Still on the journey 2

[princess_nic]

Thank you all for your ongoing support. Even though I have not posted on my own thread in a bit, I do read all your posts and they warm my heart.

TD - No need to apologize. I was thinking of you yesterday; it's so funny that you posted!

Daisy - Good to hear from you again; you sound so much better than you did a few months ago.

My focus now is on me - mending what I need to within myself and creating the life I want. The R stuff will fall into place on its own. That is what I believe. I believe the same for you and I think you are well on your way down that path. The R stuff (with or without your H) will fall into place for you on its own!!

I think so, too, Daisy; when we are healed from our old Ms, and from other injuries in the past, then our hearts will open to the right person. (((Daisy))) Take care, sugar.

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I am going to post some rather long introspection here, so feel free to skip if you get too bored. I need to work this out in writing.

I have been feeling very sad for the last few days, but I've not been sure why. It is not about H; it goes deeper than that. I did not spend any time with friends this week, so that's part of it. I feel lonely. But there is more.

I finally realized yesterday, as I was walking my dog, what it was: I am STILL beating myself up for not giving my children the family I didn't have. My parents were-and are-married (to each other, lol). But theirs was not a happy marriage. I don't know if it is now, or if they've just gotten used to each other. When my brother and I were children, they were both very unhappy. My father was seldom home, and when he was, he was either angry or distant (just like H after we had kids). He was sometimes verbally abusive with me and my brother, occasionally physically abusive with my brother. He was cold and unloving. He has NEVER told me he loves me. It took me something like 35 years to figure that one out on my own.

My mother was very loving, but critical. She favoured my brother b/c she felt bad that my father was harder on him (she says she didn't know about the things he said to me). She always pushed me to do the things that SHE wanted to do, and discounted my feelings. She still does that, although I've been better about calling her on it recently. I felt, and still feel, like I was in competition with her--or rather, like she is in competition with me: e.g. she is overweight and I have a "great figure"; she competes with me for my children's love (even my dad has noticed this). What's interesting is that I can see now how my mother was with me, and why her criticism affected me so much: it's very subtle. She loves my DD to bits, but if DD does something my mum doesn't like, she's punished: e.g. DD got annoyed with my mum for talking to her about a camera mum wanted to get for her during my baptism! So my mum said she wouldn't buy her one. And then she told me about it in great detail (in front of D10) and rehashed it again with D10. This is typical. So whenever DD or I do/did something she doesn't like, my mum uses emotional blackmail on us. I can handle it as an adult b/c I can see it for what it is, but a child can't.

At one point, my mother actually left my father when I was about 12. She got an apt and showed it to me and my brother before we moved. It was rundown and in a kind of crummy area (we lived in a really nice area). She would have had pretty much no money b/c my father had a shark L. Yep, I knew all about it, isn't that nice?

I was very upset b/c as much as part of my wanted my parents to split up b/c I was so unhappy at home, I didn't want to move far from my friends into this crummy place.

Anyhow, my brother and I went down to Maine with my paternal grandparents, like we did every summer, right after this. We had not moved. My g-father said all this was my mother's fault and my father didn't want the D (yet I knew that my father had refused MC). When we got back a few weeks later, they were back together. Sometime later, I found out that it was b/c my father's L had moved that they should have to split assets under the law of when and where they were married (UK, 1965), which meant that my mother would get pretty much nil. She had a nursing degree, but didn't speak French and had not worked since she got married. Really, she didn't have much choice but to stay.

Things btw my parents did not improve. I began to get depressed and told them that I needed help. My mother said my father wouldn't pay for it. True? Probably. But why didn't she just take the money and do it? Fear? Who knows. She is the one who took care of all the day-to-day money, even though he earned it.

Finally, at age 19, I attempted suicide. The psych at the hospital told my parents they either needed to get help for themselves or get me a place on my own. My father refused to do either.

I stayed for another few years, until I finished my BA (they wouldn't pay for me to go away to school). I was miserable at home, but stayed out a lot. I knew that it would be better for me to finish school before moving out. After graduation, I worked for part of the summer, the went to Europe for two months. When I got back, I moved out with $2,000 I had saved. Seemed like a lot at the time! My mother told me I was like a rat leaving a sinking ship.

Meanwhile, I started dating H in my last year of university. I moved into my own place, and he moved in with me a year later. Two years after that, we were married. Things were good till DD10 was born. They got bad for about a year, then better, then bad again three years later, when H had a one-night stand. He felt extremely guilty, which is why I never thought he could have an A and keep it from me.

When H left, I said to him, "All I ever wanted was to have a happy family." He asked me if I wanted HIM, or just a husband/father. Of course, I said him, but now I'm not so sure.

I have so much guilt over not doing better than my parents. Damn it! I know the devastating effects of a "dysfunctional" family. I have suffered two decades of chronic depression at least in part due to that. I have attempted suicide twice and seriously planned it two additional times. I DO NOT WANT MY CHILDREN TO GO THROUGH THIS. I am so afraid that I've really screwed up with my D because she's aleady 10. At least my S is only 5.

Rationally, I realize that my H and I were NOT providing a happy home for our children when we were together. Because of our own issues, we could not do that. I am now giving them that, for the most part, anyway. I still don't know if H is capable of it, at least not if he had to deal with a marital R on top of the kids.

I wanted SO MUCH for my children to grow up in a happy, close, intact family. I have such a hard time believing that children of divorce can really be okay. I just really hope that is true. I guess it couldn't be worse than having two parents together who are miserable and take it out on them (as I lived through and then repeated).

Gosh, sorry this is so long. Once I got started, I couldn't stop.

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end!

~Nicola