I began to ask for that in my marriage, but after all of our years together, my husband didn’t know how to give<br />that to me, and, frankly, I didn’t know how to receive it.<br />With each new accomplishment, I thought, “Maybe this will finally be enough.”<br />But then the high would wear off, leaving me feeling alone and disconnected yet again, with the added guilt of thinking, “If I can’t be happy with all this, can I ever be happy?”<br />On many days, I was the only female executive at the board table.<br />At my new job, I was once again working long hours, partly because I felt I needed to, but also because that was all I knew.<br />I always felt as if I was reaching for something, and as soon as I got it, I reached again, never satisfied but also never truly happy.<br />I was the one who then went out looking for love in all the wrong places, attempting to turn<br />men into who I needed them to be so I could feel more confident, more secure, more whatever.<br />And by doing so, he also taught me — perhaps for the first time in my life — how to love.<br />I never allowed myself to be vulnerable with my husband because I didn’t realize that it was a requirement for an intimate, connected relationship.<br />At that time, I was working in corporate marketing<br />and more interested in climbing the ladder in the financial industry than I was in creating a connected relationship with my husband.<br />Until one evening, about three months in, when I went out for cocktails after work with my new colleagues.<br />One day, I came home to see he had refinished my grandmother’s hope chest; it was the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given me.
