‘Only after my divorce did I really fall in love for the first time in my life’

Fact: between ten and twenty percent of couples with children split up within fifteen years, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. But: there are still fewer than couples without children. Married people stay together slightly more often than unmarried people, and highly educated people more than less educated people.

Not that those figures applied to Pleun (44). Four years after her divorce, she fell in love for the first time in her life.

Safe choice

“The love for my children’s father was something that grew steadily. I knew him from high school and we stayed in touch during our studies. It was only when our relationships broke down at the same time that more grew between us. We thought the same about so many things. He had a stable job and income, I freewheeled my own business. I would never have any surprises with him, I thought. A safe choice, motivated more by reason than by butterflies, although I genuinely loved him. But such a thing can never last a long life.

By the time our kids were seven and four, I was crazy about the fact that while we were a well-oiled machine, we were not a warm family. My ex was a housemate to me, our agenda was a negotiation of who’s ‘turn’ for what. The day we took the plunge, I was more relieved than when it turned out that failing my HAVO final exam turned out to be a mathematical error, and I still passed.

Love at first sight

Paul was by no means part of her schedule when she bumped into him during a ballet performance. “It was love at first sight. So that existed after all. He was there to show his daughters, the same age as mine, and had also just been divorced. Would that normally be the recipe for a broken heart (doesn’t everyone have to come to terms with their divorce first?), With him it immediately felt as if we had known each other all our lives.

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‘We just knock’

Now, after more than a year, the first hairline cracks appear in our happiness. He turns out to have a predilection for comic books – so childish – and is structured in such a way that it makes me nervous. But I laugh about it, because the basic feeling for him is so very ‘primal’. We just knock; I can tolerate a lot with that. ”

Science seems to support Pleun. The more oxytocin you produce during your crush – more with love at first sight than when love is more or less ‘planned’ – the more likely the relationship will be successful. “We don’t live together, but we don’t go to sleep until we have a good night chat on the phone. This is nothing like what I knew about love so far, so no way that I will ever let that go. ”

This story has previously appeared in Kek Mama.

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