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Yes, I absolutely believe it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved. I've been through the cycle three times and can say it about all three.
1. First wife. We married young but had dated for 4 years. Five years after the marriage and a year after our first was born, she decided she didn't love me. No reason given, no big argument underway, just, "I don't love you anymore." I spent the next 20 years trying to win her love again but finally gave up and divorced her. It wasn't a great time of my life, but two great kids came from it, and it wasn't horrible -- no worse than being single in most respects.
2. The other woman. I met her near the end of my first marriage. No, we didn't have an "affair". I was on a consulting job that was supposed to take a month but took 6 months. She was the office manager, a stunningly beautiful young thing. I successfully dodged her many attempts to get me alone, because I knew I'd be putty in her hands. I must have turned down a dozen invitations to dinner. Trickery worked, however. Dinner and a 3-hour drive and I had to see more of her.
We worked late together. We did lunches and dinners. I taught her how to drive a stick shift (my Saab). We became best friends. It was constant laughter. I've never known anyone with such a sense of humor. She finally backed me into a corner at work one night (literally) and all the feelings came out. Or most of them. No, I wouldn't go home with her. I explained that, even though my marriage was a shell, I planned to divorce soon, and my wife knew that, I was still married and would not cheat. Then she discovered she was pregnant. (She had a boyfriend who was gone most of time.) Because he'd always wanted a child but was never able to have one, she felt obligated to stay with him. My job was finished and we parted for good. I returned home and filed for divorce.
3. The second wife. We met online quite by accident when I was seeking some help with writing scripts for commercial videos. She helped me some through emails, but mostly we chatted about our private lives. I decided I had to meet her and traveled across country to do so. We hit it off big time. I visited her once more, then she came to visit me and never left. We were married a year later. I never knew life could be so wonderful. Then she was gone. A brain hemorrhage took her life in an instant.
I was devastated. As hard as it was to go on, I never lost sight of how lucky we were to have had our time together, however short it was. I'd have happily traded the rest of my life for the few years we had together, and I know she would have too. We tasted the best that life can be.
While I'm happily married again, the three loves I had before meeting my current wife still live within me. I learned much from each of them. I had great times with each of them. I'd be a lesser person today had I not known and loved each of them.
I definitely believe it. I learned a tremendous amount about myself from my relationships, especially my last one. However, I'd prefer never ever to go through another breakup - just plain lousy experience.
I don't agree with this statement, and some other people won't agree with it as well. People have different opinions and that's all there is to it. But people will try to shame and demean those who have different opinions.
WyoNewk, thanks for sharing your story and I am so happy that you found love again.
I believe in love, I really do, even though I myself have been single for quite a while. So I guess I do agree with that statement, although loss is heartbreaking!
I would rather never have been treated as I was in my last relationship. Everything is a learning experience, but the negative that I got out of the way things were ended far outweighs any of the positives I got out of it in the five years leading up, unfortunately.
Am I better off having had that experience, and now know what to look for and avoid, and now having a much more solid benchmark to assess the depths of someone's personal problems than I did before? Probably. I'm all for eking out whatever scrap of a silver lining I can. But that doesn't mean I truly think I am better off having loved that person. I will probably always wish I had those years back, to devote to someone able to appreciate the love he was getting. I think it's really dependent upon the situation, case by case. In my case, the way things ended left me fairly sure that the years leading up were a charade.
Last edited by TabulaRasa; 05-06-2013 at 10:51 AM..
There is an article on divorce, and it got me to thinking. For those of us that lost someone we loved know that's a feeling we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy, but at the same time losing that person can even make us stronger, better people. I know that I've dated people that never had a serious relationship, and they were definitely not LTR material in my book, whereas dating someone who's experienced heartache is a lot more realistic and more relatable.
Discuss!
Well I guess it depends, some people can cause a lot of damage others, but for most healhty relationships it should be worthwile
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