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

My marriage ended when I was just 29. My ex-husband, Raghav, was a good man, but he couldn’t handle his mother’s pressure. She always considered me a “bad omen” because, within less than a year of my marriage, several events had occurred in the family: my father-in-law had an accident, Raghav lost his job, and the economy was in crisis. She blamed me for all these disasters.

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

Until I met Arjun.

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Arjun was my sister’s colleague at an architectural firm in Mumbai. He was two years younger than me, the only son, introverted, and quite reserved. At first, I thought he was just curious or infatuated. But after nearly seven months of talking and accompanying me through physical and mental health checkups, I realized: this man was much more serious than I thought.

Arjun proposed to me on a rainy afternoon in Pune, just after I’d returned from the hospital. No flowers, no ring, just a blank marriage certificate, tucked away in my medical file. He said:
“If you’re afraid to start anew, consider this your first try. We can write a new life together from scratch.”
I laughed and cried, but it wasn’t until the wedding night that I understood why he wanted to marry me so much.

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

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

“You are not the one who came later… You are the one I truly chose.”

Those words made me cry. All the doubts, fears, and pain I had accumulated over the years seemed to vanish. I didn’t need to prove anything. I didn’t need to apologize to anyone for past wounds. I just needed to be myself… and be loved.

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

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