When I was going through my divorce, I bought a lovely little necklace from the Signals catalog of a door. The door opened up to display the wording, "When one door closes, another one opens." These words were a powerful motivation for me during that cruelly trying time.
I reflect on those words now and this current topic. During the period of my divorce, I corresponded by email with a wonderful father of four living downstate, three hours away. He had total custody of his children and our relationship progressed to the point of interacting daily by email. We did talk occasionally on the phone and even met once. I considered him more of a good friend and he is the one person I can say really understood what my life of widowhood was like and being an only parent. We often commiserated and compared parenting notes. We had planned to meet again when he came to my area for a work seminar, but those plans fell through when his mother died.
I am sure our relationship would have deepened if we lived closer to one another. As it was, last summer when I was up to my eyeballs in trying to prepare my house to be sold and all of that, I decided to end our interaction, solely due to the distance between us. Sam was fully aware of my friendship and wasn't threatened. But for all involved, I felt it was time to let it go.
Early this year, I decided to check and see how my friend was doing. He got back to me with the news that he had remarried right around Valentine's Day. Wonderful news and lucky for him to have met a nice woman within that six month time period between when I'd last communicated with him (July). I will admit feeling a little envious and even some regret. The man I'd chosen to continue with in a relationship hadn't wanted the commitment of marriage. I questioned whether I'd picked the wrong guy. But no, I can't think like that - there was the distance factor and my resolve to have the boys finish high school where they are.
I have to console myself with the knowledge that there are men out there who want to get married. I was talking with my oldest today about dating and I mentioned that I don't feel I've been very lucky in/with love since the death of my spouse. My son said it is not so much that I haven't been lucky, just that I haven't had a relationship where the man lives in the same area.
Anyway, what really has given me solace are the words on that door necklace. I want to believe that perhaps I had something to do with my friend meeting his new wife. My letting go caused him to reach out, or get out there or do something different that resulted in his meeting her! Now that is pretty darn amazing. One door closed for my friend, but boy did it open! What a happy ending considering he had recently lost his home due to foreclosure. He told me that he and his new wife are buying an old five-bedroom farmhouse through a contract arrangement. I wonder if it is the farmhouse I saw for sale when I checked out real estate listings in his town, just for fun. I remember looking at that listing and thinking it would have been a good fit.
My friend is proof that you can survive foreclosure and divorce and move on to a new, hopeful and happy life. I want to believe that his story can be experienced by all of us and that someday I too may be able to joyfully speak of an opportunity for another chance at marriage and living in a home again.
The latest piece of motivational jewelery that I am interested in is from Jane Seymour's line at Kay Jewelers. They feature two open, intertwined hearts. Her inspiration for creating the line came from a saying of her mother's - that as long as you keep your heart open, love will find its way to you. I hope it finds a way back to my heart too.
Showing posts with label regrets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regrets. Show all posts
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Monday, December 7, 2009
Enough is Enough!
The light bulb has gone off in my head that the past couple years of self-flogging, berating, beating up on and blaming myself for the divorce are pointless and futile. I have certainly suffered, well beyond the realm of what could be considered normal or appropriate. Enough is enough! All I am really guilty of is wanting to be in another relationship that made me whole again after my husband's death. I had the courage to take a chance at love again. It sadly didn't last. I am not the first woman, nor the last who will become widowed or divorced and then get back out there on the horse only to be thrown off it.
All this wasted energy of taking the sole blame for the divorce. Believing it was all my fault. Even when as a counselor I know that it is never because of one person - it is always a mix of how a couple interacted. One partner may want to believe it was all because of the other but their behavior, values and shortcomings had a role in the story too.
So much of all of this internalized anger against myself is coming to the surface. I am sure it would not have simmered and brewed so long if Husband #2 and I had had more opportunities to talk. But his cutting me off from doing so was a way to insulate himself from accepting any responsibility for what happened. It allowed him to make a clean break and go back to his neat and tidy life without any regard for what happened to the little family he threw away.
As we continued to plunge to the ground financially and in having to sell the house, my beliefs that I was a terrible person seemed justified. This has been a damaging and awful mindset to have. It has been there underneath the surface invisible to others but always at work tearing me down and making me miserable despite the outer image I present to the world.
As do many people who have been abandoned/dumped, I put Husband #2 on some sort of pedestal. Believing to some extent that if I didn't rock the boat and reveal my true feelings that he would come back to me. I also struggle with issues of childhood neglect and so a part of all of this has included internalized fantasies of having the one most closest to me who wounded me, recognize the error of his ways, do a complete about face and return to my life to rescue, save and protect me. How can that ever materialize when the guy is unable to have a healthy emotional connection with his partner in the first place, much less be able to communicate on an intimate and honest level?
I would like to relate to Husband #2 that what hurt me most was that his refusal to speak with me, offer explanations of why he divorced me and even say goodbye to me or the boys made me feel like I was inhuman. That has cut me to the core and damaged me beyond measure. People who are kind and nice do not disrespect those they married (or anyone for that matter). My divorce attorney and the mediator did not justify his behavior but they explained it by saying a lot of people become very mean-spirited and ugly during divorce proceedings. I don't find that an acceptable excuse. As someone who stood loyally by her husband's side until he took his last breath after three long years of fighting a horrendous illness, this behavior will never make sense. All of us deserve compassion and dignity. He knew what I had gone through before he married me. No one put a gun to his head at the alter. If you want a divorce in this country you can get one. He was going to get that - there was no reason to rub salt into wounds already raw, ragged and bleeding.
I'd like to hope that people undergoing life transitions learn, grow and develop into better people than they were before the trials met them. But that isn't accomplished by closing the door to self-reflection and communication. It is very difficult to look at a situation and accept your responsibility within it. God knows, I am not lily white. But I do know that I did not intentionally try to cause harm and pain to others. Most of my errors were those of omission. I didn't realize some of the problems because I was too busy beating down the flames of the fires that had to be put out. Nor did Husband #2 ever really communicate to me the deep level of his discontented feelings.
It wasn't all my fault. I am not a terrible, undeserving person because this marriage failed. I wanted to work at it and wasn't given a chance. I hadn't given up on the love I felt. To be sure, this marriage set me back emotionally. In the end, it brought me all the way back to my childhood 45 years earlier. Who would ever have thought that on that gorgeous evening Husband #2 and I took our vows? Both of our childhood baggage has been at play within our relationship. I deeply regret that it wasn't possible for both of us to cling to one another throughout the storm and make it to the other side. That is what a marriage is all about. It would have been a glorious moment when both of us had stepped out from storm into the sunshine hand and hand together, instead of me doing so on my own.
All this wasted energy of taking the sole blame for the divorce. Believing it was all my fault. Even when as a counselor I know that it is never because of one person - it is always a mix of how a couple interacted. One partner may want to believe it was all because of the other but their behavior, values and shortcomings had a role in the story too.
So much of all of this internalized anger against myself is coming to the surface. I am sure it would not have simmered and brewed so long if Husband #2 and I had had more opportunities to talk. But his cutting me off from doing so was a way to insulate himself from accepting any responsibility for what happened. It allowed him to make a clean break and go back to his neat and tidy life without any regard for what happened to the little family he threw away.
As we continued to plunge to the ground financially and in having to sell the house, my beliefs that I was a terrible person seemed justified. This has been a damaging and awful mindset to have. It has been there underneath the surface invisible to others but always at work tearing me down and making me miserable despite the outer image I present to the world.
As do many people who have been abandoned/dumped, I put Husband #2 on some sort of pedestal. Believing to some extent that if I didn't rock the boat and reveal my true feelings that he would come back to me. I also struggle with issues of childhood neglect and so a part of all of this has included internalized fantasies of having the one most closest to me who wounded me, recognize the error of his ways, do a complete about face and return to my life to rescue, save and protect me. How can that ever materialize when the guy is unable to have a healthy emotional connection with his partner in the first place, much less be able to communicate on an intimate and honest level?
I would like to relate to Husband #2 that what hurt me most was that his refusal to speak with me, offer explanations of why he divorced me and even say goodbye to me or the boys made me feel like I was inhuman. That has cut me to the core and damaged me beyond measure. People who are kind and nice do not disrespect those they married (or anyone for that matter). My divorce attorney and the mediator did not justify his behavior but they explained it by saying a lot of people become very mean-spirited and ugly during divorce proceedings. I don't find that an acceptable excuse. As someone who stood loyally by her husband's side until he took his last breath after three long years of fighting a horrendous illness, this behavior will never make sense. All of us deserve compassion and dignity. He knew what I had gone through before he married me. No one put a gun to his head at the alter. If you want a divorce in this country you can get one. He was going to get that - there was no reason to rub salt into wounds already raw, ragged and bleeding.
I'd like to hope that people undergoing life transitions learn, grow and develop into better people than they were before the trials met them. But that isn't accomplished by closing the door to self-reflection and communication. It is very difficult to look at a situation and accept your responsibility within it. God knows, I am not lily white. But I do know that I did not intentionally try to cause harm and pain to others. Most of my errors were those of omission. I didn't realize some of the problems because I was too busy beating down the flames of the fires that had to be put out. Nor did Husband #2 ever really communicate to me the deep level of his discontented feelings.
It wasn't all my fault. I am not a terrible, undeserving person because this marriage failed. I wanted to work at it and wasn't given a chance. I hadn't given up on the love I felt. To be sure, this marriage set me back emotionally. In the end, it brought me all the way back to my childhood 45 years earlier. Who would ever have thought that on that gorgeous evening Husband #2 and I took our vows? Both of our childhood baggage has been at play within our relationship. I deeply regret that it wasn't possible for both of us to cling to one another throughout the storm and make it to the other side. That is what a marriage is all about. It would have been a glorious moment when both of us had stepped out from storm into the sunshine hand and hand together, instead of me doing so on my own.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
A Gift and a Curse
My husband and I never talked about his possibly dying. Never, not once did we have such a conversation after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. We continued to live life just as we always had with the chemo, radiation and stem cell transplant just taken as matter-of-fact details to be faced and dealt with. Except for the grueling medical aspects of his illness, our life was pretty much the same. We both worked, volunteered and were extremely hands-on parents. About a year into my husband's illness, he did bring up that he had been rejected for trying to obtain more life insurance for us. I did not make a big deal about this - just admitted that it was what it was.
I knew my husband very well and understood that this was how he needed to face his illness. He carried on with such strength and courage never even thinking of the possiblity of dying. That was perhaps a mistake for both of us because I went along with my husband's way of coping. I always considered it my gift to him - avoiding "Having the talk." If we had, I would have realized that the mortgage payment was just $200.00 less than the pension benefit we would receive. There may have been time to refinance or somehow reorganize the finances to have made our economic situation less challenging.
I am pretty sure that my husband truly believed that if he died, his mother may have provided something for us, or that we would make it financially. I do not even think that he knew what our actual pension benefit would be for us upon his death. It was just never looked into.
Looking back on the widowhood road, I have regrets over not talking about the what ifs. My husband died without ever knowing he was actually dying. That was a great blessing for him - that he was spared that. But that blessing has been a great hindrance to me. And I am the one who had to carry on raising the boys, his sons. So, in the end it would have been far better to have had the strength and courage to keep on living and fighting the illness, as well as facing the situation fully. I wish I had brought up the subject we so tried to hide from.
I knew my husband very well and understood that this was how he needed to face his illness. He carried on with such strength and courage never even thinking of the possiblity of dying. That was perhaps a mistake for both of us because I went along with my husband's way of coping. I always considered it my gift to him - avoiding "Having the talk." If we had, I would have realized that the mortgage payment was just $200.00 less than the pension benefit we would receive. There may have been time to refinance or somehow reorganize the finances to have made our economic situation less challenging.
I am pretty sure that my husband truly believed that if he died, his mother may have provided something for us, or that we would make it financially. I do not even think that he knew what our actual pension benefit would be for us upon his death. It was just never looked into.
Looking back on the widowhood road, I have regrets over not talking about the what ifs. My husband died without ever knowing he was actually dying. That was a great blessing for him - that he was spared that. But that blessing has been a great hindrance to me. And I am the one who had to carry on raising the boys, his sons. So, in the end it would have been far better to have had the strength and courage to keep on living and fighting the illness, as well as facing the situation fully. I wish I had brought up the subject we so tried to hide from.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Milestones
This week the boys start back to school; the dumpster is getting delivered tomorrow so we can start really clearing out the house/garage; and I turn 50! Is it ironic or perhaps not, that just as I turn 50, I am moving and really facing the start of a new life? Just interesting that the two coincide so closely.
I read a post today by another middle-aged widow, the topic being that you cannot rush the grieving process. It is individualized and also dictated by so many other circumstances. I can totally agree with her observation. But at the same time, here are these milestones glaring in my face telling me that the world is moving on and it is time for me too to make those steps.
I continue to be filled with regret that I was unable to move to my second husband's home at the time we had originally planned. Both of my parents were in the hospital during that summer and at one point we thought both were going to die, although my father recovered. I had workmen in the house fixing it up, was trying to parent two active early-adolescent boys on my own and had my new husband on my back for not being able to get it all together fast enough.
With some perspective and time behind me now, I realize that I just could not add the emotional and physical stress and stain of moving out-of-state to my already over brimming plate. I tried to explain that to my husband and begged him for his patience and understanding as I grappled with clearing out my parent's home after my Mom's death. He couldn't get it and filed for the divorce that January. But here I am now, at a different place with so many of those emotional hurdles gone. If only he had hung in there with me and realized that eventually I'd reach the point I'm at. I could not rush, bypass or fast forward the process from two summers ago to now.
It is all such a balancing act - remaining true to who you are and strong in the face of others who want you to move the heck on according to their time table. For me it wasn't that I didn't want to start a new life then - I would have given anything to have taken the easier way out to a less stressful life. But I just couldn't tie up all the pieces. Some of it no doubt was my reluctance to start a new life in a totally new community away from everything I'd known with my husband. I do know that if my parents hadn't been so ill, my ability to make the move would have been so much easier. There was just too much burying me under from the past - all the childhood stuff and my husband's death on top of the serious health issues of my parents.
So here I am today, emotionally in a far better place to make the move from my home of 18 years, although the circumstances are so drastically worse. Go figure! The twists and turns of life. Although the world goes on, until you're at a place where you can jump in, it is just kind of a period of treading water or moving along with the flow of the current. And that is an okay place to be, although so many out there don't get this, including my ex-husband.
Today I am grateful:
1. For the friends who have stood beside me on this journey.
2. For the gorgeous late summer weather.
3. For the opportunity to have an apricot flavored ice cream cone from a place that has 24 odd flavors of soft serve ice cream.
4. For that brief period of back-to-school excitement before the grueling academic year sets in.
5. For the new slate the new school year seems to inspire.
I read a post today by another middle-aged widow, the topic being that you cannot rush the grieving process. It is individualized and also dictated by so many other circumstances. I can totally agree with her observation. But at the same time, here are these milestones glaring in my face telling me that the world is moving on and it is time for me too to make those steps.
I continue to be filled with regret that I was unable to move to my second husband's home at the time we had originally planned. Both of my parents were in the hospital during that summer and at one point we thought both were going to die, although my father recovered. I had workmen in the house fixing it up, was trying to parent two active early-adolescent boys on my own and had my new husband on my back for not being able to get it all together fast enough.
With some perspective and time behind me now, I realize that I just could not add the emotional and physical stress and stain of moving out-of-state to my already over brimming plate. I tried to explain that to my husband and begged him for his patience and understanding as I grappled with clearing out my parent's home after my Mom's death. He couldn't get it and filed for the divorce that January. But here I am now, at a different place with so many of those emotional hurdles gone. If only he had hung in there with me and realized that eventually I'd reach the point I'm at. I could not rush, bypass or fast forward the process from two summers ago to now.
It is all such a balancing act - remaining true to who you are and strong in the face of others who want you to move the heck on according to their time table. For me it wasn't that I didn't want to start a new life then - I would have given anything to have taken the easier way out to a less stressful life. But I just couldn't tie up all the pieces. Some of it no doubt was my reluctance to start a new life in a totally new community away from everything I'd known with my husband. I do know that if my parents hadn't been so ill, my ability to make the move would have been so much easier. There was just too much burying me under from the past - all the childhood stuff and my husband's death on top of the serious health issues of my parents.
So here I am today, emotionally in a far better place to make the move from my home of 18 years, although the circumstances are so drastically worse. Go figure! The twists and turns of life. Although the world goes on, until you're at a place where you can jump in, it is just kind of a period of treading water or moving along with the flow of the current. And that is an okay place to be, although so many out there don't get this, including my ex-husband.
Today I am grateful:
1. For the friends who have stood beside me on this journey.
2. For the gorgeous late summer weather.
3. For the opportunity to have an apricot flavored ice cream cone from a place that has 24 odd flavors of soft serve ice cream.
4. For that brief period of back-to-school excitement before the grueling academic year sets in.
5. For the new slate the new school year seems to inspire.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Fate, Timing, Circumstances, Choices
I keep going over all that I could have and should have done since my husband's death. Of course, in retrospect this is always easy to do. Basically, I am struggling with the choices I made to care for my parents at the eventual expense of my myself. I was so mired in care-taking duties to my family that I never stood back and cared for my own personal emotional, financial or social health. I didn't have any choice to care for my kids but I didn't exert any limits around the remaining time and energy I had. And so today I am without a second husband (who felt I chose my kids over him) and in a financial tailspin because I never took the time out to handle my own affairs. I am also painfully estranged from my only sister for reasons that I am unsure of because she won't talk to me. I think it has something to do with our family-of-origin issues that were triggered with the severe illnesses of our parents and then death of our Mom. But I am guessing.
It is hard to recognize or acknowledge all this. I did have a hand in what has resulted. I have to say that the Universe sure threw me some tremendous curve balls to navigate through. And in all honesty the forest was so thick I could not see through the trees during the years following my husband's death. But now that the dust has settled and my divorce is final and I have gained a little perspective,I do see that there were things I could have done differently.
I never had a chance to grieve as a new widow and I never made the time to heal myself. Maybe the time is now, five years later. So sadly, it took me losing everything to figure this out. I'm not sure what the eventual lesson or life plan is for all of this. I only know that there wasn't anything left to nurture and care for me.
I am currently struggling with trying to forgive myself and at the same time become more attentive to my needs so I can heal and move on. Some part of me knows that it does no good to keep kicking myself down for what I could have done. Those days are long over. And would I even have done anything differently? Could I have? My Mom was dying, my father was in another hospital also sick - not real conducive for packing up the house, dragging two resistant teens and moving into a new community with a less than supportive husband. Bad, terrible, unfathomable timing to be sure! Almost as if everything was set in motion to prevent me for not moving.
I set out to write tonight and had no idea what would come out. As I finish this post (because I have a scowling 15-year-old wanting to get back on the computer standing over my shoulder), I guess the clarification I've gained from this rambling is this - life is a combination of fate, timing, and circumstances, as well as choices. And sometimes that combination proves too daunting, too complicated to navigate out of without some casualties. And I suppose that as in all things too, there is a balance between forgiving oneself for what was impossible to do, while learning the lesson of seeing the choices that could have been made but were not.
Today I am grateful:
1. For the beautiful moon I saw tonight in the sky, all misty among the clouds.
2. For being able to have my rear view blinker light fixed for only $8.10.
3. For having my girlfriend inform me that my rear view blinker light was out because I didn't know that.
4. For the peace, perspective and clarity I am gaining (although it is not without pain).
5. For having enough possessions to give away to others who can put them to good use.
It is hard to recognize or acknowledge all this. I did have a hand in what has resulted. I have to say that the Universe sure threw me some tremendous curve balls to navigate through. And in all honesty the forest was so thick I could not see through the trees during the years following my husband's death. But now that the dust has settled and my divorce is final and I have gained a little perspective,I do see that there were things I could have done differently.
I never had a chance to grieve as a new widow and I never made the time to heal myself. Maybe the time is now, five years later. So sadly, it took me losing everything to figure this out. I'm not sure what the eventual lesson or life plan is for all of this. I only know that there wasn't anything left to nurture and care for me.
I am currently struggling with trying to forgive myself and at the same time become more attentive to my needs so I can heal and move on. Some part of me knows that it does no good to keep kicking myself down for what I could have done. Those days are long over. And would I even have done anything differently? Could I have? My Mom was dying, my father was in another hospital also sick - not real conducive for packing up the house, dragging two resistant teens and moving into a new community with a less than supportive husband. Bad, terrible, unfathomable timing to be sure! Almost as if everything was set in motion to prevent me for not moving.
I set out to write tonight and had no idea what would come out. As I finish this post (because I have a scowling 15-year-old wanting to get back on the computer standing over my shoulder), I guess the clarification I've gained from this rambling is this - life is a combination of fate, timing, and circumstances, as well as choices. And sometimes that combination proves too daunting, too complicated to navigate out of without some casualties. And I suppose that as in all things too, there is a balance between forgiving oneself for what was impossible to do, while learning the lesson of seeing the choices that could have been made but were not.
Today I am grateful:
1. For the beautiful moon I saw tonight in the sky, all misty among the clouds.
2. For being able to have my rear view blinker light fixed for only $8.10.
3. For having my girlfriend inform me that my rear view blinker light was out because I didn't know that.
4. For the peace, perspective and clarity I am gaining (although it is not without pain).
5. For having enough possessions to give away to others who can put them to good use.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
No regrets
The other week while grocery shopping, I spied a box of a dozen, assorted Krispy Kreme donuts. I picked them up but ultimately passed at the $6.99 cost. But I never forgot those donuts and went back to the store on subsequent days to get them. The bad thing was that I didn't see another box of the assorted donuts - just the glazed ones. So I still kept thinking about those donuts and a couple Sundays back drove over to the local Krispy Kreme store to find that the store had closed (another casualty of the Recession). I was disappointed and computed that the cost of all the shopping trips to the stores ended up costing me around $6.99 anyway so I just should have gotten the donuts when I'd seen them in the first place!
Moral of the story - to go for things at the time instead of waiting and then facing the possibility of losing out. If I equate that to my marriage, I can say that at least I gave it a well-intentioned shot. It sadly didn't work out but I don't have to always wonder about it like I would if I hadn't gotten married. I took a chance and even if it failed, there is some solace that I did it. So I'll never regret remarrying and the hope I held for the future. And the next time I struggle with a realitively minor purchase like the donuts, I hope I have the strength to put them in my cart, forget about feeling guilty over the cost or calories and just enjoy one or two with a cold glass of milk!
Moral of the story - to go for things at the time instead of waiting and then facing the possibility of losing out. If I equate that to my marriage, I can say that at least I gave it a well-intentioned shot. It sadly didn't work out but I don't have to always wonder about it like I would if I hadn't gotten married. I took a chance and even if it failed, there is some solace that I did it. So I'll never regret remarrying and the hope I held for the future. And the next time I struggle with a realitively minor purchase like the donuts, I hope I have the strength to put them in my cart, forget about feeling guilty over the cost or calories and just enjoy one or two with a cold glass of milk!
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