ConsumedByGuilt
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Reged: 04/21/12
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Kids & Guilt
04/21/12 11:49 AM
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My divorce still not quite final but we split for good over two years ago, after 16 mostly unhappy years--had separated once; had agreed to get divorced another time, then decided against it; in both cases because of four wonderful kids.... But finally it all came to a head when, after being in denial about the fact that I was in the process of falling in love with someone, we finally kissed and expressed our feelings; and this was quickly discovered, and the kids were aware of it; and within a week my wife and I had agreed to divorce...
My kids believe that this "affair" (technically it wasn't that, but emotionally it's absolutely true that I'd developed feelings for a woman other than my wife) is what ruined the marriage and cast their lives into turmoil... and while I know this isn't literally true, from their perspective I understand why they feel this way--in other words, I carry the guilt of what I've done, and in a sense have absorbed their "version" of what happened without feeling I had the right to defend myself.
Two years later, the woman I was falling in love with is very much in my life--but I've been unable to even begin integrating my two lives; and the burden to her of my guilt about what I've done to my kids, my inability to move beyond it...well, I'm frozen between their anger and disappointment on the one hand and my love for the woman they believe to have been responsible for the breakup; and while they know she's still in my life, I've never been able to explain to them how important she is to me--to offer a corrective, if you will, to the version of the story their mother has reinforced...
I'm sorry to go on so long here--but my heart is breaking from the dividing of these two halves of my life, and I can't begin to find a way to deal with the guilt that threatens to ruin my relationships on both sides of that divide.
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