Kassie2

Hi everyone!

It has been awhile again. I keep thinking I am done with things and have moved on but just encountered another step in the process of recovering from an A marriage.

While the marriage was a second one and lasted only 5 years - I discovered that the damage went beyond me - my daughter came home for a week between her job and starting school. She had pictures from the summer to show me what her job was like. While going through her album, we came across other pictures from events during the years of my marriage. It was that moment when I realized that I really wasn't there during those activities - I knew they were going on and she had pictures then but I wasn't able to sit with her and go through them at the time. I felt that I had missed out on a big part of her life because I was too busy taking care of an A.

So she spend the evening going through the pictures and telling me the stories to catch me up. I also learned that she had planned to move out during that time but was reminded that she would lose all that time with me and not know how our relationship would end up. So she stayed and now we are close. We are both grateful for how things turned out once I was able to move forward in my recovery.

I am writing this wondering how many others felt this way when living with an A and whether you would like to share how you have worked this out. I think it a hopeful outcome and newbies may need the encouragement that things can get better. It also reminds me of how focused on the A we can become and how that hurts others.

Thanks for listening.

mattmathews

Part of living "in the now" is forgiving ourselves for the mistakes in our past. And to a large extent I'm able to do that.
But if I regretted just one thing? The lost time.

StarCat

There's a lot of opportunities I have missed and a lot of people I allowed myself to lose touch with during my time with XABF. I have reconnected with most of those people, and still it's frustrating to realize that I allowed myself to put his self-imposed crisis above so many of the things that should matter in life.

In High School I had a very close group of friends, and my best friend among them got married while I was with XABF. I was to be a bridesmaid, and yet I didn't even go to the wedding because XABF was putting up too much of a fuss and making it difficult to go. (Purchasing tickets to things the weekend of the wedding and all the days available to try on the bridesmaids dresses, complaining about how he didn't get sent an invitation - heck, I didn't get sent an invitation - and about how I'd be in the wedding party so he'd have to talk to my parents and didn't I realize he could not be in the same room as them, etc, etc...)

I am friends with this friend once again, and she has forgiven me, and we are so grateful to be back in each other's lives... And still, going to her wedding is an experience I will never have a chance to do again (I hope, anyway!), so there are experiences lost even still.

And yet this summer another High School friend of mine got married, and I was at her wedding, as were most of my group of friends from high school, and we were inseparable the entire time (excluding the bride, as her attention was pulled in all directions - but she spent most of it with us *Grins*).

I am learning that missed opportunities do come around again. They may have a different shape, a different color, but it's another opportunity to grow myself and grow my relationship with those I care about, nonetheless. If I spend all my time mourning missed opportunities, I'll keep missing the new chances that appear in my life.

fourmaggie

living in the MOMENT, here and now...