Post by topiarystepmom on Jul 21, 2016 3:12:53 GMT
I have a memory that enables me to recall incidents that happened to us from even 40 years ago. It is both a gift and a curse. When I recall these events, they are consistent and like they happened yesterday. I can not only recall something someone said but I can recall their tone of voice, inflection and the look on their face. So if you combine this with the issues we had experienced with our EC, you can only imagine how walking away wasn't a choice that was made lightly.
I think that for some people, walking away often presents a solution for survival. I don't think it has to do with having a hard nose or lacking a soft heart. Rather it is as one of us once said - a response to those events that culminate to a "Tipping Point". Where leaving the relationship is just much more preferable to the alternative.
This is what happened in our situation. We experienced a LOT with our EC et al in the 38 years my husband and I dealt with them (my husband obviously had dealt with them longer than that having been living with them prior to divorcing their bio mother.) And then, one day - after a particularly distasteful event, it just occurred to me that this was just NOT the way I wanted to live my life. And instead of looking at the relationship with regard to THEM, I looked at it with regard to just my husband and myself. How many more years did we really have left - my husband at the time was 74 - I was 59. And using the experience I had culminated over almost 4 decades, I thought about what was going to happen in the future - 5 - 10 - maybe 20 years into the future. - my husband would be 79 - 84 - or maybe 94 and I would be 64 - 69 or maybe 79. Our ED would be 55 - 60 or 70 years old. What were the odds that things might change for the better by then? 38 years had already passed and yet, it seemed like we were still at square one. And if you figured probabilities - it did not look good.
But there was another aspect to this decision - and it was what WE wanted our lives to look like - both in the future and present tense. And as we discussed the future of this relationship - I said to my husband "What do you want your life to be? Because I know that for me, dealing with this bullshit is NOT it!" And I told him about my 5-10-20 year scenario and he agreed - this was NOT what he wanted his life to be either.
In the end, I think that it was just too much. In actuality, It had always been too much but we kept letting it go, making excuses, trying to put it behind us even though, no matter how hard we had tried, it would never really stay behind us for very long at all. Perhaps we had stayed all those years out of love for them, perhaps we stayed because had been afraid of losing our family forever. But whatever it was, we just knew that we needed it to stop. And the only thing that could make it stop was walking away from the whole thing. And so that is what we did.
We have never looked back with any sort of regret and we would do it again in a heartbeat.
I think that for some people, walking away often presents a solution for survival. I don't think it has to do with having a hard nose or lacking a soft heart. Rather it is as one of us once said - a response to those events that culminate to a "Tipping Point". Where leaving the relationship is just much more preferable to the alternative.
This is what happened in our situation. We experienced a LOT with our EC et al in the 38 years my husband and I dealt with them (my husband obviously had dealt with them longer than that having been living with them prior to divorcing their bio mother.) And then, one day - after a particularly distasteful event, it just occurred to me that this was just NOT the way I wanted to live my life. And instead of looking at the relationship with regard to THEM, I looked at it with regard to just my husband and myself. How many more years did we really have left - my husband at the time was 74 - I was 59. And using the experience I had culminated over almost 4 decades, I thought about what was going to happen in the future - 5 - 10 - maybe 20 years into the future. - my husband would be 79 - 84 - or maybe 94 and I would be 64 - 69 or maybe 79. Our ED would be 55 - 60 or 70 years old. What were the odds that things might change for the better by then? 38 years had already passed and yet, it seemed like we were still at square one. And if you figured probabilities - it did not look good.
But there was another aspect to this decision - and it was what WE wanted our lives to look like - both in the future and present tense. And as we discussed the future of this relationship - I said to my husband "What do you want your life to be? Because I know that for me, dealing with this bullshit is NOT it!" And I told him about my 5-10-20 year scenario and he agreed - this was NOT what he wanted his life to be either.
In the end, I think that it was just too much. In actuality, It had always been too much but we kept letting it go, making excuses, trying to put it behind us even though, no matter how hard we had tried, it would never really stay behind us for very long at all. Perhaps we had stayed all those years out of love for them, perhaps we stayed because had been afraid of losing our family forever. But whatever it was, we just knew that we needed it to stop. And the only thing that could make it stop was walking away from the whole thing. And so that is what we did.
We have never looked back with any sort of regret and we would do it again in a heartbeat.
