greiving ?

Post Reply New Topic

here is something that is on my mind alot.....
when i was 16 i met the love of my life. he was quite a bit older than me but that's besides the point. at 17 we had a baby and moved in together. we both had our own issues but things were not so bad most of the time and i loved him more than i can explain. when i was 23 he died. the day after his funeral, a CAS(like child protection) worker came to my house seemingly out of the blue. i was having a hard time keeping it together for them and they said i was unstable because i kept tearing up and couldn't help but crying off and on. so, since they thought i was unstable they took my daughter. turns out it was my parents who reported my 'instability'(grief!) and requested custody of my daughter. as you can imagine this tore my family apart and caused a huge rift between my parent and myself. my daughter was taken to them and left there. i fought for 6 years to get her back and they did everything they could to keep her from me, including making false accusations against me to prolong the 'investigation' and force me to bend to their will. finally i got visitation for the summer and holidays just last year although she is 11 now and our relationship will never be what it should have been.
anyways, this is on my mind all the time. it upsets me when i think of it but i'm able to snap back into the real world fairly easily. i have a lot of hate for my mother but i have to deal with her and be nice to her and i can't talk about any of this with her because if i try to bring it up she'll change the subject and denie me access to my daughter. i also still really miss her father. he's been gone for 7 years now and i think about him every single day, sometimes all day. i have a new family now, a new husband and 3 boys. i feel guilty being so wrapped up in my head with my first love still and i can't tell my new hubby about how i think of him all the time for obvious reasons. i love my boys and i'm not sure i love hubby enough to be married to him or not but i am and i feel an obligation to stay with him because of the kids even though he is more like a room-mate to me than anything else. i just miss my 'old' family so much and i don't know when it's going to stop hurting or when the grieving will stop. if i had a time machine i'd go back and change things to keep my first love alive. i know i could have prevented it had i known. i also miss my daughter incredibly. i talk to her almost everyday but she seem so much like a stranger to me almost. anyways thanks for reading. any advice would be good.

I don't really have much in the way of advice, but perhaps as your daughter grows older and becomes more independent you will grow closer again; that's the way it was for me at least—I was was involved in a custody battle and adopted, and it wasn't really until I became an adult that I really began reconnecting with the past, if that makes sense. I'm sorry you had to go through the pain of losing someone you love so dearly so early in your life; you deserve a lot of credit for trying to find happiness again.

You story is moving. I'm glad you can snap yourself out of you longing reverie, that's a good sign.

The love of my life also died. My mourning process was five years; this occurred in my 40s and we did not have children together. (I had them with a former husband and he with his late wife.)

I was more emotional when I was younger. As I aged, I gradually became less emotional and more at peace, happier.

It sounds as if you're about 30. You're still pretty young. Don't be surprised if you enjoy life more as you age. Your daughter is unlikely to become closer to you in the next decade because girls are at their worst in their teens. But, because of your love of her, and if you are not possesive of her, I'll bet you will have a lovely friend in her later on. That's how it is with me and my girls. They're in their late and mid 20s. In saying, "not possesive of her"; I don't mean to say that you should break contact with her. On the contrary, hang in with her.

As for your anger at your mother; it's deserved but I'm guessing you know that your bitter feelings drag you down. In my 30s, I was extremely angry with my former husband and I hated the feeling. I was constantly cursing him in my thoughts and wanted to cease the negativity for my own benefit. I was able to get out of it by simply saying no to my hateful thought each time I caught myself and switching my focus to whatever was in front of me. It always worked, though my ugly thinking would boomarrang right back a minute or an hour later and I'd just switch focus again. It took a year, but gradually, I got out of it. It was a great relief and to this day, I consider that year of mental discipline, the best investment I've ever made.

Be good to yourself. Enjoy simple pleasures and be well.

thanks AKindofJareth, i hope she comes around. she tells me alot of stuff but nothing really deep. more like what she had for breakfast and stuff like that. i'm hoping since she's not here all the time she might tell me about boys and stuff as she gets older because i know she won't tell my mom that kind of stuff.
MountainLaurel, it is so nice to find someone who knows what i've been going through. you hit the nail on the head about my mom too. i don't like being angry at her but i'm having a really hard time forgiving her and trusting her enough to let her get to know the other kids because i worry that she might decide to want them as well. it would be great for them to have some time visiting Gramma, you know? but for me it's too scary to let them go over there. i do hope that things get better and being happy starts to come easier as i get older.

I'm sorry for the loss of your lover and friend. I'm sorry that your daughter is not part of your life, and that your folks have betrayed you.

I don't know your current husband, but if my wife was hurting I would want her to open up to me. But that's just me, so don't take my advice without considering the consequences.

I'm glad you can voice this in the forum here.

Though unrelated, I've been dealing with some grief of my one since June and from one griever from another I just want to say, hang in there.

Thanks, Missy.

Forgiveness is such an important topic. Without it we're consumed from inside. I think it's important to understand that forgiveness and trust are not necessarily linked.

For example, it was important for me to forgive my abusive father. It's very hard to do. I made progress. I don't feel actively hateful of him any more, though my aversion to him remains. (He's disceased.) I accept that he was as he was and that his own painful background formed him. I just don't obsess my hatred of him any longer. I count this as progress in forgiveness.

But it would have been unwise and wrong for me to trust him. He never changed, he remained dangerous. I never allowed him unsupervised access to my girls. This may be the same with your mom.

thanks, i never thought of it that way. i think i have made some progress as well, but i still have a long way to go. i mean, i can talk to my mom about general things without getting upset with her. sometimes she asks my opinion of things when it comes to dealing with my daughter and i appreciate that. like you, i don't think that relationship can really be saved to the point where i'd consider letting my other kids visit her alone or even just to have her as someone to confide in which is how i feel a mother should be.
i took a step today and told my hubby that i have been feeling really sad and keep thinking about negative things. i didn't tell him what though, and he didn't ask. he just said, "oh, well that's not too good." and left the room. i don't think he knew what to say. i used to talk to him about how my first love died and i still missed him when we first got together but one day he told me to stop telling him about it and i haven't really talked to anyone about it since then. that was about 3 or 4 years ago.
i feel a bit better knowing i can come on here and discuss it with people who are more understanding. i tend to isolate myself and my only friend moved away a few months ago so i really don't have anyone i can talk to in the 'real world'. i suppose i could go out and try to make a friend somehow but i don't really know how to chose the right person. the one friend i had was actually a friend of my uncle's who moved here and he suggested i invite her for coffee and things worked out well from there until she moved. so i really appreciate your support and the support of everyone else who's commented in this thread. it means alot to me.

Glad we're helping. Keep talking about it if it helps. I hope you can find other people who will hear you too.

Can you please expand on this? I find it almost impossible for me to forgive. It's like I'm saying to myself, "If I forgive you your action, regardless of my understanding where it comes from, I'm saying that it was okay for you to do what you did." I'm very rigid, very black-and-white that way and I've tried to break free of it.