I want to try to get my family back where we need to be.
This kind of expectation would get me into trouble and would definitely lead to disappointment and anger in me!
I've learned (the hard way like we all seem to!) that my fantasies and idealization, particularly of the past, are some of the creeping tentacles of DENIAL.
Also vis-avis anger: my therapist taught me a great lesson- the feeling of anger is vital, it points to something being wrong and something that needs attention. It is the expression of anger that I needed a plan for how to deal with. It really came down to having the right words, and practicing them, so that I was not hurting people I loved or saying things I would regret, but I was also not burying and denying very important and powerful problems.
It also helped to say to myself ten hundred billion times a day: The past is gone, I am free in this moment.
peace-
b