One other thing, now that I've read your recent post...
Quote:
Which leads me to . . . I realized today that one of my big fears around D is being a failure. I realized that, though I don't consider myself a particularly materialistic person, I in fact do view a nice car, a nice house, and being married as successes in life. If/when we get D, I will have to downgrade my car and house, and my standard of living in general, and, worst of all, I will be D. Something I never wanted to be, because I view D as a failure. A cop out. Something that only weak people do. (I hope I am not offending anyone here, I am just trying to be honest with myself . . . and obviously I am challenging these long held beliefs.)
I'm not offended. Okay, so my marriage failed. Does that make me a failure? After all, I did everything I could possibly do to keep that door wide open, and it just didn't work out. If anyone was weak, it was my H.
I'm glad you challenge your beliefs. Because they aren't only unfair to yourself and others, they just aren't true. It's just the flip side of the coin of being a perfectionist. When is doing what you can good enough, Melissa? Some things come to a head no matter our intentions or the work we've put into the issue.
When you were a lawyer... if you lost a case (maybe even a big one)... were you a failure? Or did the one big case have some fundamental flaws that you just couldn't see? There are technicalities, unfair or biased juries and judges, people lie under oath... there are lots of reasons cases can't be won. If they are out of your control, that still makes you a failure?
I've failed at a lot of things in my life. Failing at my marriage was probably the biggest. But my definition of failure is if I don't learn from the experience. THEN I'm a failure.
My standard of living has been downgraded. I haven't had a true splurgy vacation in a few years (I have typically spent my time off following my volleyball player around like a gypsy). I don't have a new car. And I definitely wear yoga pants more than I should. Okay. I wish I had a *little* more money to play with, but I'm okay. I can put food on the table. I can take care of my girls (with my child support being generous). I can put gas in my car, and I can travel a little bit every year. My XH and I send our D19 to a $52K/year engineering school (thankfully her grades qualify her for a boatload of scholarship money). All is well in my world.
Every night, I say thank you to the big guy above for giving me enough to take care of things. The best part is that my D19 has grown up to be a grateful person. And neither of my kids has known true lack. That's good enough for me.
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
