It can become a time of intense reflection and disappointment when we see life with an expiration date. Ouch!
OMG Lizabeth you HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD IN THE ABOVE SENTENCE!!!! Very intense reflection and disappointment when we see or could be a expiration date. I have said that exact thing through so many tears this year.
False perceptions of your life??? What do you mean by that? Example please.
I didn't ask for child support because first of all quilt of leaving him and 2nd he said he would ruin my credit and not pay bills. I buckled with bullying tactics. I never thought of the continued control he would have in my life....dumb, dumb, dumb. It made sense at the time because he does love our son very much just as I do. He had just turned 16 years old, and I knew he would do more then he would pay in support. However, I had to put up with 5 more years of the control, because he paid for everything for our son. It was the most STUPID THING I could have ever done, and I know that now. It haunts me in my "Intense Reflection" I have done this year. Now, with the new girlfriend he will say things like you don't offer to pay for anything, and I am sure his GF thinks wow what an unbelievable guy. He is very good with kids and doing with kids so she has a great nanny when she travels for her job. The retirement I didn't care about that and really still don't he has worked for it and he can keep it.
You are right about the "Value" analogy, and I feel he didn't value me enough to change for me, but he value's her enough too change. After 20 years of marriage and these last 5 years I have changed him for her and that hurts, and I don't know why it hurts so much now. But I guess because a possible expiration date which causes reflection and it hurts in a deep way inside my mind, body and spirit. I guess he has respect for her, value for her, affectionate with her (calls her honey) so after giving up the primetime of my life and now cancer with a possible expiration date and feeling like damaged goods. Who benefits from it all???? The two of them.
What did I get from it this year of reflection; At times I think I didn't try hard enough, I miss moments with my son because of divorce, I miss Holiday's I loved with his family and loved the holidays with them. I am deeply grieved that I broke up the family unit and because of that it will effect my son and if I am around still my grandchildren. It's a heavy, emotional grief and who does it hurt?? It just hurts me because no one else cares, and I know it so I have to move past it. Back to I need a lobotomy!!!
Lizabeth, I guess I don't know where to start.