Ultimate Communication
 

On this my 16th wedding anniversary, a local family is getting together to bury their sister / daughter. We dated for a little while back in the day. She was a very pretty blue-eyed blond. A brilliant singer with a keen intellect, she seemed to have it all. Unfortunately, she never figured out how to maintain a relationship. When we went out, she chose to see my brother-in-law on the side. I broke it off and was treated to a stalking. Through channels, I've heard she was increasingly desperate for a stable love life. I guess we can't live other's lives for them or even always intervene, but I'm left with the feeling that the younger me missed a chance to help along the way.

Not your fault. Breaking up with her was a way to help her. It let her know that her behavior was unacceptable to you. A person has to be ready for help, to be helped.

Thanks for the outside view man. It is difficult to sort out being so blurry from such a time/space distance.

I feel relly bad for you and all I can say is I'm sorry and I can relate. A good friend of mine from High School who grew appart from the rest of us during 1st year of college took his own life that summer. Eddie was a very outgoing "up for anything" kinda guy. I still wonder if I missed some plea for help somewhere at some point. . . . Still don't know. never will.
I hope she's free of her pain and in a better place.

Griff you can only live one life, and that is your own. I don't mean to be harsh - her family and friends will obviously be grieving. But that doesn't mean things would have been any different if you had stayed with her. Except your life, and your wife's would not have been as blessed.

Sorry for the shock and the saddness it has caused you.

Nothing you could have done would have helped.

Rather than wonder what help you could have offered that would likely have been in vein, consider the return you are getting from your effort to provide a stable, healthly and loving family to your daughter. Now there's an investment that's paying off.

Sorry Griff, that's a harsh way to have to deal with feelings of betrayal.
Do you mind me asking how she passed? Was it her lifestyle? tragic? Health?

I don't know the particulars but a buddy an I saw her singing in a bar one night and he thought she was hitting the coke pretty hard, so maybe drugs were the tool. That is just speculation though.

With those qualifications, I'm sure she had plenty of suitors.

OK, 2/3 looking to score, but there had to be some guys that were stable relationship material..... bedsides yourself, of course. It sounds like she was pretty much set in her ways when you met her and it's hard to believe that somewhere along the way, some guy wasn't infatuated, if not in love, with her enough to really, really try to save her from herself.

The fly in the ointment is, the guy that saves her ungrateful ass doesn't get to enjoy the fruits of his long, expensive, frustrating efforts. Nooooo.
She feels he knows her to well and is part of the baggage she wants to shed, so it's, thanks for the help, today is the first day of the rest of my life, I'm off to find a guy to share it with.....did you put gas in my car?
So, you see, she needs not one but two sequential acolytes to save her. It's best to be the second.

Oh, Happy Anniversary to you and Pete. :celebrat: