No one really understands why a person can simply walk away from a long standing marriage. If there was someone who truly did know why and how, there would be far fewer broken marriages in the world.
MWD does not have the answers to fix every troubled marriage. And those of us who found our spouses running away to other people and walking away from their family here on MLC - well, I have come to believe that when a true relationship has been formed by our spouse with another person, our marriage is in serious trouble at that point.
DB'ing does two very good things in my opinion. First, it directs us to look inward and address ourselves. The break in our marriage provides each of us with the opportunity to focus our energies on ourselves and thereby make some mid-life corrections. Some may have been needed for some time, but the busyness of life has simply not allowed it. Secondly, I think the DB'ing techniques are wonderful for marriages that are in a down cycle, but that still have two reasonable spouses involved. Most of us were NOT in that boat.
Every single one of us on this board wanted to be one of the success stories in terms of saving and rebuilding our marriages. And I say CUDO's to each of us for coming here with that desire.
You had 17 years together with the man that you loved, AND WHO LOVED YOU. Never allow his actions of the past couple years cause you to believe that any part of those 17 years were a lie. Our spouse may reject us and leave us behind, taking away something incredibly precious to us. They can take away the love they had for us. They can take away the future that we might have had together.
But we cannot allow them to take away the life together that we KNOW we had for those many years.
Your children are the clearest evidence of what you meant to your husband and the love you had together.
It is human nature to nullify the past in order to move in a new direction. Your husband simply could not justify his present without in some way casting aspersions on his past. That is HIS problem, not yours. Do NOT allow yourself to become part of his justification.
I choose to believe that there are at least moments when my ex-wife has brief glimpses of just what she has lost. And yes, I believe that she LOST. Because I know now, over two years post bomb, that I was NOT a bad husband, an unloving man, or a person that needed to be left. So, while I may never know for sure, I tell myself that my ex-wife HAS experienced a sense of the life she lost by making such a profound change in her life.
Her new man will NEVER be 1/10th of the husband that I was to her. She will never have children with this new man. She will never have the 21 years with him that we had together. Even if she spends the rest of her life with him, she will have spent her best years with her former husband and the two wonderful children we bore together.
It's ok to feel the loss. It's ok to ask the questions. But ALWAYS bring yourself back around to affirming yourself and the woman that you are. Woman, wife, and mother.
My path took me to a new life with a beautiful, loving, and supportive woman who understands what has happened to my life, because it happened to hers as well. It has brought three more children into my life, children who are willing to accept me into their life. It has brought my two sons another adult who loves them and cares about their futures.
Life is as good as we allow it to be.
The past NEVER goes away. But life will continue to move on, and it can be awesome when we refuse to allow the losses to paralyze us from allowing for all the possibilities out there in front of us.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
