So sad

[carriemama]

In general, I am doing fine with the divorce. On paper, I have moved on. I have a new DP. Sharing custody has been easier than I thought it would be. Most of the time I remember the bad times of the marriage more than the good times and I can remember why we are getting divorced.

But not right this minute. My ex-BIL is getting married on Friday, and my DD is the flower girl, and my whole ex family and all of their friends are gathering to celebrate. And I won't be there. I don't really want to be there, I mean, how awkward would that be, but I'm just so so so sad about everything right now. All of the lost dreams of my imagined future are floating right in front of me. Everywhere I look I see intact families. I think about all the vacations we won't take, all of the moments we won't have together.

And I question my role in bringing the marriage to an end, wonder if I had done X or Y differently if it would have a different ending, maybe I am making huge mistakes left and right. Sigh.

To make it even more poignant, today we signed the settlement agreement. And then went out for coffee. It was so bittersweet. I almost wish (ok maybe not) that this was contentious and angry, rather than sad and amicable. It's so much easier being mad.

Anyway, just needed to express how sad I am tonight. Hoping that time indeed will heal these wounds.

[corysmilk]

I couldn't read without posting.

(hug)

[JunipersMom]

All 'ends' have sadness ~ grieve and then move on momma... its a part of your story

[Arianwen1174]

The wondering really can be sad. I've been divorced since 1994 and I still wonder about things on occasion. Hope it feels better soon!

[muse]

I'm right there with you
I was the one who initiated the divorce and for most of the last yr or so of being separated have been so relieved we're apart. I just got the final settlement agreement papers and it came right after we managed to have a nice time together as a family on mother's day, and i'm finding it really hard. I know exactly why we're divorcing but sometimes it feels like such a waste. Such a reminder that grief is an ongoing process and these feelings will probably come and go for a long time.((hugs))

[La Sombra]

I've been there, carriemama, as you know!

I have had, now, I think two really intense periods of grief (not including all the initial things I felt in the very beginning) where I felt so guilty and regretful and doubtful of my decision. I was still so in love with (and am!) with DP so it had nothing to do with that, it was just the sudden feelings of, as muse said, it all feeling like such a terrible waste.

I also have days that are worse than others but generally I feel really confident with my decision--totally assured that I did the right thing and that I am on a path in my life that is so much richer, freer, better than where I was before.

Two things that bring me some comfort and peace:

I, personally, even in my darkest moments of guilt, grief and regret, have never wanted to back with my ex so much as I've wondered if, had I just tried a little harder, not made the mistakes I made, COULD I have wanted to to want to be with him? Which isn't the same thing as wanting to be with him. I take comfort in the fact that even in those moments in which I feel tenderest towards my ex, I never think that I'd still like to be married to him when it comes right down to it.

And:
None of us in this life can always know what the outcomes of our decisions will be. When I told ex that I wasn't going to stay with him anymore and that I wanted a divorce, I was terrified, terrified of making the wrong decision. In fact, in all the time leading up to the divorce I felt paralyzed by my fear of doing the wrong thing, of doing something that I'd regret.

But I realized that I couldn't live that way, and I tried really super hard to make the decision that felt right in my heart. I knew I couldn't know for sure the future, but that if I made the decision that felt the most right to me, that that would be the decision I could live with no matter how hard it proved to be.

So that's what I've done. I made this decision, and I made it without knowing, intimately, the pain it would bring but I made it in good faith and so I take the down sides of that decision (the grief and sadness and everything else) along with the good ones.

And that's another thing: I try really hard to celebrate the good things my decision brought me: not dealing all the time with the worries that come with living with an alcoholic; feeling confident that I'm showing my dd what a strong, independent woman looks like; being madly in love with a wonderful man; having a new baby with a man that really wants to be an active and involved father; feeling excited about life and wanting to try knew things and knowing that I am strong enough to do whatever I want--man or no man!

So so so many hugs to you, as ever!!

[*MamaJen*]

I know how you feel. Even though I am 110 percent sure that I don't want to be with my ex, I still sometimes grieve the concept of the intact family for DS.

[simplemama32]

No words of wisdom...just hugs, and more hugs.

[Sunflower66]

my heart goes out to you. I am a twice divorced mother with two children from my first marriage and one from my second. My two boys are 27 and 23, my daughter is 7. I can still remember the day we dropped off my oldest son at college, and mind you my ex and I drove down there together to do this... when we walked into his dorm room his roomates parents were there sharing the experience..... in that moment, eventhough my ex was there, it hit me like a brick how lonely and unable I felt to share that amazing experience. It made me very sad.....

[meandmine]

Ohhhh yeaaaaaah, I remember those feelings.

Now ... we all miss what coulda shoulda and what others still have, but we have a lot of quality now -- just different.

The kids would always wish us back together, but it is still a good life.

I hope you can get there.

In the meantime, hugs and I kwym!

M

[josybear]

overall i have no regrets about the end of our relationship, but sometimes i have these flashes of... melancholy? sentimentality? for example, this evening i tried to make the kids pancakes for dinner. you know, i'm great at about a million things, but pancakes are just beyond me. i burned some, undercooked some, and generally blew it. ex made great pancakes. there are three or four things that i really miss, that he was great at. and i think these feelings are legitimate, healthy, all that, but they're no fun. i did lose something when it all ended, even though i also gained a lot. is there ever such thing as an unmixed feeling?

[kblackstone444]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss my soon-to-be ExHusband, sometimes very much, especially when we're getting along very well, but at the same time, I realize, too much damage has been done on his part, since he left me, for me to be able to ever trust him again, if he ever wanted me back. Us getting back together just would not work. That being said, I met my Ex is MA, where we dated until I moved to NY with him two years after that. I've been in NY for 7 years now (broke up last Christmas) and EVERY SINGLE ONE of my NY memories involves my Ex and my stepdaughter. EVERY SINGLE ONE. This is HIS town, this is HIS grocery store, this is HIS bar, this is HIS resteraunt, these are HIS friends. I grew to love this little town, and unfortunately, this is where my son needs to be raised, but every single thing, is connected to a memory of doing it in the same place with him or my stepdaughter. It makes it worse when we are getting along, because then it's almost like "old times". I almost wish we were fighting all the time, so that I didn't miss so much what we had, know what I mean?