Amen, Disney! Pretty soon you will have new memories and this family will feel real. Have a wonderful trip. I took my 3 youngest to Disney World by myself and realized I had done it before. We had a blast. It was great to get away.

Thank you for this post Disney!! Many things you wrote, I can relate to as if you were speaking for me.
Reading this helped bring the thoughts together! Have a wonderful time in Disneyland! Enjoy every moment creating those new wonderful memories!!

Great post.
I, too, miss the idea of who I thought he was, not actually him.
Have a great trip!

Yes, Disney, it's the dream that I miss - the dream of the family living happily ever after. I know now that it was never going to happen. I miss having someone around but I'd rather be alone than have him here.

I hope you have a wonderful time at Disneyland with your lovely family. My kids loved the cup and saucer ride the best. I loved the hot dogs. Oh, the memories you're going to make......

Disney. I hope you have a really wonderful time together with your kids at Disneyland.
My marriage might have been very different to yours, but I find now when my kids and are go on vacation together it is so much more relaxed and fun. There is no longer any tension and I almost feel that there is more love. I hope it can be the same for you. ((hugs))

I can't wait to hear about your wonderful trip. I have never had a vacation. Never a family vacation. I don't think a family vacation with the ex would have been fun.

You will make new memories and I hope you come home thinking this was the best vacation of all.

Wow WELL SAID. I too at times miss my ex believe it or not. NOT him in itself but yes just like you put it the complete package of what i thought was suppose to be FAMILY. i AM without him but not without love. I have my family, my kids, my grandkids, my friends, and my new partner that all love and care for me. If he chose to walk away from something he once thought was special I can only call him a hypocrite now. He always said family was important and that when you marry it was not to make yourself happy but rather to make your mate happy and look what he did. All the contrary. Hypocrite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As hard as it has been I am glad he is gone. He should have left a long time ago and not spend so many years of my life. But he was a coward and a very selfish person; waiting to exit; waiting for the opportunity to sneak out thru the door and he did.
He has no clue what it means to work thru hard times; he deals with hard times and disappointments by running. He has done it all his life. So family are those who really love you. You make it complete; the rest is just a false image.

Disneymom... I totally understand what you are saying. The similarity for me with Disney is this. When I found my STBX was having an affair. He was doing a lot of stuff, not knowing that I knew about the OW. One of things was planning a Disney trip for us, our kids and grandkids!! Now, he never planned anything for family vacation of which there were many in all our 38 years of marriage. He was carrying on with OW at night and Disney trip planning during the day. SO... then when it blew up and he knew I knew about OW... the trip was bought and paid for. I couldn't break the hearts of the kids and grandkids and tell them this trip wasn't happening and my head was still spinning with what to do!!! So.... we all went. Talk about torture and I think I deserve an academy award for acting!! In hindsight, maybe that was not best, but as I think most of us on the board know, sometimes it takes awhile to think straight!! Now all our memories of Disney are colored by that... I hate that. The kids know now and the divorce will be final on March 2nd. like the other topic.... It's hell in the hallway. One window closed and I can't wait to get to the other window. Hang in there... I feel your pain.

The adjustment to the revised version of family is very, very hard.

Disney, you were comfortable with the way things were, as was I. You knew what to expect. Even when the 'bad' stuff was happening or on it's way. He disappointed you. The kids. Said or did things that one should not say or do. He was selfish. But you knew him. Outcomes were somewhat predictable. There is a sense of secrurity in that. But was it happy? Really happy? I wasn't. Clearly, he wasn't. I thought love, commitment, the vow to honour, the gut-wrenching perseverence through the hard times...that made up for the bad stuff. I thought. He 'loved' me, us, but he wasn't loving. How can one love without being loving?

I have two families. My birth family, who mean the world to me, and helped me to survive this past year. And the family that I created. My boys. They are, and always have been mine. It was always me that was there for them, that they could count on. They know it. stbx knows it too. He is the one with no family now. He gave it away. There are so many people who are alone in the world, who would do anything to be part of a wonderful, loving family. And he gave it away. On a good day (!) I feel sorry for him.

Now he lives with her and her family. He was never that good a fit in our own family, so he must feel really odd in the new family dynamic, or whatever it is they have going on. I feel sorry for the ow's kids. They didn't choose this.

Anyway, here's to famlies! All versions. Or as we say with my birth family when we have a toast 'a la famiglia!'

iammine, Thanks for your kind and thoughtful words. Your Right he " GAVE " it away is a nice way of putting it. I always say he "THREW" it away in the real early stages when he left I actually flt like yesterdays TRASH THET HE SIMPLY THREW AWAY" But I hold on strong to the saying " Another man's TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN'S TREASURE" I hope this saying holds true one day. You also said that the Outcomes were predictable. SO TRUE even now when I am still shocked by his bad and selfish behavior people say to me " T did you really expect anything different from him?" The man has not made one smart choice in over a year now. To me the only way to judge how someone's behavior will be in the future is by looking at their past. So if he hasn't made one decision out of good or kindness in the 23 years we were together why the hell would I expect him to do it now?????
Thanks Everyone!!!!!1
Disney Dreams:)

disneymom - have a wonderful time. I was adopted, so to me, my family is what I have made it and the people I have chosen to have in my life. My ex was another who threw away our relationship (although post-separation) and he made it so much easier for me. Let us know how the trip was for you (exciting, I bet!)

Lynne

Lynne, I have an adopted daughter with whom I have a difficult relationship . Can you tell me what you mean when you say "my family is what I have made it" Is that a positive statement In terms of accepting your adopted parents or is it a statement about being detached from your family? If you don't want to post a reply, please friend me and send me a message.

Disney - have a great time with your family. This is going to be a wonderful vacation. Don't feel melancholy about it - this is a great thing. Onward, upward and enjoy.

I know that when my X was here he'd do something stupid and hurtful on every vacation. Everyone had a hurtful memory. My next vacation with my girls will be without that. I can't wait!

Have fun.

@lycesq I know what you mean about family is what you made for yourself. I haven't seen my birth family in over 20 years. It's a horrible thing to find your father isn't who you thought he was. That your real father didn't know about you and he died before you were born.

My siblings who are younger told me this after everyone who would have history on me had died so I take their word for what they say. Did my bratty little sister lie? Perhaps, but I don't stay where I'm not wanted and they so obviously didn't want me. They fight and cause trouble and I never felt I belonged.

Home is where I make it and that's in SC for now. Family is whoever I allow to be in my life. Family doesn't have to be blood related. I have no roots and I drift but my life is good.

I hear you, trisha. I'll use your example to say this....Sometimes I look at people who do genealogy and laugh because you never know. I once read that rarely can you go back more than four generations and still be in truth about your "roots". Things like what you describe aren't that uncommon. Also, the further back you go, the more manipulation of the truth that there was because shame was more prominent in situations of infidelity and such, generations ago. All you are tracing is a facade, not blood. It was an interesting article.

I'm ashamed of some of mine, always apologizing for them to my loved ones for their false accusations and verbal abuse. Family is who you decide it is. My sister taught me that. It was the only thing she ever taught me that has value besides how NOT to be.

I left another family member behind because they have no values at all. One will even praise gossip itself and he has his mind in the gutter when he dishes it out. He is fixated on sexual deviancy in his false accusations against others....and his profanity. Then he spreads this sh__ around the "family". He aims his hideous accusations at everyone, even at my loved ones who have values far greater than the people he has in his life. He really should be ashamed to accuse while surrounded by the many people he is surrounded with, but shameful people are rarely ashamed.

My loved ones don't do what these people do. They don't make immoral choices like bust up families, just for one example, then justify it. It amazes me how these people can justify the "wrongness" completely out of their choices, then turn around and pin it on people who have nothing to do with the accusations they like to spit out, if only for the sake of gossip. I have issues with that.

. I think when you get to the issues of morality like this, you can tell who your family is. I'm a fish out of water in my family because so many of them find certain things acceptable that I just flat out don't but they want to label and accuse everyone else into being like they are. The same holds true for the ex who, happens to be best friends with the gossiper I spoke of. He was with someone in 2002 and she didn't get divorced till 2004. Wow. So much of who and what some of them are goes completely against our value systems in every way..

I'm sure many of us in here can understand this about infidelity and busting up family. I can understand a family member who might make bad choices, I just can't have family who tries to trash others by projecting their own bad values onto someone else in a constant stream of false accusations then spread it around in family gossip.. Man, I got sick of that.