On Falling in Love After the Fall

My friend in his early 70’s is about to get married again for the first time since his divorce decades ago.

He spent years being single, dating, and pursuing his dreams and career. Later in life, he finally found a new woman to whom he wants to commit the rest of his life.

I also know that around 20 years after his first marriage ended, he once tried to reconcile with his first wife. Something compelled him to reach out to her again. Call it nostalgia. Call it a midlife crisis. But there was something in him that still longed for that early love with his first bride. Turns out she was already engaged to be married to a new man. And so they both moved forward with their lives.

I have another friend who is about to get remarried. She told me that, in a perfect world, she wishes she was still married to her first husband, the father of her children. And she wishes her fiancé was still married to his first wife, the father of his children. 

She and her fiancé love each other and want to be married. But something in her still longs for some perfect version of the past. 

What is it that?

I believe it’s a longing that we all have to return to the Garden of Eden, when we were innocent and everything was perfect. Corruption had not yet entered our experience. But after Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sinned, they were banished from the Garden.

According to Genesis, an angel was placed outside the Garden gates with a flaming sword to block its re-entrance. And so humans were left to make our way in a world of sin, sorrow, and broken relationships. 

Adam and Eve surely longed to go back to a simpler, purer time. So do we. 

As singer Jeremy Casella says:

“I want to go back to the place that I started before

I can see through the gate but I can’t take the heat of the sword”

But is that where the story ends? 

Christians believe that God provided redemption for our sin. God knew we were lost and broken, so he sent Jesus to make a way for us to be whole again. Jesus came into this sin-shattered world and showed us that love is still a possibility.

Maybe we can’t go back to the Garden. But maybe there’s something even better. A world where we’re messed up and broken, but accepted anyway. Where God understands we will inevitably make mistakes, but gives us another chance. A world where love is still—always—possible, despite our mistakes. 

As singer Andrew Peterson wonders:

“Maybe it's a better thing

To be more than merely innocent

But to be broken, then redeemed by love

Maybe this old world is bent

But it's waking up

And I'm waking up”

Maybe you are longing for a time when things seemed better and there was nothing but hope on the horizon.

Maybe you wish your first marriage had worked out. Maybe you are longing for the Garden. 

But that’s not the world we live in. I’ve experienced it myself. I was married once, and it didn’t work out. In a “perfect world,” do I wish my first marriage had lasted and everything turned out wonderful? Sure, part of me does, that part of me that longs for innocence. 

But as Andrew Peterson says, maybe there’s something better than to be more than merely innocent. Life will break us all. Some relationships will survive. Some will not. But Jesus’s sacrificial redemption for us makes a way for us to love again.

We can never re-enter the Garden of Eden. But in this life, maybe we are not supposed to. 

Maybe we are meant to enter into something different, a redeemed reality that recognizes we are messed up but still loved by God and capable of loving again.

So let’s grieve the past if we must. Let’s stop gazing through the Garden gates at what could have been. Let’s live in the reality we are in now. If we've been divorced and are free to marry, let’s take advantage of the opportunity to love again. Life is short and God calls us to love now. 

Jesus told his disciples: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Even though humanity fell in the Garden, Jesus assured us that we can still love anyway. Maybe it won’t look like the perfect idealized vision we once had. Maybe it will look like something better.

Editor's Note: If you have been divorced and you have not gone through the annulment process, you are not free to marry again in the Catholic Church. If you have any questions on the annulment process, check with your diocese or parish priest on how to start the process. We also have many free resources to help you. Find articles for divorced Catholics here, a free annulment FAQ resource here, and check our our forum with community support here.