I got divorced twice before 30 — but I still believe in happily ever after
Three-ring circus?
A Florida life coach who got divorced twice before 30 says she’s dating again — and wouldn’t rule out tying the knot for a third time.
“I still have a little guard up because I am scared of pain, but because I have navigated divorce and breakups before, I know I have the tools to cope,” Marissa Baker, 32, told SWNS.
The millennial Elizabeth Taylor met her first husband in college while studying sports management — they had a whirlwind relationship that quickly went from “passionate” to “intense.”
Baker would tell herself that every relationship has ups and downs, so the pair married in December 2014.
“When it was good, it was really good, but when it was bad, it was really bad,” Baker said of her first marriage, which ended in divorce in June 2016.
Before the divorce was finalized, the Naples resident found herself in a relationship with a man who would become her second husband. They met on Tinder.
“It was really easy for me to say that the first husband was the problem, so I am not going to take ownership of my issues — I am not going to heal, and I am going to jump into this other relationship,” Baker shared.
She added: “I was not a great partner — and what I mean by that is my ex was always asking for not very hard things like doing the dishes or the laundry and I just couldn’t get myself to do those.”
She married hubby No. 2 in 2019 and got divorced in November 2021.
“I had just turned 29. I had a lot of fear and a lot of shame about leaving it all because I thought, ‘Damn, how did I get myself here again?'” Baker recalled.
“As useless as I think shame is, I do think having that fear and shame really forced me to reflect and say, ‘How did I contribute to the problem?'” she continued. “I worked on areas I needed to fix and really concentrated on how I got myself into this situation in the first place.”
After her second divorce, Baker decided to focus on herself, and she met her “platonic soulmate” — Patty Kulak, 27, a local planner, at her birthday party.
In May 2021, the singletons decided to move in together, as they were both going through divorce.
They go on friendship dates, work out, and do household chores together.
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Baker claims they are “like wives” but insists they “aren’t attracted to each other.”
“Our whole relationship has been very simple — we just say, ‘This is where we are at and this is what we need,’ and the other person is like, ‘Boom, got it,'” Baker explained.
“That is why we jokingly call each other platonic life partners because whatever the universe does, we just help each other figure out and it is so fun,” she added.
Now, nearly three years on from her divorce, Baker has found herself in a “committed, exclusive relationship.”
“I just recently got into a relationship after two-and-a-half years where I am like ‘OK, I think I can do this,'” she said.
In this new version of herself, she has dropped 20 pounds and discovered a love for the gym.
“There has been a total 360 to my life,” Baker noted.
“I have gone from being the girl who used to sit there, be quiet and never speak her mind,” she revealed. “Now I am like if you like it or don’t like it, this is what you get. I don’t know who that old girl was.”
