Memories

Are your memories of your married life good? Bad? Painful? A mix of emotions?  Do we get to a point that we can look back and take the memories at face value? Something that fun and exciting in your previous married life, can you talk about it as the fun it was? I have a difficult time sharing with our children memories from our previous family life. When my husband left, he took away my ability to feel the joy from anything having to do with him. I could not even bring myself to share stories and memories with the kids when they brought them up. If and when I did manage to talk about something from my “previous” life, I only used words like “I” or “me”, never “we” or “our.” So how do we move beyond this stage? Is time a healer even for this?

For many years after my divorce, I guess I would say I pretended, at least in an effort to protect my heart and mind, that I didn’t have anything to talk about or any memories from my married life. It hurt to think back; I cried if I remembered things or tried to share something.  Now, I was married for 24 years so that is a ton of “life” to try to avoid thinking about. And since I married at the age of 19, there wasn’t much for me to think about or share about other than childhood memories. All of my adult life and memories were wrapped up with my ex.

Well fast forward now 8 years, and I think I am beginning to answer my own question.  I have managed on a few, very few, occasions to share with my children things about their childhood without completely falling apart. I hope this trend continues as all 24 years were not bad. Besides three amazing children, we had lots of fun, did many new things and learned and grew together. My hope is that someday I can remember all those things for what they were.  I guess I also hope that my ex will also remember the good things from our life together, if for no other reason than for our children’s’ sakes so they know how much they were loved during that period of our lives

photo credit: Cody Wiley Photography