I thought of an interesting analogy about divorce while in the shower this morning.

It’s depicted in a number of books, movies, articles and in some cases, real life relationships, people choosing to divorce their partner before really giving the relationship a chance, realizing much later what they had was pretty special. They just figured (falsely) that thing waiting on the other side might give them what they were missing.

Time passes, that other thing comes and goes and the person who sought the divorce comes to realize what they wanted was always right there in front of them.

I turned on the shower and it scalded me. I could barely get my hair wet the water was so hot. It hit my toes and I slid them back, careful not to fall on my face so as to get burned any more. It was a horrible feeling to have boiling water thrown at you, shampoo in your hair and wondering, how am I going to rinse this out without severely scalding myself?

I quickly cranked the hot water faucet to the coldest possible setting and waited. The water remained hot and I stood trying to use my hands that after years of constantly washing dishes had become completely numb to their surroundings (not unlike a wife in a relationship without any sizzle). Perhaps she had been burned and was looking for something else. Perhaps the relationship was stifling, suffocating and she needed to see what was on the other side.

Eventually, the water reached the cold temperature and felt like ice pellets hitting me in the face. I was unable to stand under the cold water to rinse the shampoo off of my head because I believed deep down my brain would freeze, I would have a seizure and one of my biggest fears would come true. Several strangers would have to stand around me while my face twitched like a monkey while I was completely naked with really bad hair.

I would have given anything to have that hot water back. I think I even said, “I forgive you” just please warm up so I can get out of this trap and head straight to Home Depot to replace this entire unit.

The good news is, I knew I’d have the greatest husband I could ever ask for riding shot gun and agreeing, “That hot water was awful this morning! But it sure beat the cold.”