The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I don't cry too often.... in fact, in my drinking years I probably never cried at all. When I was a kid, I was the "easy mark" on the playground. Didn't take to much messing with me to bring the tears, and the inevitable humiliation. I learned to respond with anger instead of tears, but often my anger would still lead me to being all wet-faced and humiliated. Drinking nicely took that problem out of the way - those dumb little things didn't bother me, and if somebody wanted to be rude to me, I could dish it right back with no remorse.
One thing I have learned about supressed and postponed emotions, is that they can show up sometimes in unlikely situations. After I got sober, I sometimes found myself crying about something and it wasn't really it - it was some little thing, that made me think of a bigger thing, something I never shared before. And I could sure get into the self pity, but sometimes I couldn't see that was what it was.
I think the first time you fall in love it's forever. We just don't know how temporary of a forever it is! LOL.
I look at my daughter now... on her second marriage... she is now older than her mother was when we got married. I look at pictures of her as a kid... and there I see myself... and my ex-wife in the pictures... we were ALL kids then. When I look at those kids, one of them being me, I want to cut them some slack. I say, we did the best we could with what we had. I had to go there to get here. My marriage was not all a horrible mistake - even if she said so, in so many words, more than once. When I was at my worst - she loved me, then she took it away, as if it had never been there -- but it WAS there. I got the chance to know love and feel it, and then to lose it. I wished many times, I had never done it at all. But not really. I had to go there to get here, and here is ok. There is a lot of good that came of it. A TON of good that came of it. And in my time alone, since.
Entering into a new relationship... it's all so different. To do it as an adult, not as a 25 year old child that I was then. All that experience. All those tears. It counts for something. It counts for everything.
One of the AA promises is "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it". That's the one that is on my mind today. And is true for me today.
Thanks for posting this, I needed to read it today.Been reflecting alot on my life long marriage and whether or not it was a mistake.But, as you said, we did the best we could with what we had.I do not think it was a mistake.I needed it at the time to escape a bad home situation,and I found love and committment and fun.I grew up in the marriage.I MADE mistakes,but the relationship was not a mistake.
So, now it is over.Maybe it is time for a new direction for my life,a new journey.
I have just came out of a relationship, I needed answers as to why it happened,,,But I have grown soooooooooo much in the last week....And I now believe I had to go through all the pain, to get where I am today... I don't regret it, and I would probably do it again,....lol
But It would be so defferent next time....
Thanks for your great experience, strength and Hope.....
I loved your post, especially the quote, "I think the first time you fall in love it's forever. We just don't know how temporary of a forever it is!"
I'm in my eighth month of my fourth marriage. I often wondered if the first three were a mistake. I got married the first time at 19, talk about a couple of kids. I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home, so I had no idea that when my 5 foot 6 inch husband who weighed 120 pounds, drank a case of beer and could still walk and talk and function (to a degree, lol) that he could be alcoholic. All I knew was that it drove me crazy!
I learned so much from that marriage, and I loved so much. I still love the person that he was, I just didn't love the alcohol.. What I didn't understand for a long time that I now understand, is "We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it". I look back but try not to stare, as they say.
I could take up to much post space and go into what I learned from marriage #2 and marriage #3, but I think I've already said it! lol Therefore no sense in saying it again!
Another way of looking at your first statement," I think the first time you fall in love it's forever." is before we "jump in" maybe we should realize that it could be forever, because it took me 20 years to get over that first jump, and I took the failure of the first marriage into my second and third marriages and if not for the al-anon program would be taking it into my fourth, but I now know I must learn from those lessons and "look back but not stare."
