Hope and heartache

[ClingingToHope]

Should be sleeping. Instead I'm watching P.S. I Love You. Wonderful movie for a hopeless romantic, which I am. Unfortunately, Hollywood is so not like real life. I always believed in happily ever after and when my marriage didn't unfold that way I didn't know what to do. I so thought I'd be the perfect husband and whoever fell in love with me would just be perfect and we'd work things out with a look or a joke.

I wasn't prepared for how hard it was. Not at all. And my W was in a no win situation. I had unrealistic expectations.

Of course, she's a damaged person as well. Part of the reason I was attracted to her was because I thought she needed me. I worked harder and harder and harder over the years and it made her resent me more and more. So now it's over between us -- there will be no second chances -- and I have to move on and she has to find out whether it was me that made her unhappy or if she can be happy.

I look at the Stockdale Paradox -- it's my quote on my Facebook page -- and wonder if I misinterpreted it. Stockdale, who was a longtime POW, was asked how he knew he'd be OK? He said he always trusted in the end of the story.

I looked at that and thought that I should trust in the love story that I thought was me and my W. Instead, the story is me and someone and my daughters after they've successfully graduated college and started their careers and their families.

It is not the story I hoped for 15 years ago when I met W. But it will be a good story. It will be a great story.

Goodnight my DB friends.