Quote: The career in which I had my entire identity wrapped up, was taken away from me by the diagnosis of a medical problem...a congenital heart defect. I'd spent my entire youth preparing to be a military pilot. I could fly a plane before I could drive a car. I'd spent my education on attaining this goal...its highly competative. The us Navy was accepting about 300 people a year into the program. I was eventually selected...
Chuck, this is HUGE... I'm so sorry your health prevented you from attaining your dream. Damn. Have you really let yourself be angry about this and also to grieve over it? Or are you telling yourself that it doesn't matter and it's no big deal? It's a very big deal. This is huge... really. (((((Chuck)))))
My late H was a helicopter pilot in VietNam (medivac) and when he came back he was diagnosed with diabetes. He was not permitted to fly anymore (not that he wanted to go back THERE!), and the rest of his life (~30 years) was spent coping with that progressive disease, which eventually killed him.
My father also wanted to be a Navy pilot in WWII, and he was accepted into the program. He was very smart. But he needed a birth certificate, and in the little county on the Texas-Arkansas border where he came from, they didn't do birth certificates in 1925. By the time he got a letter testifying to his birth date, it was too late. He spent the rest of his life bitter and angry, and I'm sure he never attributed it to that. But when he wrote about it when he was in his 60's a big light bulb went on over MY head.
And the way you describe how you and your W got together is about the most unromantic thing I ever heard. It's almost as unromantic as my bf coming to be drunk every night for the first two years of our R...
Some lousy things happened to you that you had no control over. But you still have choices. For one thing, you have the choice whether to let these things determine WHO you are now. You have the choice to stay in the marriage or not. You have the choice to take care of your health or not. You have the choice to stop defining your life by what happens or has happened OUTSIDE of you.
At some point you and your W each made the choice to be in this M. Is that still a viable choice? Do you still want to be there? Does she? Don't live the rest of your life in the passive voice. Sh*t happens. You were dealt some bad cards... not the worst ones in the deck... but you've had obstacles.
What do you want to do with the REST of your life?
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Edited to add: It just occurred to me that you and cobra have a lot in common. Cobra and his wife also did not start out in a blaze of romance. (Maybe you've already told him this, cobra.) They got married because cobra's GF (soon to be wife) got pregnant.
So the question is, can you start from no love and no romance and build a solid, emotionally and physically satisfying relationship? I dunno... Dang, it's hard enough when you start out with romance, let alone when you start out with none...
