#4 What I Have Learned: About Love

7 min readJan 30, 2019

1. The Question

One day we were walking down a quiet street, digesting our big Indian food lunch. Jason goes, “Here is a hard question. Feel free to not answer. What if Michelle dies tomorrow?”

Me: “Not hard at all. Your kids will live with us. I will treat them as my own.”

He looked relieved and didn’t really know what to say.

Me, “I’ve thought about all these questions. They are no longer questions.”

2. The Beginning

A little more than one year ago, I was in a life stage of wanting to settle down. I was looking for and waiting for this person to settle down with.

Jason and I met on a dating app. In our first phone conversation, without me asking, he told me everything about his previous marriage and his two young children who live with Michelle.

I thought it was impossible. I couldn’t see myself being a stepmother. I couldn’t imagine an ex-wife in my life for the rest of our lives. The scenario was so impossible that I didn’t even try to assess whether Jason was “the one.”

However, I still thought… it doesn’t hurt to meet. It doesn’t hurt to have an interesting friend. The worst thing that could happen is that I fall in love.

Then it happened.

At the beginning of our “relationship”, we did a 30-day challenge. In those 30 days, we exchanged three good things of our days with each other. The challenge got us very close to each other.

At the end of the challenge, I collected the 100 moments — we did a few extra — of good things into a 15-minute video, and gave it to him as a gift, celebrating the completion of our challenge. He said, “I love starting projects. I’ve always had trouble finishing projects. You encouraged me to finish something. It is very meaningful to me.”

Jason later said, “If meeting you for the first time was a crush, the 30 day challenge made me fall in love.”

3. The Elephant

So the elephant in the room: the kids and the ex-wife.

I was not a religiously-loving, selflessly-compassionate, angel-like person. In my past relationships, I couldn’t stand my then-boyfriends still having contact with their ex-girlfriends. I had this fantasy of singular love, a pure form of love. For a long time, I wouldn’t say I love you. I wouldn’t have intimacy with my then-boyfriend unless we planned to get married.

My colleagues reminded me how time and money can be tricky, how ex-wives can be bitter and difficult.

I was very torn. I loved Jason. But I know the competition between me and his kids is one that I have no chance of winning. Zero chance. Will I start to play in this doomed game?

We tried to break up. Five times.

I told him, “I thought about it for two months. I can’t do this. Let’s set a deadline of our ‘relationship’. Let’s break up after that.”

He agreed.

That deadline came.

The break up didn’t quite happen.

I told my friend Pranoy, “We broke up. We still text each other every day. ” Pranoy said, “What kind of break up is that?”

The text-everyday-friendship kept going. Until I met another guy. Let’s call him Peter.

I told Jason that I thought I would be in a relationship with Peter and that he and I should stop contacting each other.

The month after that… was intense. Long story short, Jason persuaded me to get back with him. We decided to try one last time. We agreed that if this time it didn’t work, we would not mess with each other’s lives. We would be strangers forever.

During this one month, I learned what love is. I learned what kind of life I want.

The day I started to be with Jason, July 23rd 2018, I know that I want to have a big life. With big love. It gets very real to me that the value of my life, is not in how much I spent, how much I enjoyed, but how many lives I have touched.

4. The Relationship

From the very beginning of our relationship, it involved a lot more people than a 1–1 relationship that I am used to. I decided to love his children as much as my own. I decided to love Michelle as much as I can, and treat her as my extended family.

Because she is.

I realized that, the moment I expanded my capacity of love. The “competition” vanished. They are all people that I love. We share time, energy, and money with loved ones.

I realized that, in this world, anything, seemingly good or bad, as long as I feel ok with it, or even better, happy with it, I will be ok and I will be happy. Nobody else’s opinion matter. Nobody else’s opinion should make me unhappy.

People often say, “ The value of your life is in how much you do for other people.”, to an extent that it almost become a cliché.

I ask myself, “How much am I living my life to that standard?” Honestly, I didn’t give money to every homeless people on the street. I didn’t donate to charity every year. I didn’t go volunteer at shelters every month.

Why? Because I don’t love them.

The relationship with Jason, the existence of his children and Michelle, reminds me every day, and more importantly, let me practice every day, to understand and love others.

5. The Fear and The Reality

Before diving into this relationship, I had lots of fears. Fear that money will be an issue (I felt anxious). How much time Jason could spend with me (I felt worrisome). I feared that I would never have a proper wedding because he had already had that (I felt sad). I feared that he will never feel the same way I do as I experience many other life moments for the first time (I felt more sad). I was drowning in those fears, so much so that I was willing to give up on the love entirely.

After we decided to try one last time to be together none of those bad things happened. We human beings too often punish ourselves with worries — worries about future that mostly won’t happen.

In reality, the relationship is not just “thank god bad things didn’t happen... yet”, but “I have never been happier”.

It’s not that everything is perfect. We have just become very good at communication — not those “I love you” “I love you too” type. Those hard and awkward ones. We do weekly relationship reviews — what’s good; what needs improvement. Every time we come out of the review, we love each other more. Hard things come up with any couple. Here or there, sooner or later. It’s how you deal with it that counts.

We work very well together. We’ve created two documentaries, designed a podcast, a data science training course, did five 30-Day Challenges, including the one that we designed for others, printed 50 hard copies and will be announced on my 30th birthday :D I will share the digital link later.

I become more optimistic and able to find silver lining in every cloud. For example, every Sunday Jason spent time with kids. I spent time writing weekly blog. I am delighted to start every Sunday, to pursue my passion, to share something and do something for other people.

The relationship taught me to believe in possibilities. To be fearless. And to love.

Lastly, it’s not that I have become Mother Terisa, a pure selfless angel. Occasionally, I still have moments like “Hum.. I feel a little sad that Jason can’t join me in this dinner because his son has a basketball game.” But every time in those moments, I remind myself: “I decided to sign up for this life because I want to have a big life with big love. This is a practice. This is the optimal solution considering the total utility of five people (I did study economics in U Chicago.). I am very happy about who I have become.”

Lastly, thank you for reading. The point of this blog is not to show off how amazing my life is (Facebook would be a better platform).

The point is to encourage my friends:

To not limit ourselves by fears about future that most likely won’t happen.

To believe in possibilities.

To believe in love.

To do more for others.