Behind the White Picket Fence

I’ve been married three times.

I know how that sounds.

Unconventional? Yes.
Taboo? Yep—as if I’m Elizabeth Taylor.
Judged? All the time.

There are labels that come with that number - three. Side eyes. Quiet calculations.

My late husband, George, was older than me, and trust me when I tell you that fact alone fueled plenty of commentary in our community. He was brilliant—truly. And yes, he had insecurities (like anyone), but he never let other people’s opinions steer his decisions. He taught me a lot, but the one lesson I hold closest is this: not everything requires a response. It’s the reason I learned how to walk into rooms and stay (mostly) unbothered by the small talk happening in the corners.

Circa 2016. George didn’t just teach me to hold my head high. He taught me how to embody confidence.

More recently, when I introduced my now-husband Dave to our new neighbor, I watched her quietly counting on her fingers the number of months since George passed away. She ran out of fingers. It didn’t seem to matter.

Because it wasn’t really about the math. It was about the story she needed to tell herself. That’s what people do—they take someone else’s life, flatten it into something gossip-sized, and pass it along like breaking news. Complexity is harder to hold, so they turn it into an us-versus-them, a little hierarchy where they get to stand one rung higher. And for a moment, that makes them feel better about their own lives.

It doesn’t require being married three times to relate. 
It happens the moment your life stops looking like someone else’s version of “right.”

Similarly and ironically, my husband, Dave, had never been married before he met me. He’s fifty-eight. Always single. And for years, every time he walked into a business meeting, he felt like his left hand was missing something others perceive as wholeness. A wedding ring.

He hated those moments.

Because if he wasn’t married, people assumed one of two things.
He must be divorced, and therefore has a story.
Or something must be wrong with him.

What I love most about him is that he waited.

Not because he was afraid of commitment—but because nothing felt right. Rather than live an inauthentic life just to meet an expectation, he chose his own path. Quietly. Patiently. Without explanation.

That choice is authenticity.
And it’s rarer than we admit.

We live in a world that rewards fitting in. We learn early which versions of ourselves are acceptable and which ones need to be edited out. We stay because it feels like the “right” thing to do—often for other people, or because it matches expectations set so long ago we can’t even source them anymore. And worse, we learn how to silence what we truly desire.

I’ve watched this play out again and again—through my daughter. Middle school. High school. The years where sameness feels like survival. Same shoes. Same jacket. Same backpack. Clones of one another. I desperately tried to get her to branch out, to make different choices. But the fear of standing out wrapped her tighter than any dress code.

When sameness was celebrated.

Now, at twenty, she’s learning what it feels like to be herself. I can see it in her happiness. In the lightness. In her voice when she tells me how many people complimented her outfit that day—the one that didn’t look like anyone else’s. Each comment lands like permission, a small release from the barbed wire of expectation that once held her tight. No longer afraid to stand out, she reaches for loud prints, bright colors, and accessories that give her freedom to live in her own skin.

Isn’t that what we all want?

As I sit here writing this, there’s a photo on my nightstand across the room, reminding me there’s another story I can’t leave out.

What follows is a deeply personal part of my story.