# Triggers



## Lovebug501 (Aug 30, 2011)

My H left town yesterday morning for a week long business trip and I'm busy trying to pack and move into the apartment.

I come across our 2 year old's baby book and start flipping through the pages. I hit the page about his first birthday and rather than remember what a special day that was, all I can think is that he was screwing her on that day. Will I ever be able to shove that thought aside and remember the day our baby turned 1 with fondness?

It's so hard packing and coming across all the memories. That's probably why I've been putting it off for so long.


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## The Count (Aug 14, 2011)

I think so.

I had a similar experience a couple of weeks back, when my parents found a load of old baby photos of my Son when he was two. I was enjoying them at first, but then a wave of black despair came over me and I felt like a complete failure to him because I couldn't keep the marriage going, even though it was her desicion to end it and it was hugely toxic for me. 

I assume it's like any other form of grief. Once you have emotionally disconnected from a situation, in terms of the loss, then you can access the memories that make you happy. 

Two years ago, I lost my Grandmother who I was extremely close to, and my Uncle (again who I was very close to) in quick succession. At first the pain of thinking about them was unbearable, but then I got to a place where the memory of them made me smile, and I was more grateful to have known them then to lose them. 

Bit different in a divorce situation, where you have to grieve the loss of an emotional attachtment, but they are still alive to hurt you by their actions. I think what I'm trying to say is that what you are feeling is perfectly natural in a state of hurt, and having that association with something that should be sacred to your memory has been violated by the actions of another, but, I also believe you can get past that, and the memory and experience of your children will, in the end, remain pure for you as a blessed time in your life, despite the attempts of someone to defile it in the short term.


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