Hope

After a long marriage and semi-messy divorce, at what point do you consider remarriage and the prospect of having more children?

The subject has come up in general conversation between R and I recently and I find myself feeling pretty ambivalent. My ambivalence is soley based on time - even tho there is no pressure to make any decisions from either of us. I HAVE been separated for a year and 7 months and am over what happened in my marriage to the extent that I am no longer assigning blame and feeling angry or sad. But I am not over the loss of hope that I experienced in my first marriage. That was devastating.

On one hand, the prospect of remarriage and possibly another baby scares the living shit out of me, considering my not-quite-final divorce (I've blogged extensively about the end of my marriage) . The last thing I want is another divorce. Add to that two formerly confused kids, one of which is still so young that the sleepless nights, breast feeding, and poopy diapers of a newborn and the frustrated, non-verbal communications of a howling toddler are still very recent and vivid memories, so the prospect of having a child with someone new holds no romanticized visions of family utopia.

But on the other hand, I have no doubt that I want to remarry. I feel that if your relationship is serious enough to live together with the intention of dealing with all of life's little ups and downs together, that you should be committed enough to each other to want to get married and make it work. And a marriage to someone that is supportive, patient, loving, and affectionate to me AND my girls could be the answer to my secret wishes for a semi-realistic happily-ever-after, and adding a another baby to the mix could just enhance that feeling, instead of detract from it.

I guess time will tell.

After all, hope springs eternal.