After having a six-year-old son, I remarried to a younger man. On our wedding night, I found out why he wanted to marry me…

When I was 29 years old, my marriage broke up. My ex-husband, Raghav, was a good man, but he couldn’t stand his mother’s pressure. She always considered me a “bad omen” because in less than a year of my marriage, many things happened in the family: my father-in-law had an accident, Raghav lost his job, and the economy came to a crisis. She used to put the blame for all these disasters on me.

After the divorce, I shut myself down. I didn’t think anyone would accept a woman who was as broken and deeply wounded as I was.

Until I met Arjuna.

Arjun was my sister’s colleague at an architectural firm in Mumbai. He was two years younger than me, the only son, an introvert and quite closed. At first I thought he was simply curious or fascinated. But after about seven months of talking and accompanying me with physical and mental health check-ups, I realized: This man was much more serious than I thought.

Arjun proposed to me on a rainy afternoon in Pune, just as I had just returned from the hospital. No flowers, no rings, just a blank marriage certificate, in my medical file. She said:

“If you’re afraid to start afresh, consider it your first try. Together we can write a new life from the beginning. ”

I laughed and cried, but it wasn’t until our wedding night that I understood why he wanted to marry me so much.

The rented room in a quiet neighbourhood in Thane—where he stayed while waiting for the renovation of his new house—was small and simple, with only a mattress and a few light yellow lights. I was nervous, but also scared, not because of the wedding night, but because of the guilt: I was someone else’s wife.

But Arjun was in no hurry. He held me in his arms for a long time, then leaned over and whispered:

“You’re not the one who came later… You are the one I chose right. ”

Those words made me cry. All the doubts, fears and pain that had accumulated over the years seemed to have disappeared. I didn’t have to prove anything. I didn’t have to apologize to anyone for the wounds of the past. I just had to be myself… And I had to love him.

I just wanted to be here, right now, with this man—who saw me when I was broken, but still wanted to move on with me.

People may say that love after marriage is risky. But for me, love after marriage is the most comforting comfort. Because when you choose each other not because of the past, not because of perfection, then everything about each other happens for the first time… And there’s only one.