Emily King – The Complex Journey to Finding Mr. Right
With over 5 million TikTok followers, Emily King has built an empire as an influencer, vlogger, and lifestyle guru. However, what fans may not know is that behind the glamorous Instagram posts lies a story much more nuanced.
In a rare moment of candid vulnerability, Emily peels back the curtain to share the truth behind her relationship status in a recent YouTube video that has since gone viral.
As the now 28-year-old reveals, “Life is very simple in your 20s, but things are not always that simple when it comes to starting a family.”
The Failure Rate Facts
Though her story may seem shocking to some, statistically Emily’s first marriage faced an uphill battle from the start. According to surveys from the Barna Research Institute, nearly half of first marriages among young adults ages 18-29 end in divorce within the first 20 years. Faith-based groups fare only slightly better, with a 43% divorce rate for young believer marriages.
Emily tied the knot in her early 20s, squarely within the highest risk demographic. And while religious conviction provided some buffering, the odds were still stacked against a successful forever union.
Sobering statistics:
- 47% divorce rate within 20 years for US marriages when bride is aged 18-29 years old
- Only 34% make it 10 years when marrying prior to age 25
- 60% higher dissolution rate when marrying under age 25
So despite her naïve optimism, Emily’s marital failure aligns with predicted outcomes for rushing to the altar so young. Yet at the time, she lacked the experience to interpret these premonitions prudently.
A Failed First Marriage
Emily first tied the knot in her early 20s to her high school sweetheart. However, looking back she acknowledges, “I got married very young without fully understanding complexities of just life and how much people change and grow.”
Christian perspectives, while valuing the covenant of marriage highly, also recognize the validity of divorce under certain circumstances, like abuse or abandonment. Secular society is shifting as well – with Millenials dramatically driving up separation rates as rigid religiosity gives way to prioritizing personal happiness and fulfillment above staying committed at all costs.
Emily does not cite any egregious breaches like aggression. But despite both partners entering with genuine intentions, the relationship eroded as their youthful worldviews expanded through adult trials.
Ultimately their emerging priorities diverged too significantly to remain compatible long-term.
Over the next few years, the cracks in the relationship surfaced as both Emily and her former partner grew into adulthood and realized just how different their goals, interests, and paths forward had become. After half a decade of struggling to keep the spark alive after the excitement of young love faded to mundane routine, Emily finally made the difficult decision to get divorced.
She kickstarted legal proceedings herself, reflecting numerous studies showing the dramatic rise in female-initiated divorces since the 1960s, as expanding opportunity breaks historic dependencies.
“I was the one that filed for divorce. I did not file for separation, but I did file for divorce,” she clarifies. Getting the divorce finalized swiftly was important for both her own peace of mind.
The Messy Reality of Splitting Up
Understandably, her divorce radically shifted Emily’s perspective on relationships. Ending what she once thought would be a lifelong partnership was an emotionally challenging road full of hard realizations.
“When you are someone like me, a hopeless romantic, you have a very strong belief system that no matter what happens, no matter how tough things get, you’re going to make it work,” she explains.
Learning to dismantle a worldview centered around “happily ever after” fairytales was a stark wake-up call to the fact that even the best intentions cannot necessarily make a relationship succeed long-term. Marriage takes continual effort and growth from both partners – not just the initial thrill of attraction.
On top of grieving the end of her marriage, Emily had to navigate becoming a single mom while tackling tricky financial stressors.
Divorce can have devastating monetary impacts, especially for mothers raising children. Custodial single parent households face vastly increased risks of poverty due to lost shared income – over 50% greater than the married population.
And as the breadwinner, Emily also feared the typical lopsided distribution seen in child support cases. Despite sharing equal custody, prior precedents showed dads often barely breaking even while moms gained extra balance leftover from payments.
“It‘s really scary to get divorced,” she admits. Going through a split meant not only losing emotional stability but also worrying about unfair monetary burdens – from lawyer fees to the costs of raising two young kids alone without sufficient aid.
“Men pay so much in child support it‘s unbelievable,” she remarks, referencing close friends who’ve confessed struggling under the financial strains of lopsided divorce settlements that leave men drained, homeless or even jailed over missed payments. Yet frequently their sacrifices are considered normalized, just another statistic.
Reconciling Her Beliefs With Reality
Between the emotional trauma and economic uncertainty that she witnessed firsthand, it’s no wonder Emily found herself increasingly jaded about the concept of marriage after her split.
“It makes you very cynical…of really signing legal contracts with the government,” she quips. Bias in the system has directly shown her one side often emerges far happier than the other when wedding bliss fades.
Yet at the same time, her religious beliefs still uphold the sanctity of marriage as an important milestone. “I‘m very traditional and I have very strong faith…so I take marriage extremely seriously because I do believe it’s something very sacred before God.”
Biblical Scripture speaks frequently to God’s intentions for relationships – highlighting traits for healthy partnerships like sacrifice, selflessness and forgiveness when facing conflict.
Rather than bitterness or resentment, He calls believers to prioritize reconciliation through open communication, wise counsel and removing personal logs before judging a partner‘s specks.
Yet still sin can shatter even sincere unions beyond hope of restoration this side of eternity. Thus provisions for divorce appear threaded throughout Old and New Testaments alike for extreme situations.
In Emily’s case, no explosive wrongdoing occurred – simply an organic growing apart. Though in God’s omniscience, He foresaw the incompatibility and provides promised comfort for her grief.
Regardless, squaring bitter experience with innocent ideology has become an internal tug-of-war when considering the possibility of saying “I do” again. Emily admits to feeling “once bitten, twice shy” now about jumping back in.
Rightly so, statistically – subsequent marriages see over a 60% higher chance of failure compared to firsts, even factoring out outliers who marry serially. Diminishing trust makes investing vulnerable hopes again harder each time dreams shatter.
A Second Shot: This Time on Their Terms
Yet rather than write off the institution as doomed altogether, Emily appears to have reached a healthy balance in her views. She articulates no hostility towards marriage itself, nor ex-spouses who couldn’t fulfill unrealistic fairytales.
Instead, she values weddings as a meaningful milestone while respecting their intricacies with far more knowledgeable reservations now. A sober evaluation of risks allows room for simultaneously preserving optimistic ideals while tempering them with pragmatic patience.
Emily makes clear marriage itself is certainly not off the table forever – rather, she and her boyfriend are simply biding time to ensure conditions are exactly right this round before consolidating their new family officially. She seems willing to thoughtfully build foundations strong enough to beat daunting odds, despite understandable hesitancy lending warranted wariness.
And a huge consideration is timing their nuptials so that all of their children can participate joyfully when the big day comes. Between her two kids from her previous marriage and her partner’s own son as well, coordinating around busy custody schedules takes considerable thoughtfulness – but promises precious rewards.
“There wasn’t a time yet that worked for our family,” she explains. Research shows that blending a family through remarriage gets exponentially more intricate with more members involved. But making sure her expanding brood can stand beside her is non-negotiable. “I want to make sure all of our kids are there.”
As any gamer knows, side quests that seem tedious end up unlocking the most valuable rewards, deepening bonds between characters that just showing up for boss fights alone cannot accomplish. Similarly, Emily and her partner recognize they share the daily parenting grind already – waiting until the teenagers’ schedules sync up poses no substantial opportunity cost for their current relationship, while guaranteeing the best chance of their support on the big day.
Beyond logistics though, the most critical element is giving their relationship time to blossom completely organically without external pressures. Attempting to force fruition on a predetermined deadline rarely ends well in games when natural pacing gets disrupted without consideration for contextual factors.
“No one should rush into decisions like that. There will be a time when it feels right,” she maintains. After previously committing too hastily, refusing to ignore foundational cracks now takes justified precedence over meeting others’ arbitrary expectations.
Get married by 30, have babies by 35…society imposes no shortage of socially constructed schedules, especially on women. But Emily emphasizes tuning out those voices in favor trusting her own instincts to pursue milestones if and when she feels genuinely ready by her own measures – not mass-marketed ideals, no matter how seductively portrayed in Hollywood blockbusters.
“It’s so freeing to get to a point in life when you just make choices based on what feels right to you, not what anyone else wants,” she explains, whether that refers to family, friends, society overall, or the faceless masses of social media followers evaluating her worth by engagement metrics.
Gamers know that side quests outrank main storyline completion percentage every time if chosen deliberately based on your desired experience. Similarly, Emily centers her choices first and foremost around her family and spirituality rather than caving to outside observers. For her, customized continuity trumps standardized timelines.
Her Complex Journey: A Retrospective
While jokes scored Emily plenty of likes online initially, her courage to thoughtfully walk her own path with authenticity blazes a trail for others to follow when they similarly feel alienated from mainstream metrics. After all, behind every profile picture hides complex stories still being written – but only the boldest step forward to share their truth.
By unveiling her vulnerability amid seemingly “perfect” curated Instagram snippets, Emily calls attention to the hollowness of projecting two-dimensional perfection online. Reality occurs in the space between and beyond the frames. Filters may distort for appearances, but lived experience always reveals far more shades along the way.
The statistics bear her out too – views regarding marriage shift generationally, but personal ideals still shape individual choices more than blanket standards can capture. She speaks to a larger tendency than isolated experience, revealing partial insight into a generational zeitgeist.
For example, a recent Barna study found that nearly 75% of single adults aged 18 to 35 hope to get married, indicating young people still value the institution conceptually. Yet almost 40% feel hesitant to actually commit, desiring financial stability beforehand or lacking models of healthy lifelong partnerships around them. Millenials especially acknowledge more diverse relationship configurations than generations past, from cohabitating to delaying childbearing.
Emily’s candid openness thus taps into broader discussions already unfolding questioning traditional assumptions as times change. Expectations rooted social norms or religious ethics don’t always align with updated realities – and when dissonance arises, personal convictions carry greater weight determining directions forward.
Rather than be shamed for changing life plans or judged for an unorthodox path, she hopes illuminating her humanity during growth through complex choices promotes empathy rather than assumptions: “It‘s just not always black and white.” Simple tropes rarely reflect real-world relationships in all their colorful, complicated multi-textured glory.
When it comes to intangible matters of the heart, no formulaic flowchart or decision tree captures every unfurling permutation of an individual’s one-of-a-kind story. Cookie cutter timelines market standards disguise the inherent diversity defining our tapestries vibrantly.
True love and lifelong commitment still burn bright as worthy ideals Emily values sincerely for what they represent at their essence — though now grounded by transformed understanding gained through hard-earned lived experience. The naive Bubble Pop Kingdom dreams of youth peeled away reveals the true Evermore Adventure lying ahead.
What milestones ultimately materialize down the line cannot be predicted conclusively amidst ever-unfolding variables. But for now, Emily appears centered, at peace with herself, and open to receiving whatever unexpected blessings this next chapter holds. With courage to stand firmly rooted yet respond fluidly as growth flows, she models resilience regardless what storms batter rigid oak trees.
Perhaps most admirably, she embraces messiness as inevitable rather than airbrushing life’s inherent struggles away. Owning perceived personal flaws recognizes universal humanity better than pretending perfection projected outward. Her bold vulnerability thus liberates truth and turns tests to open testimonies.
While how her own tale proceeds waits on the horizon, her willingness to walk ahead as pathfinder shining light behind her blazes trail for others.
So for all fellow passionate gamers and believers out there likewise searching, take heart. When intimacy glitches strike our adventures again and again, healing hack lies inside – arescue relationship with the Author Himself ever guiding our side quests.
His love never fails.