WELCOME TO UNHAPPENIT

Having a fulfilling marriage and related family life requires you to be thoughtful at an early age. The early moves you make in life set up what your life will look like when your in your 40's, 50's and beyond. Wow, how sick is that? Are we really expected to look down the road and around the corner as a teenager to ensure that we are fulfilled in our middle aged and senior years? You bet your ass! So listen-up young man and try to avoid the  "turd in the punchbowl" of life.

• Taking The Plunge - Getting the wrong one is bad enough; but taking 17 years and 2 kids to figure it out is a real fart. I dated one girl seriously through college and get married to her at 23. Did I want to get married at 23? No but I was afraid of losing her so I agreed.
  
• The Big Mistake - All was blissful for the first 5 years and then things started to go bad after she discovered I had an unanticipated sexual encounter with another woman. Unanticipated you ask? Yes trust me I never planned it. I bumped into her at a club that a friend was giving a party at. I was first introduced to her by a co-worker and she pursued me for over a year. My wife did not want to come to this party and in looking back I should not have gone either.
  
• The Fix? - Maybe, I thought, having a baby could spice up the relationship. By then I was 32 or 33 and things were going well on the job. We invested in a larger home in a neighborhood with good schools and the proverbial mini van. The baby arrives and for the next 4 -5 years we nested. But something was still wrong. At 38, I discovered that the two of us were growing increasingly apart on very basic values and she was never able to trust me again. We spent the next 2-3 years trying to fix it.
• Sorting Things Out - At 41 I found myself in divorce court. By now our children were about 13 and 7 years old and I am looking at child support but more importantly being separated from my children. Notwithstanding the fact that our only common focus were the the kids - financial circumstances dictated that our life would be radically changed from where we were 17 years earlier. Mix in the unavoidable bitterness that ensued and now I was not even fit for new relationship. So I settle in for a long period of sorting out what went wrong and how I could avoid this from happening again.
  
• Period of Sacrifice - From 41-48 I was Mr. Responsible, balancing dating and work life with being a strong presence in the children's life. She, on the other hand, pretended to be sacrificing her love life in order to attend to the daily responsibilities of child rearing. As it turned out, she was dating and planning a new life with another man for at least a year before she asked me for a divorce. Turn about is fair play? You decide. I do believe that responsible women check their negative self-indulgence opinions at the door when it comes to characterizing the kids Dad. Especially if he remains responsible.
  
• Period of Self-Indulgence - By now I'm a 48 year old parent of 16 and 21 year old kids who seem to have self-indulgence coded in their DNA. They're angry at the world and have opinions on everything. But I exercised patience because you are counting down the days when you can ship them off to college and they would pass through this phase. Besides I fell in love again and was ready to build a life again based on honesty and fidelity and model a healthy marriage for my kids.
  
• Let's Do It Again - I remarried within a year and the two of us supported the kids through college and helped them secure great first jobs. However, all awhile they were accepting the benefits of the new family structure, they hated me for committing to a new wife and took it out on her for more than 10 years. They have now totally alienate her and created a barrier between me and my grandchild.

So in summary, what did I learn?

1. No matter what age you need to be emotionally ready for marriage. I was not. I gave into fear of losing my girl. Being emotionally ready means to know yourself, your values and your needs. I thought I could learn on the job. WRONG.
2. Blending families is a really hard way to try to move forward.
   
3. Once you get children involved in a mistake, you have to devote your best years to raising them and not rely on ANYONE not even the other parent to teach them YOUR values. Anything less shows itself in a negative way sooner or later.
   
4. There are no guarantees that your kids will appreciate all that you've done. That okay; ask and trust in God.
5. Continue to move forward in your life and love them as you always have and put prayer in the center of your family. God willing they will come around despite what their Mom says. Just be you.

Was the infidelity wrong? Absolutely. I take full responsibility for that. But the bigger mistake was to get married for the reasons. Why did I write this? To maybe help another young man avoid making a similar life altering decision.