</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Jen Brown:
<strong>asb3pe - I hear you about the unmet needs. Now there are just all 10 being unmet, instead of some of them. Do you know who the author of that "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" book is? That sounds like a worthwhile read for me.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The book is:
"Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda: Live in the Present, Find Your Future", by Dr. Les Parrott (Zondervan, 2004) ISBN: 0310224608

I just happened to run across it in the "New Books" section of my library. Helped me very much to get over a lot of my pain, which I quickly discovered was rooted in the guilt, shame and regret over my situation.

It seems there is a similar book out there, called:
"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda : Overcoming Regrets, Mistakes, and Missed Opportunities" by Arthur Freeman
but I have not read that one yet. I am going to try and find it though, and see if it helps me in a similar manner.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Jen Brown:
<strong>I swear a stupid part of being married that I also miss is how socially acceptable it was to be married. It was like having succeeded at one of society's biggest expectations, that you get married and find happiness. There is so much societal pressure to seek out marriage.....</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Boy, can I ever understand those words! When I do look back (with sadness, and therefore I try not to look back much anymore thanks to that book!), I can feel how proud I was that I had finally succeeded in life. I had a wife. A child (not mine, but having a stepdaughter was perfectly acceptable to me and I love her completely just as if she were mine). I owned a home. I had everything! And yet, a mere two years later, I feel like I've now lost everything. Guilt. Shame. Regrets. All toxic, all unhealthy, and all unnecessary emotions!

What keeps me going is that I have a new dream now. To move to Arizona. To buy my OWN house, not the house my W loved and I felt ambivalent about. To have my OWN children, not "adopt" someone else's.

Dreams keep you looking forward, by definition. Guilt, regret and shame can be left behind, where they belong.

Good luck Jen. Keep the faith. I've been through painful breakups twice now, and the first time I never thought it would get better. It did, in a big way. Now, I'm right back there again, but... this time I KNOW things will get better someday. Find yourself a dream, and follow it with all your heart. Not always easy, but it will bring you focus, in the proper direction - forwards, not back.

The answer that keeps coming to my mind when I see this question is: I miss my wife.

Whatever I did or didn't get out of my marriage, my marriage was really about her. It was about loving her and being with her and getting to know her. It was about who she was.

And she was the one place I really felt I belonged.

I've thought on this since the thread began and struggled to come up with an answer. In hind site, so much of my marriage I went through with blinders on and didn't see what was really happening.

I finally come to the conclusion that I miss the "idea" of being married and all the passion, kindness, romance, and companionship that is to accompany it. I say "idea" because I never really had it, yet I miss it.

Gnome does that make sense?

Bill, I think it does make sense.

Despite my own answer, I've struggled a bit with somewhat similar ideas. I believe I did have the passion, the kindness, the romance, and the companionship - for a time. But I answered as I did because I loved and valued my wife even when all those things were missing.

After my wife was granted her divorce, I had no intention or expectation of getting married again. I appreciate the freedom of living on my own, and the idea of getting married for the sake of being married holds no appeal for me. I am apparently incapable of separating out the person I love from the state of marriage.

And yet...

Part of the frustration I currently feel, being "in love" with a woman who just wants to be friends, comes from knowing what I lost. This new woman is very different from my ex-wife (albeit in some ways uncannily similar), and I know that being married to her would be very different from my previous experience. But my previous experience gives me a much clearer idea about what it could be like, and - God help me - because of that I want it much more than if I had never been married in the first place.

I don't want my old marriage back; I want something new. I know that what I long for - what I am "missing" - is something other than what I had. But my sense of longing is nonetheless attached to my sense of loss.

Hmm...

I think after all, Bill, that you made more sense in your post than I just made in this one...

<small>[ August 09, 2004, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: laura_lee ]</small>

Where to begin???

I dont miss all the addictions and the problems that went with it.

I do miss the intact family, and although his family was so dysfunctional (and they raised my ex). My parents are gone, and as dysfunctional as they were, they were all I had.

I too have a sweetheart, a real great guy. But it is still at that see where it goes stage. I dont feel as if he can just come over and help me with my house/yard etc. I am still at the stage where I have to do it on my own.

So I am strugglin with school and yard and house and work full time. and when I do get to go out, it seems like such a effort to coordinate and juggle everything

I miss my kids having the two parent household. after 26 years they have been turned upside down. They didnt realize how much I held everything together. I cried so bad tis time last year for my daughter not having her father attend the last dance of high school (father/daughter dance) and he wasnt there as proud father taking pix at the houise before the prom and graduation

<small>[ May 05, 2004, 06:17 PM: Message edited by: sunrise1 ]</small>