Not bitter, just reality for far too many men.
My first wife turned out to be a nightmare...physically took the kids from MS (where I was stationed) to NY “for a visit” and then served me with papers...did everything she could to alienate the kids and bleed me and had me thinking homicidal thoughts for a while. Finally had to do some serious praying (trip back to MS from NY after visiting the kids gave me lots of alone/quiet time for prayer) and by the time I got back, the load had been lifted to never return.
In April, I celebrated 27 years with the wife I wish I had found the first time, the kids (grown and have kids of their own) call her “Mom” and call their blood mother, “mother”. She is abut to become a widow without any savings and her income is about to be severely diminished...ne of her biggest fears is not being taken care of - the guy she’s married to was married to her best friend who died of cancer about 18 years ago...she spent a lot of time “helping him take care of his dying wife” and never moved out when she passed. He’s been disabled for years with active alcoholism and other problems and it finally got so bad that he is tired of living and drinking more to help speed up the process.
I could have wasted a lot of time being upset with her and would have missed out on much...as it is, I actually feel a bit sorry for her because the life she chose didn’t pan out anywhere near to what she envisioned.
She still gets part of my military retirement and it may keep her in beans but not much else...he hasn’t worked in years and his SS won’t be much and she worked sporadically in some low paying jobs so her own SS can’t be but a few hundred a month.