Please share: Relationships, Engagement and Marriage

[Biciclista]

Cool story, Asammy!
we wish you lots of luck. It sounds like that girlfriend of yours did you a HUGE favor!

[ASammy1]

Hey Mimi! Thanks and yes she did!

[Irulan]

And now the icing on cake.... drum roll please...

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!!!

To gloat about something like is pretty sad, and the situation is a disaster, nothing like a baby growing up in an alcoholic home. (ok, maybe you aren't gloating but that is how it comes across to me on a web board. ) Look I know you are hurt and all that, but try to step out of that for a minute and see how this comes across.

I hope someone suggests Al-anon to her, and maybe to you too.
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/

[ASammy1]

I didn't mean to come off as gloating and I apologize if I offended. And you are absolutely right that the situation is very sad. I feel terrible for the baby. I was merely trying to show just how bad it was for me and how life did a complete 180. Maybe it was in bad taste on my part and for that I apologize.

[Blueberry]

I don't think you came off as gloating. Certainly sounds like it would have benefited her to listen to you as you were going through that situation. I have every sympathy for the child - but the friend who knowingly put herself in that situation - I have a hard time.

CA

[Irulan]

How can this be applied to the OP's request for wisdom, the good and the bad, help in understanding relationships...

I'm of the mind to comment that when relationships go bad (and I've been there, as close to divorce as you can get and not actually be there) it's never just one person's fault. It's always easy to point a finger and blame, but it's rarely the actions of just one person that makes a relationship go bad. The choices that build up to bad situations may not always be obvious, and we may not even be aware of them as they may be part of our internal baggage that we all have.

The best thing that ever happened to DH and me was a very good marriage counselor, a no nonsense type who got us both to pull our heads out of our asses and quit finger pointing, and to look at ourselves: both of us. It was really really tough as it is so much easier to blame everything that goes wrong on the other person.

I feel blessed to this day that underneath it all we both wanted to fix it, and were willing to do whatever it took - I know that is not always the case, and that some things aren't fixable. It was very very tough. I think plenty of folks would have bailed and not stuck it out, and maybe even repeated the same mistakes that got them into the place they were at becuase they didn't get at the root of it. And Ladies, I'm talking some messy, ugly stuff. I'll spare you the details. But we did it, we stuck it out and rebuilt, and I have a marriage I only could have dreamed of 10 years ago.

i.

[Meaux]

I met my husband when I was 21 and he was 18. We worked together at Barnes and Noble. We started dating a few months later. I had just gotten out of a very intense, but short, relationship and was not at all interested in dating anyone. We have been together for seven years, and have been married for three. He has supported me through finishing college, my father's death, and making the agonizing decision to go back to school and change my career. He is truly my partner and my best friend. I can't say that our marriage is easy, but I will say that because we work at it, it is a lot sweeter. I truly believe that love comes in the strangest places when you are not looking for it.

[michelem]

Irulan,

Thanks so much for sharing. What words of wisdom! And what an inspiration to us all.