[Anon]

I’m in one of those weird reflective moods tonight and started to wonder,,,, would I do it again?  If I could go back to pre-marriage days or even further back to pre-dating days with h, would I make a different choice knowing what I know now?   The question scared me,,a lot.  I didn’t want to know the answer.  But,,, my mind wouldn’t leave it alone. 

Despite not wanting to know, a big part of me had to know.  This is what my answer is to that awful question and I’m horrified:   I would NOT do it again knowing what I know now.   I had what I thought was a beautiful and happy marriage.  My life and marriage gave me incredible joy for 21 yrs.   I’m appalled to think it wasn’t worth it, that if I could have a re-do I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.  No dates, and certainly no marriage.   The emotional, psychological and financial devastation I suffer from for the last 2.5 years and will likely continue to suffer from in some manner for years to come far outweighs whatever happiness I had from being his best friend and wife.  It’s not even close, really.   This realization is pretty hard to take.  No wonder I’ve had no desire to revisit happier days with h.  I think those memories are all so badly tainted that I may as well not even have them.   The last 23 years of my life are now a complete and total loss.  Nothing remains of those years that makes me smile.  Nothing.   

To complicate it a bit, the fact that I would choose differently in a re-do doesn’t mean I no longer love my h or that I’m not standing.  In my re-do I would choose to not love h in the first place.   The fact that I did love him and still do is what makes this a devastating realization.

Anyone without kids together with their MLC spouse want to comment on their own thoughts about this?   I realize this is an impossible question if you have kids because no parent would change any decision that would lead to not having their children.  Generally I’m curious if how I feel is extreme or more the norm.  Also wondering if anyone has also felt this and if it was temporary.   Could it just be my current seasonal depression and pessimism?   It feels pretty permanent.   
 

[Treasur]

Quite normal imho for some of us. Imho it is part of the process of grieving. I wrestled with it for a while. What I found in the wrestling is that it is the feelings and beliefs behind the thoughts that actually matter most.
Why?
Bc it is an impossible question. Unless you have a time machine. (And if you do, a few of us might want to cadge a ride lol). It doesn't matter if you might have made a difference choice bc you can't unmake it.
But
You can wrestle with it logically and emotionally until you find the conclusions behind it.
And anything useful to learn that you can use now.

So, logically...
You are assuming the path not taken would have been better....but how could one know?
If your h had died, would you have felt the same? If I had asked you five years ago, would you have felt the same? If not, what is in the space in between that makes it different now?
Which experiences from those 20+ years are not linked to your h or marriage so you can tuck them aside?
What did you value before that you see differently now?
What is the lasting cost and how do you know how long it will last? Can you change any of that? Are the costs more about concrete things or intangible ones? Get specific....what are they? And what would you need to have or see now as benefits or fruits from those years that would make you feel significantly different?
Based on the facts you know...either observed directly or concrete facts...when does the taint period begin? Or end? How do other (reliable) sources see it?
What would need to change now or in the future outcomes that would change your POV if anything? And how much control do you have over any of that?
And given that you can choose your thoughts....that your perception is your reality...how does thinking this way serve you? What would it feel like if you mentally experimented with some different ways of seeing it?
What if you just can't ever know for sure? What if you are wrong?

And emotionally....
Scared...don't want to know the answer...horrified....appalled...tainted....loss....love. What are these emotions really about? And are they more about you or your h? And what are the strongest emotions? Fear? Anger? Blaming yourself? Feeling foolish? Doubt? Vulnerability? Self-worth? Grief?
And why do you feel so never/always about both the past and future? That nothing from the past is worth smiling about and that how you feel now feels permanent. What do you get from feeling that way do you think?
What is the essence of the taint, do you think? What does it look/feel like? Either/or or a spectrum? More associated with some things than others? Triggered by some things more than others? Less about some things than others?
What are the differences if any between what you think, what you believe and what you feel right now? And how much of that comes from you or from what you think others think, believe or feel? And can you quarantine yourself from any of that?
And if there were a doorway to the possibly untainted, what do you think that might be?

I have no answers bc they are your questions.
But I can reassure you that I was in exactly the same place and wrestled with exactly the same questions. For me it was like a jigsaw on a table that I kept cycling around to see if I could find a missing piece that fit. For me it was a mixture of grief, acceptance and finding my own reality.
And I found that there was useful stuff that was part of my healing process that came from that wrestling.

I seem to be currently doing what feels like a last circle around the jigsaw pieces now but it feels different. Less emotion and doubt, a kind of process of picking bits up, looking at them closely in a way I couldn't before and deciding what to purge, ignore or pick up and put in my pocket. Onevof the biggest differences now I come to think about it is that it no longer feels like a process which needs any input other than mine. Which is just as well lol.

Martin Seligman, the positive psychology guy, talks about the three Ps that get in the way of resilience - personalisation, pervasiveness and permanence. (Sheryl sandberg talked about these too after the death of her husband). That what eats our resilience is believing that something was our fault or that we could have prevented it; that it seeps into every bit of our world view so it defines us; that we believe how it is now and how we feel will not change. These are normal beliefs in grief, trauma or depression. But they are rarely objectively true and we can train our brain to think differently. And we can look for the small bits of evidence that challlenge our thinking.

Which of the three Ps speak to you most right now, Anon?
How much of what happened was bc of you rather than happening to you?
What are the things about you and your life which were/are separate from it?
How have you/things stayed the same or changed (for good or bad) since it happened?

So I send you a wrestling hug, some encouragement that this time too will pass and a reminder to up your basic self care if you think you are lingering on the edge of depression and find this time of year hard.  ....mostly I just send you a hug x

[Nerissa]

Anon there isn’t anything useful to add tonTreasur’s post but I was talking about this aspect to my Therapist.  I said I had started to re write our history negatively.  Realistically, since I was incredibly happy for much of it and satisfied for most, it surely couldn’t have been that awful, even if my perspective was awry. I said I didn’t want to ‘split’ in this way and I was hoping I’d come to a halt at some time with a stable and coherent narrative that was accepting of good and bad.

i think a precis of what I came away with is that my thinking is destructive.  Destruction of the marriage is what seems to my mind to enable me to move along.  I pretty much know intellectually that this won’t continue long term.  My feelings won’t remain the same because our feelings are fluid and so are  our relationships, even when over in a practical sense.  Our relationship to our marital history will continue to be fluid and change.  It will never remain static unless we become rigid and unchanging.  She said that our relationship continues to change even after one of us dies.

I am pretty sure that you will eventually know inside that there has been plenty to celebrate in your marriage. The question of whether we’d do it again is simply unanswerable.

So I agree with Treasur that this will pass as we continue to find our way. Perhaps it’s related to the sadness and retreat you are experiencing.  I read recently a definition of a healthy mind.  It said that differing states are completely normal - even drifting into states like personality disorders/disturbances.  What defines us as healthy is that we are fluid and move out of these states again.  It is when we become rigid and stuck in one of these states and are unable to leave it that we are not in a normal state.  I found that comforting.

[Mortesbride]

Difficult for me as I do have children, but let's assume for a moment, that I could have the exact same children with someone else if I so chose. That will make this whole exercise a little easier.

I think I fell so in love with Beast because we were so similar and connected, but also there was a huge chunk of escaping my life in the USA, and also a duty to try and help him. Fantasies about a new life, building a whole family, being myself, and ''if someone just gives him a chance, he will love me forever''. I assumed he would match my level of loyalty. It was a powerful concoction that all got jumbled up and felt like the strongest love I had ever known. I suppose it was for a time, but arguable how much was real feelings of love, and how much was other things mixed in.

At any rate after the initial honey moon high wore off there were obvious things that were wrong. His inability to be emotionally supportive, high levels of anxiety, insecurity...no long lasting relationships around him..depressive episodes and emotional coldness. But of course I glossed it all over. Excuse and excuse. I just needed to love him enough. He was just tired. Whatever.

While that feeling we had was amazing...a deep level of connection. Being on the same page. Virtually reading each others minds and living in a little bubble just us... That is what I loved. That feeling of knowing, connection, and safety. That feeling of being at peace in each others presence.

But I think...if I could go back in time...and still have my kids and all the rest... I would have taken my time to pick a better person to invest in. Someone who was much closer in line with my character and values. Someone reliable and trustworthy..driven...and with a loyalty that matched my own. 

Because there were red flags, and I did see them, I just excused them for love. We all do that to some degree. But I was extra young, and naive, and he was so much better than where I was from.

So I do not regret my decision at the time, because it was the only one I had, and lead to 14 mostly good years and 3 amazing kids...

But if I could have 14 good years and these 3 amazing kids if I had picked someone else? I probably would have.

[in it]

I was going to post But Mortesbride put it very eloquently.

I would have paid closer attention to actual character (and not potential)  in my choice for some one to have kids with. I thought it was just a matter of him maturing. Nope this is how and who he is.

Can't say all the years were amazing. A ton of red flags..due to my own issues I just dealt with them, ignored them, made excuses for them. Made the best of it.

 But if I had a chance do it all over again, I most certainly would have chosen someone different to have kids with. I agree Mortes I would have liked to have taken the time to pick a better person to invest in.

[Thunder]

I can honestly say I never regretted all the years I spent with my H, I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat, but I would never have married him. (2nd marriage)

I was perfectly happy not remarrying.

Main reason for me is financially I would be better off today.  I would never have retired early (his idea) if I had stayed single, so I would still have been working when BD happened.  I had a good income coming in.  Plus all the money the divorced cost I ended up owing my family a lot of money for helping me.

So yes HE was worth it, but not what it costs me in the end, money-wise.

[megogirl]

What’s the phrase?  It’s better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all?

Hm.  I think I’d need to know if the alternative would be having been alone for 17 years, and I’d say no.  If I would have met someone else, I’d say yes.

Of course this would be assuming I’d never had my son.

[Not Applicable]

We can't change the past so what is the benefit of asking such a question? It just brings about regret for many. It's like flogging oneself with a chain.

[marvin4242]

This is a great question and one that I have asked myself and even explored in therapy at various points. There is obviously no single answer depending on circumstances and the nature of the relationship before MLC but for me the answer has always been the same: absolutely. Knowing how it would play out I would have still done it all again. And we have no kids.

For me it’s because we were such a great match in so many ways, not the same, but complementary. And to me my wife WAS a very unique person (she is not the person now that is why the past tense) and it is not likely I will meet someone like her again. So all the years of us together far outweighs the pain and damage of the last three years.

But again my experience has not been nearly as bad as others here, so that is a big part of it. I have no idea what my answer would be if I had experience even 1/10 of what others have endured.

And I believe we should always examine our past to learn from, not to dwell, but to understand and grow. Ignoring the past can be fatal.

[Standing Strong]

Was it worth it?


Yes. I thank God for letting me know what it's like to love someone with all your heart. That is something many will never know.
I thank God for letting me go thru LBS, because now I know the hurt others have gone thru/are going thru and can understand and empathize with them whereas before I'd have had no clue or frame of reference.
I thank God for the growth I'm going thru as I am and will be a much better person than I was before: I will be much more usable by him going forward.
I'm also thankful for now being able to understand what a healthy relationship looks like and that I don't have to live, love and put up with emotional abuse (something I've only ever known). Now I can identify it for what it is. Before I'd have just thought it was my cross to bear and not understand WHY i felt as I did.
Finally I'm thankful for being taught patience (which is still being taught to me), what TRUE unconditional love is, better understanding how we are loved thru our problems and childlike behaviors, the beginnings of real forgiveness, learning to live my life, becoming emotionally independent, getting mature and strong, learning to treasure what is truly important and prioritizing the important aspects in life.

So many lessons and so many more to learn. It's hard, it's painful, it's testing..... but the end result is someone refined and a glittering jewel of a person. What a deal for the LBS. We don't have to sacrifice our ideals, morality, or self to learn all these things if we allow ourselves to learn..... whereas our MLC'er is destroyed in order to learn. I'm so thankful (everyday) I wasn't on the other end of the stick. How do you even come back from that? I honestly don't know if I'd be strong enough to.

-SS