If you’re offered a second chance at creating a happy family, grab it

By David McElroy · November 23, 2014

Is life full of second chances? Or do our bad choices doom us to live with ugly consequences? Maybe the second chances are always there. Maybe we tend to doom ourselves.

It seems as though we’re all going to make serious mistakes, but life frequently gives us chances to make better choices later. If we learn from our mistakes and choose differently, we can break out of ugly patterns. But if we refuse to learn — if we blame everyone else and keep making the same mistakes instead — we end up suffering consequences over and over and over again, even though we have the power to change our own lives.

I’ve been thinking about second chances and life’s tradeoffs over the past four days, and it started with a happy family that I saw at dinner Wednesday night.

I’m not sure what caught my attention about this family. Maybe it was because they all seemed happy and the parents were both strongly engaged with the children and with each other. There were three young children in addition to the parents, two young girls and a slightly older boy. For whatever reason, they were the very picture of what I want for myself.

When I got married years ago, I was eager to have children and build a happy family, but I soon realized that I wasn’t ready. I was afraid of making the same mistakes that had left me unhappy with the family in which I grew up. I felt damaged and psychologically unready to be a parent, so I waited. And waited.

We eventually divorced. She remarried and they had a son. She’s happy today and I don’t have anything bad to say about her, but I clearly failed at my first attempt at a family. Other than the cats and dogs, I was completely alone.

I still had a lot to learn about myself. I did a lot thinking and self-examination. I went through counseling with a very good psychologist. Then about six years ago, I had another chance at building a family. I was engaged to a woman and we both seemed to want the same things. But something still wasn’t right. I backed out. Some of the issues were mine. Some were hers. I came to regret backing out, so it took me years to get over it — enough time that it felt like another failed attempt at family.

I spent more time working on myself. I went through much more counseling. I came to understand even more about my past. I slowly became a more emotionally healthy person. But I was still alone.

The most important decision a parent ever makes for his or her children is who the other parent will be. I’ve believed that for a long time, but I’m more aware of it now than ever. As I’ve been looking for a partner lately, it’s been with an eye toward finding a woman who would not only match me — and my own idiosyncrasies — but who would be the perfect mother for the children I still desperately want.

And I’m hopeful that life is going to give me another chance to say, “Yes,” to this woman.

As I watch happy families, it makes me desperately want to be raising children with that right woman. It makes me want to have children who reflect both of us and our values. It makes me eager to have children who know what it’s like to be loved and cherished and valued by both of their parents for who they are as individuals. I want this right woman all by herself, but I also want the happy and emotionally healthy family that could be the best of what we could be together.

As I watch happy families, I’m intoxicated by the anticipation and love that I feel imagining that. I want another chance to finally get family right — and I think life is going to give me that chance.

I realize now that I can’t have everything I want in life. I have to choose. I can’t devote myself relentlessly to a career and also to a family. There was a time when becoming financially successful and leaving a mark on the world was a big deal to me. It would still be nice, but it’s no longer my top priority. Mentally, I’ve already made a choice.

In his book, “Investment Biker,” financial guru Jim Rogers talked about the tradeoffs involved in pursuing big dreams.

“Most of us don’t have the discipline to stay focused on a single goal for five, 10 or 20 years, giving up everything to bring it off, but that’s what’s necessary to become an Olympic champion, a world-class surgeon, or a Kirov ballerina,” Rogers wrote. “Even then, of course, it may be all in vain. You may make a single mistake that wipes out all the work. It may ruin the sweet, lovable self you were at 17. That old adage is true: You can do anything in life, you just can’t do everything. That’s what Bacon meant when he said a wife and children were hostages to fortune. If you put them first, you probably won’t run the three-and-a-half-minute-mile, make your first $10 million, write the great American novel or go around the world on a motorcycle. Such goals take complete dedication.”

Rogers had complete devotion to everything except love and family. He had two failed marriages and he didn’t have children. He didn’t want children, because they weren’t his priority. He wanted to be successful and wealthy. He wanted to drive a motorcycle around the world. He wanted a number of things, but a family wasn’t among them.

But he eventually changed his mind. He met the right woman to be his wife, someone who was also the right woman to be a mother for his children. Life gave Rogers another chance to get family right. He took the chance and he’s a very happy man as a result.

“I thought children were a terrible waste of time, energy, money – I felt sorry for my friends who had children,” Rogers told CNBC. “I thought it was something I would never do. I was terribly wrong.”

My dreams have changed over the years. I once wanted to be president. (Seriously.) I once wanted to build a major newspaper chain. I have half a dozen or so dreams that don’t really even matter to me anymore. Now, my dream is the right wife and happy children.

When I die, I’m not going to regret giving up on the idea of politics. I won’t care that I was never president. I’m not going to care that I never built a newspaper empire. I’m not going to regret giving up a number of dreams that seemed significant at one time.

If I have a happy and emotionally healthy family, I will feel that my life was a success. If I have a wife who respects me and believes in me, I’ll be happy and feel successful. If I have children who love me and believe I’ve given them love and the emotional preparation to be healthy adults, I’ll feel as though I’m living beyond my own years.

A biologist would say there’s something in our genes the makes having children an imperative for us. Maybe he would be right. But I’m more in the camp that sees the desire for children as being a desire for love — to express love and receive it. For me, the fact that my genes persist beyond that is secondary, so maybe love is at the heart of what genes or God intended to perpetuate humanity.

I’m waiting for life to give me the chance to say yes to the right woman. I understand how important she is. I understand the value of the family we can create. I’m emotionally prepared.

I’m ready for another chance. I’m going to grab it this time and never let go. I’m finally ready.

Share on Social Networks

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

Narcissists tend to turn their children into narcissists — and since a narcissist doesn’t realize he or she is a narcissist, there’s no bad intent. How does this happen? I watched a YouTube video over the weekend from an Australian psychologist who does a nice job of summarizing how it works. None of this is new to me, but I thought it was useful for those who haven’t spent years digging through books and articles about it. The same psychologist has an excellent summary of something which confuses a lot of people about narcissism. You’ve all seen examples of the loud, boisterous and overbearing narcissist, but what about the ones who are more introverted and vulnerable? This type is called a covert narcissist (or a vulnerable narcissist), and this is what my father was. In the first video, I strongly see myself in the ways my father treated me and in the second video, I see what my father was almost successful in making me become.

It’s National Dog Day in the U.S. and Lucy is here to remind you to go express love and appreciation to your favorite canine. Not only does your doggie friend give you love and affection, but he or she also protects your home from intruders — such as birds, squirrels, mail carriers and other undesirables who deserve to be barked at vigorously. Where would we be without that? And if you think this service is actually unnecessary, ask yourself how long it’s been since your home was the victim of a vicious squirrel attack. See? The doggie defense works. Keep barking at ’em, Lucy.

I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time over the last couple of years thinking and writing about love and connection. I’ve come to understand that this lack of love and connection is at the root of a lot of human tragedy and unhappiness, including addictions and depression. As I talked with others and researched the psychology behind the issues, I ran into the surprising fact that researchers are increasingly using psychedelic drugs to allow volunteers to have experiences which are giving them a sense of connection which they’ve lost — something that allows them to feel connected to love and God in a way they didn’t understand before — which is having dramatic effects in combating things such as depression and addictions. In this 15-minute TED talk — without an audience in the age of COVID-19 — Johns Hopkins researcher Mary Cosimano shares her experiences with guided psilocybin sessions being used to treat addiction, depression and end-of-life issues. One of her key observations is the importance of love and connection. She said that it seems love is literally part of the answer. In her role as director of guide/facilitator services for the program, Cosimano is responsible for training and supervising session facilitators.

It’s something I wrote four and a half years ago — in the desperation of loneliness — and it’s become my most popular article. It’s not my best writing. It’s raw and unpolished. But it seems as though a lot of people can identify with it. It’s called Missing someone creates intense physical sensations in my heart. Just to give you an idea how many people still read it, I had 11,586 people visit the page last month — from 2,907 cities and towns around the world. London sent the most readers for it, followed by New York, Westminster, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto and almost 3,000 more. I’ve noticed something interesting. It always gets the most hits from an area of the world in the late hours, right after midnight, and that breaks my heart — because I understand why. All these people are so lonely and are missing someone so much that they turn to a search engine looking for answers, so they stumble upon this piece. I wrote this late at night on the day after Christmas because my heart was breaking. I needed to express how much I missed someone, and a lot of people seem to identify with it. If you’re one of those people, I have no way of knowing who you are, but I empathize with you. I know why you hurt. I wish I could do more to help. I hurt with you, because after all this time, I still feel the same way.

Related Posts