Lessons from men and the key to love

Sweet Hubby and I sometimes wish we had met long ago so that we could have shared more of our lives.  But we also have to admit that we might not have taken to one another if we had met when we were younger.  I know that I, for one, had an awful lot of lessons to learn in order to mature as a person and be a fit partner, and so, in my youthful flailings and longings, found an awful lot of teachers.
My first boyfriend, Tom, taught me what romantic love feels like, and the astounding sensations of sex - although I also learned about my own conflicted feelings about my burgeoning adulthood.  He also gave me the opportunity to learn that if I'm going to break someone's heart, better to do it sooner than later.
My first husband, Paul, taught me that a good friend + sexual attraction doesn't automatically make for a good marriage.  The most important lesson I learned from this ultimately dreadful experience is that, if I feel strongly that something is amiss, no matter how often I'm told I'm wrong and crazy, something is actually amiss.  I might never have recovered trust in my own senses and instincts if not for his post-divorce confessions to compulsive infidelities. 
The artist Tom brought a lot of wonderful adventures, experiences, and teachings into my life.  With him, I found a new level of enchantment with nature as we camped and hiked.  I had my eyes opened to the New Age, with meditation at home and in retreats, with sweat lodges and magic mushrooms, books about Buddhism.  We became vegetarians, even though I had never thought I could give up hamburgers and bacon.  His dedication to his art strengthened mine to mine.  However, the most important lessons I staggered away with were 1) No matter how enraptured I am with someone, if my friends and family can't stand him, he is not the right person for me, and 2) If I'm quite sure I want to be married, I should not be with someone who adamantly does not.
Bob the sex addict taught me that I should end a relationship the moment I'm crying more than smiling.
There were other teachers - many, many, many other teachers.  (I am a very slow learner.)  But once I met Sweet Hubby, all the old bitterness, regrets, caustic stories, self-doubts, and resentments I'd been carrying around simply fell away and my poor old bruised heart was healed.  I very quickly realized that I am in debt to all of the men I have loved, or liked, or just, you know, diddled around with, because they were the signposts along the path that brought me to SH.
SH has taught me that the secret to healthy love and a healthy marriage is ridiculously easy.  Be with the right person for you.  That's it.  And it's ridiculously easy to know the right person, because he's the one you feel fully yourself with, fully accepted by, fully seen and known.  He's the one whose company you never grow tired of, even through six months (and counting) of COVID lockdown.  He's the one whose face you love to look at day after day.
It's not that we don't fight.  We certainly do, about matters both important and dumb.  But we never fight dirty or meanly.  We keep at it until we see what it is that we are really fighting about, and then we deal with it, and then it's over.
So my thanks to those men from the past, and to SH for the present and the future.  A crooked, hard road can sometimes lead to the most wonderful places.