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eskielover · Jun 25, 2024 at 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDMercer

@eskielover

Did you carry guilt for a long time?

Did you carry compassion for a long time?

I feel compassion for her, and I carry guilt that I created this or put her in this desperate situation that I believe she is in now.

But she's someone I can't help.

It's like trying to rescue a drowning person who will pull you under to stay afloat. And I think she'd use anyone for a raft to stay afloat.

RDMercer

I never felt guilt. I flew with my dog to buy my farm in May & realized during the summer I had never even thought about him because it was such an emotional relief to be away from him. My mom would always say when I was growing up, that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" I realized that was just another lie she told or really I realized more that my heart really didn't feel anything for him in the first place & with everything over the years my heart actually grew to hate him. That was a whole different issue to come to terms with, forgiveness & letting the hate go. I still struggle with that as the legal issues I am still dealing with that his stupidity have caused in my life 17 years after walking out.

Compassion was limited mostly to trying to get him help so the things he did wouldn't destroy me financially. At first I dealt with the IRS because he was incapable (compassion & self protection). I let him get a loan modification IF he could get it on his own. Looking back I should have just let a foreclosure happen I get it over with. I thought at the time the house value was upside down & we could just wait for the sale of the house in the divorce until the house had value & we would both benefit. I found out he wasn't paying the property taxes, he was living on overdraft in the joint account I was paying the IRS out of. Closed tge account when done paying the IRS. I tried to get Adult Protective Services to assign a payee to his disability/SS money but they basically told me his spending was his problem....long story short, he lost the house after again not paying the mortgage for 18 months & selling it to an investor & stole the money he got from the house before the divorce was final here where I live. I got everything I own here but didn't bother with the Calif things because my state has no jurisdiction over Ca & my Ky divorce lawyer couldn't even get him to respond to him ever during the whole divorce process.

No, no guilt is deserved. They are adults & make their own choices in life just like we do. Choices have consequences which is why we must choose wisely. Those who don't, pay the consequences. Their own choices put them in the situations they find themselves in & that is not our responsibility. It's not like we forced them there at gun point. They made their choices with their own free will.

I helped myself all my life get to where I got & I sure wasn't going to let an incompetent husband destroy that. It wasn't until I did get out & own my own farm (from my inheritance money from my parents) & be very financially responsible that I could look back & see all the bad details I lived with all those years & how it negatively effected me & my health.

My compassion is limited to "I sure wish he had made better choices for his life" but I know I never lived well with so many of those choices from the beginning which is why we were always fighting. When it came down to my survival or him, no guilt & very limited compassion.

I have never talked bad about him to our grown daughter but she has known all the facts so he couldn't get away with lying to her (& he tried). She is tough & independent too but she also knows that mom is the one who has a farm & a place to come if she ever needs it while her dad had all the things he wouldn't let go of in a divorce before I left & lost almost everything anyway.

Bad choices have consequences & I don't choose to live with the consequences of someone elses bad choices. I have enough consequences of my own making to deal with. Guilt & unearned compassion just muddy up the waters of getting on with a new good quality life.

I probably never went on the path of thinking I had to help others because I never got help & pretty much had to figure out my life & direction on my own & fight my own battles. So I was very independent from as far back as I can remember in childhood