Guilt and Questions

[Mom23G1B]

I am new to this site but after looking around at the many threads and posts I feel safe but still a little leary but that I can ask this question and recieve some help and sugestions.

I have been a member all my life and grew up in a smallish town with LOTS of LDS people. At 19 I was married in the temple to a RM, a good guy from a good family.

We moved to a big city but it still seemed small in the world of being LDS. After 2 1/2 years of marriage we ended up in councelling and after just a few sessions I decided that I wanted out of the marriage. We drove home that night and didn't say a word, infact I only talked to him one time after that, and that was just when I picked up my things from our house when I moved in with a girlfriend.

Fast forward 13 years and I am now married to a wonderful man (we just celebrated our 10yr anniversary) and have 4 beautiful children. He is an amazing, loving man. I am very happy and couldn't ask for anything more in life. We are active in the church, and hold TR.

Every once in a while I will hear something about my ex or his wife or family. I have several friends who are in the same stake and are friends of freinds. I bumped into him about a year ago and then again just a few weeks ago at the mall. These are the only times that I have seen him since we split.

I have had some thoughts that have started to run through my head. I wonder what my life would be like if we were still together? Would we be happy? Or would I be in a loveless marriage because I didn't have the guts to get out when I could have? Should I have left? Should I have tried harder? Why didn't he "fight" for me? "Could I have done something more or different so we would still be together?" "Maybe I should have done this . . ." " What if we didn't do this. . . ?" I have guilt that I didn't try harder to keep things together. I have regrets about breaking a temple marriage. I hate the fact that I caused any pain for him, for me, and even for our extended families. I have lots of conflicting thoughts and feelings. The practical side of my head says that I am being silly and that I should just get over this, but for some reason I still have these thoughts all these years later. I went more than 10 years without having any of these thoughts or feelings.

I want to make it very clear that I am not leaving my current family and that my ex and I have NO contact except for the couple of times that we have ran into each other at the mall. I have talked to my husband about my feelings, he understands and is very supportive.

Here is the question:

How do I get over these feelings? How do I deal with the guilt I feel? And what do I do with the "What if" "Should have" "Could have" and "Would have's"? It has been over 13 years since we split and I know that there is nothing that I can do to change anything in the past. I have this conflict in my head, the logical side and this feeling side. How do I get over this?

Thank you for your support and suggestions.

[pam]

Mom, I think many of us go through the "what if's" on so many different issues in our lives. Is your ex husband remarried and happy or does he hold a grudge per se in what happened? If he is happy then go with the idea that the decision may have been right for the both of you. It sounds like you are extremely happy in your current marriage and life. I wouldn't continue to keep beating yourself up over this.

[beefche]

Have you written your feelings down? Maybe in a journal? Try writing a "letter" to your ex. Write all your feelings, how you feel about him, how you feel about your marriage and anything else. DO NOT SEND ANYONE THAT LETTER. Either put it in your journal or destroy it.

And I would suggest you sincerely pray, fast, and attend the temple and ask the Lord to help you get over this. What was done is done and you cannot change anything. You can only move forward and sometimes we need the Lord's help with that. Forgive your ex for any "wrongs or slights" and then forgive yourself for the same.

[Dravin]

Now this isn't the exact same thing, and it may not be 100% applicable but I think there are some parallels.

I spend a good chunk of my youth inactive, as a direct result of actions I took (not all of them dealing with spiritual things and some small degree of things just happening (though mostly the former) I will most likely always look back and wonder.

If I had stayed active would my testimony be stronger?

If I had been active an gone on a mission at 19 instead of later, would I be married with a kid or two right now?

If I hadn't dropped out of High School and gotten a GED combined with the above would have have a degree already and be a couple years into a career by now instead of just starting college?

So as far as the would have, could haves and should have. We just have to accept that the past is done and those things that might require the power of the atonement to be rectified will if we are faithful be rectified and those things that aren't spiritual in nature (for instance my schooling) are done and regardless we can still lean on the Lord and still try to live the best and most fulfilling life possible.

The wonderful thing is that the atonement covers more than sin, one of my favorite scriptures is:

And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will ctake upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

Christ knows. He knows what its like to wonder, to doubt. He knows the pain you are feeling and he stands with open arms to comfort you, but not with knowledge gained through omniscient, but with knowledge and understanding gained because he has been there! Rejoice, for you are a priceless daughter of God and are loved.

[Just_A_Guy]

I think a lot of it comes down to simply not dwelling on the thoughts. You can't control whether they come into your head--but you can control whether they stay there. The "which dog do you feed" conundrum, and all that.

(Easier said then done, certainly. But it's do-able.)

[a-train]

The "What If"s are neither here nor there. Focus on the marriage that not only may have been but is, not the one that only may have been and isn't. For men, this comes easy. Women for some reason tend to obsess and stress over decades gone issues or those unseen in some distant future. Remember, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

-a-train

[ryanh]

In reading between the lines, it seems that you not only ‘didn’t contact him for 13 years’ but worked hard to avoid the situation entirely. Such a reaction to something so painful is entirely understandable.

But, having recently run into him on a couple occasions, coupled with the passage of time healing the sting of the situation 13 years ago, probably has allowed you to begin processing some of the feelings that you haven’t before processed. That’s natural, and even to be expected. It’s not wrong or bad, it just is.

I’m of the persuasion that a better way to deal with such feelings is to recognize them and processes them, not attempt to pretend they are not there and stuff them. Stuffing them just means they will be there at a later day when they are reawakened from being forgotten - just like what has happened recently.

As beefche suggested, writing them out is helpful. There is something helpful in getting out thoughts out in writing. Some people even go so far as to have a ceremony where the writings are buried. The mental imagery of putting them to rest can help you feel like you can let them go. They still exist on the buried paper, so they are not 'lost', but you don't have to keep them in active memory.

What also helps is to be compassionate to yourself. You did the best you knew how to do at 21, right? I'm confident you chose what you thought at the time was in your best interest. You should be too. Understanding this makes considering 'might have beens' a moot point.

[prisonchaplain]

I'm wondering if there is indeed some unresolved guilt. If the divorce was avoidable (and no one here knows or needs to), then perhaps there is the question of whether greater faithfulness and discipline and effort might have saved the first marriage. If so, there's obviously no going back. However, perhaps some personal time in prayer, meditation, and sincere repentence over a past sin that, at the time was too painful to properly work out with God, is now needed, so that the forgiveness can be received, and the spiritual side of the matter fully resolved.

What I offer above is merely a question and a possible suggestion, not a judgment, nor a certain course. Only you and God knows. But, if this matter has already been fully resolved before God, then the only other recourse is to rebuke the Devil for bringing false guilt, and praising and thanking God for the forgiveness he's already granted.

[bytor2112]

I'm wondering if there is indeed some unresolved guilt. If the divorce was avoidable (and no one here knows or needs to), then perhaps there is the question of whether greater faithfulness and discipline and effort might have saved the first marriage. If so, there's obviously no going back. However, perhaps some personal time in prayer, meditation, and sincere repentence over a past sin that, at the time was too painful to properly work out with God, is now needed, so that the forgiveness can be received, and the spiritual side of the matter fully resolved.

What I offer above is merely a question and a possible suggestion, not a judgment, nor a certain course. Only you and God knows. But, if this matter has already been fully resolved before God, then the only other recourse is to rebuke the Devil for bringing false guilt, and praising and thanking God for the forgiveness he's already granted.

PC....you would make an excellent Bishop or Stake President!:)

[prisonchaplain]

You don't think I hang around the bars too much for such a calling???

[ztodd]

You don't think I hang around the bars too much for such a calling???

I heard of a guy called to be bishop who tried to turn it down because he felt he had a small Word of Wisdom problem, but he was told, "We're not calling you to repentance, we're calling you be bishop!" I don't know if it was really a true story or not.