You know..like virtual reality. Someone could choose to "feel" exactly what I felt.

There's a guy at work...27. Has been with his girlfriend for about 8 years. She left him a few years ago because he didn't want to get married. But she came back. He *still* doesn't really want to get married, but he is anyway. His reasoning, "I have no reason not to." He checks her purse for her birth control pills everyday, to make sure she's taking them--he doesn't want kids. She doesn't know he checks and as long as she doesn't know, he feels confident she's not tricking him. He does love her, but just doesn't want to be married.

I wish I could play for him everything I've felt over the last two years. The utter pain and devastation of a betrayed spouse whose mate claimed, "I never liked you like I should and I've always had doubts."

I don't know this guy well enough to get on his case about his upcoming marriage....I know that no one can make decisions for other people...but if I could just record everything I've felt...*maybe*...*maybe*...it would make a difference.

Don't really have a question...but I just found this so sad and I feel for his fiance and for him.

If only they knew what we knew, hey? We could save them all the pain that we have learned to live with.

Everybody has to make their own mistakes, unfortunately.

And I think after all that I have learned and lived, I would make the same mistakes again. Maybe I could at least deal with them differently though.

Sometimes do you ever feel "fated" to keep learning the same lesson over and over again?

I keep thinking, this time will I get it right? Or will I have to play it out the same until a different result is achieved?

I think I am in a pensive mood tonight. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Oh yeah, Weaver...that is a big fear of mine...

I feel like I've learned SO much over the last couple of years. But what if I haven't? Or what if I ignore what I've learned? What if this is just what my life is meant to be like?

What if in a past life I was the cheater..and so I'm doomed to repeat this over and over?

I don't really like thinking too much on fate, karma and destiny..but sometimes those thoughts come creeping in <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

And really, even with hindsight, I would still have chosen the husbands that I chose. It's what I did with the marriage after that, I would change if I could.

Me too. Even though I didn't legally marry either one of them.

This is scary to me too, as it buys into the "we don't have any control over who we fall in love with" theory. Or maybe we do and we just choose to love those who would hurt us.

And the second one would imply a lesson we need to learn, and we just can't quite figure out what that lesson is.

Yuck! I hate it when I get into this kind of mood.

Aislinn, why not suggest a trip to Marriagebuilders.com? Would this site perhaps offer some insight for him. Isn't there a forum for people not yet married? TT

mk,

I know what you're talking about.

In 3 weeks, I'm going to Austin, TX for a dear friend's wedding. We were close during HS and a year or two after college. After that I'd probably hear from her once or twice a year.

I had a few opportunities to catch up with her over the past year. I had met her BF/fiance a few times, and was to say the least, underwhelmed. Seemed waaaayyy too full of himself, to me.

She (and he) came back here during the holidays and we had a group of us old friends get together on Christmas night. While he was off playing pool, she and I caught up. I told her about my (then) separation. She told me about their engagement and the like.

In the conversation, I picked up just a hint of some infidelity, and possible....ummm..physicality. (He would never intentionally hit me....) Of course, he had a rough life growing up, he's a great guy, blah blah blah.....

And it sucks... because I know. I know where it can end up. I hope it doesn't, but I know.

And I said the only thing I could to her. "If you've ever found yourself saying "I should leave you, but I'm not" than you should leave before you get married. It will hurt and it will suck, but if you've ever said those words, you shouldn't get married."

And I left it at that.

But I do wish she could feel, just for a few seconds, some of the hell I went through last year. Because there isn't anyone in the world, OMs and XWs included, that I want to suffer like I did. And most certainly not my friend...