H2H, The conversation went well. She did not even bring up or bash me for my other woman sl^t b^tch...OWSB.
First off...my point is trying to be happy is NOT a bad thing. It is a good thing. That's what our minds do by nature. They build up defense mechanisms to avoid pain so we have a shot at being "happy".
We should not take "happiness" for granted and feel like just because we were born on this earth we are ENTITLED to it. Life sucks. We will appreciate happiness more knowing it is a blessing or a gift not someting we deserve.
There are two sides to every story. If you H is being abusive....I agree...protect yourself and your child.
Divorce is not a good thing, but neither is abuse.
I'm not here to try to save your marriage, unless you reveal more that may give me hope.
You are so young and have so much potential. I think your worldview will set you up for a lot of pain. I'm more concerned about your mind than your marriage.
JM- What about her world veiw scares you? And as for happiness ok so your right we are not entiteld to it from birth, but every one has a chance in life to be happy. Happiness is not given it is worked for day and night. It is an unending strugle to live your life the way you want it. Now i as well have a SO (love this). Now you all can bash me. For my W and i have come to an agrement after 10 years of friendship 5 of that married. and that was why the hell did we get married. my married life was ok to not good to down right bad. We did the counseling the retriets and all that we could. We worked hard to save our M. But what we found was that it did not need to be saved it needed to go away. But not all people are like me, though we do all make mistakes. H2H you hang in there i have a fealing every thing will work it self out, take care of your self and do what you need to do to stay safe. And shame on him for selling the cats, bad bad bad(im an animal junkie)consider your self hugged. JM you can bash away now, ask anything and i will fill you in on the details.
****It is an unending strugle to live your life the way you want it.
I think our differences all boil down to this. There was a point in time that I DID NOT want to live with my W. I was HAPPY living with the OW.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every decision we make, it will effect others. We do not live in a vacum of our own lives and our own decisions.
When people simply strive for their happiness without considering the impact on others....well to be blunt that is selfish.
The OW in my life had the same philosphy that you do. I made her happy. She wanted me at all costs. You know what those costs were???? My wife, my kids, my house, my money, possibly my job.
She did not care that not only I was going to lose all that, but the impact on my kids, the impact on my wife, the impact on my family.
There is NOTHING wrong with wanting to be happy, but you have to consider the consequences for others.
Let's consider life if EVERYONE had the worldview you do.
There would be no D-Day at Normandy...I can't image it would make the soldiers happy to die.
There would be no soup kitchens...I can think of tons of things I would rather do to make me happy other than giving soup to a bunch of smelly bums.
Not sure if you are a Christian or not but.
There would be no salvation. I'm sure Christ would have been happier not being strapped to the tree.
I could go on and on, but I won't.
Happiness is a good thing, but not at others expense. That is not happiness. That is a selfish false happiness and you are cheating yourself out of the true happiness life has to offer.
I tend to agree with a lot of what JM said...goes back to the saying "There is more happiness in then there is in receiving"....if everyone lived their life with this followed by the Golden Rule this would be a wonderful world...
I know I have become a more happy person by thinking less of myself and more of others...by giving of myself...there is happiness in satisfaction...
I don't think anyone can be truly happy at the expense of others either....there isn't enough booze on earth to keep that guilt numbed....you can't go and throw others feelings around and then expect that you are going to find your happiness under the covers of anothers bed...
If you do not and never have loved your wife, then I am both saddened and yet somehow in awe of you. Yes, your children are important, and I get the idea that your wife is really a great person. But what about you? I know it sounds selfish, and maybe it is, but don't you have a right to happiness too? And doesn't it worry you that your kids will have a slightly bitter view of marriage? They can tell, you know. Children can see when their parents have a loveless marriage.
Having grown up in a divorced household, I can tell you it SUX!!!! I'd see other kids with their families, or with their fathers and I'd just feel this sense of loss and emptiness. That loss was irreplacable and now looking back I can see how much it has affected my life and my relationships in ways I never realized when I was younger. Things that I thought I realized, or parts of me that I thought were healthy or healed, were really torn and weak.
Interestingly, as a teacher, I can often quickly spot which kids come from divorced homes. Not all kids from divorced households have problems, but out of all the kids that do have problems (emotional/behavioral) they almost always come from divorced families (excluding kids with learning disabilies).
I'm not advocating staying in a marriage "just for the kids," but I will say from everything I've experienced and read, I think it has much more impact and the effects are much larger then most people realize.
On the other hand, what type of marriages really "hurt" children more than divorce? What exactly is a love-based or loveless marriage? Clearly marriages with drug or alcohol abuse, verbal and physical abuse, etc... would be harmful. Is a "loveless" marriage really worse then divorce?
According to one of the largest studies on divorce (it was a good-sized population of kids followed over a 25 year period -- unfortunately I can't think of the name of the book right now... it might be "A Case Against Divorce"???), the kids didn't always realize their parents had a loveless marriage (at least not until early adulthood). It was determined that the stability and security offered by these marriages was still more beneficial then divorce.
Another interesting thing to consider is, what is love? Time magazine about a year or so ago reduced it to chemicals in the body. There's the "honeymoon" phase where we really are giddy with it because endorphins and other chemicals are pulsing through our bodies making us feel good and giving us that "love high." But real love is something that takes a lot of time to discover. And love tends to ebb and flow. Sometimes we don't have those feelings. I've been married 21 years and I can tell you that even though I have had chemistry and love (and lots of sexual passion), in my marriage, there have been plenty of time over the years where I didn't feel "love" or questioned if I was with "the right person," or that there might be someone "better" out there for me.
Just like happiness is something you find in yourself, I think love is the same. I've noticed that when I give it, and put it out there I feel it. I think real love (beyond the chemical thing) is a choise.
Okay... time to get off the soapbox! ;-)
There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.
Quote: I don't think anyone can be truly happy at the expense of others either....there isn't enough booze on earth to keep that guilt numbed....you can't go and throw others feelings around and then expect that you are going to find your happiness under the covers of anothers bed
runningoutoftime
That is very interesting. Do you have links to any of these studies? I think it would be good for others, myself included, to read over all that.
I agree that divorce is more damaging to the kids that people think.
What you said about "staying for the kids" struck me though.
Quote: According to one of the largest studies on divorce (it was a good-sized population of kids followed over a 25 year period -- unfortunately I can't think of the name of the book right now... it might be "A Case Against Divorce"???), the kids didn't always realize their parents had a loveless marriage (at least not until early adulthood). It was determined that the stability and security offered by these marriages was still more beneficial then divorce.
Hell...if that is true I will sleep on the couch for the next 18 years!
You should not stay in an abusive relationship. DBing is not intended for that. There definitely are situations where divorce is necessary (my father was an abusive alcoholic so divorce was necessary, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt me or have profound impact on my life). On another note, don't look for happiness in the OP (don't expect any person to be responsible for your happiness because most likely there will be plenty of times of unhappiness). Happiness is something you find in yourself.
Jokerman,
Wrong book title!!!! I must have seen that other one recently while scanning through books.
The one I'm referring to is "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce," by Wallerstein. Here's a link to it on amazon and the first review with paraphrases parts of it:
"Judith Wallerstein has been tracking children of divorce for over 25
years now, and she doesn't like what she sees. Nor should we. Despite
all the rhetoric and denial by the feminists and the detractors of
marriage, divorce hurts children, and it hurts them even when they
have long ago ceased being children.
Judith Wallerstein, from the
University of California in Berkeley, first wrote of the effects on
children of divorce in her 1980 Surviving the Breakup. Then in 1989
she authored Second Chances. In that book she documented how children
still suffer, ten to fifteen years after parental divorce. In this
book she covers a full 25 years of the children's lives. Now, as
adults, the harmful effects of divorce are still clearly
discernible. Indeed, "the whole trajectory of an individual's life
is profoundly altered by the divorce experience".
Judith
Wallerstein began her study in 1971 with 131 children going through
parental divorce. She has managed to keep in contact with this group,
along with a control group, for a quarter of a century, thus making
her research conclusions difficult to dislodge. And the main
conclusion reached by this study is that the effects of divorce are
long-term.
Says Wallerstein, "From the viewpoint of the children,
and counter to what happens to their parents, divorce is a cumulative
experience. Its impact over time rises to a crescendo in adulthood. At
each developmental stage divorce is experienced anew in different
ways. In adulthood it affects personality, the ability to trust,
expectations about relationships, and ability to cope with
change."
She continues, "But its in adulthood that children of
divorce suffer the most. The impact of divorce hits them most cruelly
as they go in search of love, sexual intimacy, and commitment. Their
lack of inner images of a man and a woman in a stable relationship and
their memories of their parents' failure to sustain the marriage badly
hobbles their search, leading them to heartbreak and even
despair."
This book features seven of the original 131 children,
offering poignant glimpses into their troubled and traumatic lives as
adult children of divorce.These stories make it clear that parental
divorce is one of the worst things that adults can inflict upon a
child. While Wallerstein acknowledges that some marriages cannot be
salvaged, especially where much domestic violence is involved, most
marriages have simply been abandoned too easily and carelessly, with
little or no thought given for how the child will be impacted.
But
as many observers of contemporary culture have noted, the rights of
adults have become the greatest good, with the interests of children
and the social good largely ignored. As Wallerstein asks, "What
about the children? In our rush to improve the lives of adults, we
assumed that their lives would improve as well. We made radical social
changes in the family without realizing how it would change the
experience of growing up. We embarked on a gigantic social experiment
without any idea about how the next generation would be
affected".
Well, now we know. History and common sense should
have already told us, but now solid social science evidence can also
be presented. Divorce hurts kids, and it hurts them for a very long
time. The social policy implications of this lie outside of the scope
of this book, but clearly we need to somehow turn around the divorce
culture and return to a culture of marriage. Reading this book,
passing it on to a friend, and getting it into the hands of our
political leaders would be a good place to start."
Last edited by runningoutoftime; 07/31/0602:12 AM.
There is no arriving, ever. It is all a continual becoming.
