If your partner was formerly married and their wedding song comes on the radio and he/she happens to become emotional, should we assume they are still emotionally attached to their ex?
I have a wedding to plan! Yes, it is two years away, and though there are many things that are too far away to plan just yet, there is at least one thing that can be planned right away: our wedding song! My fiancé and I have gone back and forth with a few noteworthy songs before we finally settled on one that suits us and our love story really well.
During this process of choosing wedding songs, it made me think of our former wedding songs to our exes. Where do those memories live, for my fiance and myself, now that we have committed to each other? What do we feel when we hear those old wedding songs?
In this disposable world we live in, where people are as disposable as things, there is something about a song that is ever present, that has meanings we associate the song with. We can clean and shred our homes of every remnant that existed of our exes after they are gone. We can sell or donate our wedding dresses, sell our rings, dispose of pictures and cards that once showcased our romance but that now leave us cold. The one thing, however, that we cannot dispose of is our former wedding song. We may not have the songs in our music selections anymore or even like the song, but it is a part of our history. And, that old song has a funny way of popping up at parties, other weddings, or on the radio when you least expect it.
This has led me to wonder…
How does hearing your wedding song to you ex make you feel?
I have two former wedding songs that I occasionally hear on the radio and neither of them has any effect on me at all today. But they did the first time I heard them after divorce.
Endless Love ~ This duet song was very much a song of the time back then by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. The first time I heard it after the divorce it made me feel sad and I remember crying that our love certainly was NOT endless and that it in fact ended. I heard it for the first time recently and I remembered why I loved it. This time, I happily sang along.
Unchained Melody ~ I always loved this classic song by the Righteous Brothers and surprisingly I still do. The first time I heard it after the divorce, I remember cranking the volume up and I felt such peacefulness inside of me. The irony of the song title and my marriage made me chuckle. During the marriage, I felt chained and through the finality of the divorce, I was finally unchained. Today, I can easily hear the song and feel no connection to my former marriage.
Music Changes Our Mood…It’s Only Natural
But that’s me! Not everyone feels the same. I know someone who is remarried and she still cannot listen to her old wedding song without crying. Since songs from our past elicit memories in the forefront should it worry us today? For instance, if your partner was formerly married and their wedding song comes on the radio and he/she happens to become emotional, should we assume they are still emotionally attached to their ex? Not necessarily, since music activates emotional, motor and creative areas of the brain according to a 2011 Finnish study. The researchers discovered that familiar music changes our mood and brings back memories we may have forgotten, which would explain the emotion.
Think of it this way: most recently divorced people spend time thinking about their divorce and contemplating over what went wrong with the marriage. This is helpful and necessary to learn from past mistakes. So if you or your partner are in the early stages of post-divorce, it would be understandable that their former wedding song would make them sad.
However, if your partner has been divorced for more than two years and he/she still gets emotional when they hear their wedding song, it may be a clear sign they are not yet ready to be involved. On the flipside, if their wedding song does not elicit sad feelings or low association with their former marriage, well then that could just be music to your ears.
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