Grieving the Fantasy

Sometimes the hardest thing to mourn isn't the person—it's the life you believed you were going to have.

It’s the future you built around them.

For a long time, I thought I was grieving my marriage.

I wasn’t.

I was grieving the woman I believed I would become.

I grieved Christmas mornings that would never feel the same.
I grieved family dinners that would never happen.
I grieved grandchildren I imagined gathering around one table.
I grieved growing old beside someone I believed loved me.
I grieved the version of my daughter who used to run into my arms.

Those losses were real.

One of the most painful realizations after emotional abuse is that we don’t only lose what actually existed.

We lose what we believed was coming.

That fantasy can keep us trapped for years.

We replay conversations in our minds.
We imagine apologies that never come.
We picture reconciliation.
We wait for someone to finally understand what they did.

I know that place.

I lived there.

Eventually I realized something that changed everything:

I wasn’t just holding onto hope.

I was holding onto a story that no longer existed.

Letting go of that fantasy felt like another death.

But it also became the beginning of freedom.

Because once I stopped waiting for the ending I had written in my imagination, I could finally begin living the story God was writing instead.

Grief is not weakness.

It is love searching for somewhere to go.

If you’re grieving the life you thought you were going to have, I want you to know something:

You are not behind.

You are not broken.

You are simply learning to release what never was so you can receive what still can be.

And sometimes...

that is where healing finally begins.