Learning From Experience

Today's "Quote of the Day":
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
- George Bernard Shaw

I spoke with my friend Beth last night, after about four months of our both being too busy to catch up. She told me her divorce will be final most any day. This is her third divorce.

Beth is very close to her two brothers, one of whom is a psychotherapist and the other a lawyer. She said the lawyer told her if she ever thinks of getting married again, they're both going to kill her. He told her she "can't pick 'em." I laughingly told her my kids probably think the same thing, but haven't had the courage to say that to me.

She also told me her son, in his late 20s, told her, "Mom, it's hard on us too. We get attached to these people (her husband and his son) and it hurts when you break up." That's something that couples don't think enough about when deciding to call it quits—IMHO.

I told Beth the only good thing about the second and subsequent divorce is that after the first one, the list of what one will put up with gets shorter and shorter. That sentence doesn't work, grammatically, but you understand what I'm saying. Does that mean you get smarter or you get more self-respect, or both?

My buddy Ed, who is gorgeous and smart and funny, was telling me the other day that after his first divorce, he was convinced, based on what his ex-wife had said to him, that he was undesireable and would not find a woman again. Hogwash! The power that we allow others to have over us with their words is untenable.

I've said here how my mother convinced me I was dumb, ugly and incompetent. Then my first husband told me repeatedly, in words and actions, that I was not as good a Christian and not as good a musician as he was. Music was central to my being, and Christianity was central to his so, implicitly, I was a total failure.

As much as I want a best friend/partner/lover in my life, I'd rather be alone with my cat than have to deal with someone who is so insecure he has to constantly put me down to build himself up.

Life's too short!