Guest Post & Giveaway: Second Chance Romance: Finding Love After an Unhealthy Relationship By Carla Laureano (Under Scottish Stars)

Second Chance Romance: Finding Love After an Unhealthy Relationship

By Carla Laureano

My newest book, Under Scottish Stars, follows single mom Serena MacDonald Stewart as she navigates the challenges of dating and relationships after being married and then widowed. But as we soon come to find out, all had not been perfect in her marriage, leaving her with some big obstacles to overcome when entering a new relationship.

I’ve had some experience in this realm. Before I met my husband, I was engaged to another man, someone I had met when I was in college. While I in no way think he was a bad person, I do believe we were poorly suited for each other, leading to an unhealthy dynamic that took years to fully understand after things fell apart.

If you’ve found yourself in a similar situation, I’d like to give you four helpful points of advice before you enter your next relationship:

1. Remember, just because one relationship falls apart doesn’t mean you’re not capable of having a lasting relationship.

Women tend to take a disproportionate amount of responsibility for what happens in a relationship, and when it doesn’t work out, we can internalize that as a reflection on our own worth or abilities. But relationships—whether friendships or romantic bonds—are a two-way street and take effort from both parties. And sometimes, even when both people are doing their best, things don’t work out. Resist the temptation to project one breakup onto all future connections. Just like every person is different, so is every relationship.

2. Take time to analyze what went wrong.

I don’t mean that you need to do a postmortem on every argument, assumption, or bad choice. Likely, you’re already well aware of those. But it can be helpful to take a look at yourself and how the relationship impacted you. For example, I realized after the fact that I had allowed time spent with my fiancé to replace the things that really filled my soul as an individual—and that had a detrimental effect on my mood and self-worth. I also realized that I wasn’t getting support for pursuing my own dreams and desires . . . and I knew that was something I would specifically look for in my next relationship. If you find it hard to analyze yourself—or you can’t understand how things went wrong—it could be helpful to speak to a trusted counselor or other mental health professional. There’s no shame in getting a trained outside opinion, especially when we’re dealing with things that affect us on a deep level like romantic relationships.

3. Approach new relationships slowly.

It can be tempting to rush into a new relationship and accelerate its progression to where you left off with the previous one. A failed engagement, for example, can make you feel the need to quickly get engaged again—and rush to the altar—to prove that you can follow through. But if you’re layering the old relationship’s expectations onto a new one, it’s sure to buckle under weight it wasn’t meant to bear. Likewise, if we rush toward intimacy with a new partner, we’re in danger of bringing our assumptions and ingrained reactions to the new relationship before we really understand the other person’s motivations. Whereas the last partner might have used “that’s fine” as a passive-aggressive method of getting their own way without taking responsibility for conflict, the new partner may really mean it’s fine! Only when we get to know someone slowly with a clear, unbiased outlook can we be sure that we’re reacting to what’s happening in the moment and not what we expect to happen based on past experience.

4. Don’t allow the new romance to eclipse your relationship with God.

This is good advice whether or not you’ve just come from an unhealthy relationship, but especially important if the partner you just left exerted a measure of control over you, even unconsciously. It can be hard to maintain your intimacy with God when your daily life is determined by the whims of another person. Before you enter a new romantic relationship, make sure your faith is on solid ground and that your relationship with God is the primary one in your life. It is so much easier to recognize lies and manipulations when you are immersed in God’s truth on a regular basis and allowing Him to lead you.

After Serena’s experiences, it was important for me to model a healthy relationship that wasn’t burdened by misunderstandings or assumptions left over from her marriage. And both she and I are living proof that life-giving relationships can happen after unhealthy ones, if we put God first and spend time understanding what is truly important to us.

**This post is meant for general information and not intended to give advice about toxic or abusive relationships, in which one party feels unsafe, intimidated, controlled, or manipulated. If you think you may be in a toxic or abusive relationship, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or live chat at thehotline.org.**

Links to find the book: Tyndale | Amazon | Goodreads 

Author Bio:

Carla Laureano is the two-time RITA Award–winning author of Five Days in Skye, London Tides, and the Saturday Night Supper Club series. She is also the author of the Celtic fantasy series The Song of Seare (as C. E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons.

Enter for a chance to win a copy of Under Scottish Stars by Carla Laureano! Giveaway is open to the US. Ends 7/23

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