Throughout life, everyone makes bad choices when better options are available. It’s part of the human condition to make mistakes and get things wrong. No one is spared the frustration — and sometimes the heartache — of making mistakes. These errors force us to rethink how we navigate even the simplest daily tasks. Every task, project, or event needs a Plan B for when your Plan A meets reality. In my experience, there’s no man-made plan that doesn’t need at least some tweaking to resemble the outcome we first envisaged.
When we break down the years of a typical life into decades, certain patterns emerge that could alert us to potential areas of concern for each period.
For example, between the ages of 20 and 30, we tend to be more ambitious and courageous in our decision-making. We take bigger risks, and it’s also the decade in which most couples get married. These are the years of gaining knowledge and choosing a career path. Whether you’re a professional or in a corporate gig, you spend most of your time building your persona while in pursuit of a life mate.
From 30 to 40, besides starting a family, we concentrate our efforts on making as much money and gathering as much stuff as possible. Corporate players will be climbing the ladder of success, while entrepreneurs and professionals double down to extract maximum profit from their initiatives. Typically, investments and savings are boosted, helping build future wealth and pay towards the kids’ education. Relationships between couples gain depth in intimacy and “oneness.”
Between 40 and 50, we usually consolidate our lives, settling into a rhythm, and basking in the glory of some of the wise choices we’ve made. The initial signs of an empty nest start to emerge. It’s also around this time that we first experience the effects of reaching the halfway mark of our lives. In my experience, most people who enjoy a depth of character at this age suffer some level of inner conflict that yearns to be resolved. When the authentic “you” has a face-to-face encounter with the ego-driven “you,” there is bound to be some trauma. As you’d imagine, this decade has the highest divorce rate.
When we move from our 50s to our 60s, our careers are typically at their peak in seniority, status, and earning capacity. Now achieving retirement age, with the children all out of the house, you can consider a slower pace of life. Financially, you’ve accumulated enough to see you both through until death. In these years, our children will be getting married, and soon, grandkids will grace the family. This is when our focus typically shifts to the next generation and their ultimate well-being.
Some of life’s biggest mistakes are those that prevent a similar trajectory over your lifetime. As we leave school, we all dream of finding the perfect partner. We likely expect to find someone as loving and caring as our mother or father was. And while we’re on the lookout for a suitable partner, we’re also growing our societal status.
We probably never display the same arrogance and self-centeredness as we do in our 30s. Most of us grow out of that and humbly mellow as life progresses. However, being aggressively ambitious is a necessary part of gaining credibility and status, influencing our future success. Having a life partner who stands by you and keeps you on track is a head start in life that can’t be calculated.
Then, leading into a time of your life when you contemplate the meaning of life — a midway existential crisis of sorts — having a loving, caring, and empathetic partner will see you through. When the children leave the house to venture into the world, getting married and having kids of their own, an empty nest is less lonely with a partner. By the time the grandkids start arriving, sharing the miracle with someone you love who shares their DNA and is intimately involved in their existence is a wonderful privilege.
Making a mistake in your choice of life partner leaves you hamstrung before you’re out of the starting blocks. In each decade after the demise of the marriage, the trajectory of possible future success is greatly diminished.
I chose a life partner based on a fantasy. I believed in my heart that if you loved someone enough, they would eventually have to love you back. The first girl I slept with at 21 years of age was the same woman I married five years later. In those five years, I flew to Scotland four times to “fetch” her so we could be married. Her parents could see that we were not meant for each other and tried to warn me. Each time I arrived in town — usually unannounced — I was summarily marched out of town and put on a train or bus back to London.
Finally, I sent her a ticket to come back to South Africa. It was a return ticket — a proviso her parents insisted on, so if things didn’t work out, she could return to Scotland.
When we got married a year after she arrived in South Africa, her identical twin sister was the bridesmaid. On her arrival in South Africa, she too tried to warn me that I was making a big mistake marrying her sister. Although her parents initially boycotted the wedding, they eventually succumbed and arrived a day before the big day. I married my ex-wife on her and her sister’s 21st birthday, with 150 guests in attendance.
I filed for divorce after 17 years of marriage. After losing a business to a rogue partner and having to consolidate to try to bounce back, I could sense any previous care and love leaving out the door. The union quickly became toxic after I started drinking excessively to mask the farce I was living. I’m ashamed of how I behaved over the four years leading to the separation. I’m grateful and humbled that it ended after I was admitted to rehab.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” the saying goes. There were warnings from folks I trusted and who cared for me that I chose to ignore. They could all see the trainwreck I was heading for but couldn’t get me to listen to reason. It might have been because of hormones running wild or a childish crush that was naïve and short-sighted. When something as important as a life partner is at stake, being sure of your choice is of paramount importance.
When I say my marriage was a big mistake, most folks will quickly interject with something about the two beautiful children that resulted. My response is that I would have had two beautiful children, just with someone who loved me. But, if you ask me today, without a doubt whatsoever, marrying the wrong person was by far my Best Biggest Mistake.
Have a great weekend and please remember to be generous! 😄
As always, thanks for reading. 🙏
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