking a publisher for her first completed novel while working on a memoir about her personal trials and tribulations with divorce. She blogs prolifically at motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and can be reached at themotherofthemunchkins@yahoo.com. We "met" Bethany on Divorce Magazine's facebook page – www.facebook.com/divorcemagazine.

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