I don’t remember who said this, but when I first heard it, I spent some minutes meditating about it: “Love is giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting that they won’t.” Perfect definition. And because you give someone else the power to destroy you, if they do, the next person that dares come up to you to propose a similar love is in for a rough ride. Many marriages are struggling under the yoke of hurt people who entered new unions without first sorting the ones that destroyed them. A wife that survives an abusive marriage gets into the next one with full armour on, and nothing can penetrate that shield unless she deals with past pain. A man whose ex-wife cheated on him will approach a new marriage with constant suspicion that will eventually destroy it. “I was a young girl when I met my first husband, who was several years older than me,” one wife shared. “I did everything right and tried to please him sexually, but I don’t know who hurt that man! I eventually found someone who treats me right, and I try not to project the hurt in my first marriage on him.” In the first marriage, she said her ex-husband would return from work and make her undress and squat for an inspection of her genitals for any signs of cheating. Who does that? She was a housewife, and this was a daily inspection; sometimes, out of ignorance of how a female body works, he would batter her for finding any traces of discharge there, which he often mistook for her having been intimate with another man. When she decided enough was enough, she left, never to return. Don’t project your past heartbreaks and destructions on a good spouse; you will die alone and miserable, at that rate. When you decide to try love ‘one more time’, go all in and give this new spouse a chance on a clean slate. Don’t carry your baggage with you. One will say, “Oh, clearly you don’t know how much love hurts…” I do. I love what Kate Winslet’s character Iris says in the 2006 romcom The Holiday about heartbreak: “And how it can actually ache in places you didn’t know you had inside you.” That was so funny, yet spot on. So yes, anyone who has dated more than two people will know the unique, inexplicable pain of a heartbreak. The power is in knowing how to move on from that, and not make your spouse pay for someone else’s sins. One newlywed told me after I gave her a pep talk about sex and the dos and don’ts she should keep an eye on: “Ugh! I did all that and more for the last one and he almost killed me as my reward. Kati ono alinnye ya maje! (now this one will ride in an army tanker).” I did not judge her for going into marriage with so much bitterness still; I recognized that she needed help, and we are getting somewhere. You too should find help, if you agree that you are punishing the wrong person for someone else’s crimes. caronakazibwe@gmail.comThe post Sex Talk: That power to destroy… appeared first on The Observer Media Ltd.