I can't stand it

My husband and I both come from large families.

He has a cousin whom I have known since C was a little baby.

This cousin is extremely nice. Seemed caring, comes from a super nice family. I met the couple at a family reunion. The cousin and his wife extended an open invitation for anyone coming through the area they lived to come and stay.

We had an opportunity to do so. We were able to visit them for a couple of days.

We enjoyed seeing them cope with homeschooling, school activities, cleaning their home(so organized!) and I visited with the cousins wife about crafts. And their kids were great and their living situation was great. It all seemed like a wonderful situation. The wife was even a nurse who worked the occasional saturday. Wow.

Well. What do you do when it all comes apart?

5 years later. we are at a funeral and we hear that 2 couples in the family are considering divorce. And one of them is this cousin. the other couple, by the way, decided against divorce and pulled it together.

Anyway, back to this cousin.

Its been about 18 month since the divorce.

I pulled facebook up to login and my hubby was still logged in. This cousin had posted something on there. So I visited his page. It was full of videos and pictures of his kids. He seemed to be living an active life and doing his best to be a father.

I don't know anything about what she's up to because their cousins, and we usually only see the family at reunions.

But here's my point.

My heart ached for that family as I saw the pictures. I can only imagine the children of a once happy home, now being shuttled from house to house. spending holidays here and weekends there. The couple - once part of a happy marriage. Now dealing with custody, child support, dating, and dealing with kids who I can only guess are struggling with the whole situation.

And why does my heart ache so much for this couple and not for my hubby's brother R? He and his wife are aiming for divorce, but just can't afford it right now.

After seeming to conquer a drug habit, he is back into it. He has a seasonal job in the housing industry, which is struggling along anyway. So he has plenty of time on his hands.

He is currently living on his mothers couch. Literally. He seems content. We visited yesterday and he had plastered pictures of his new girlfriends all over the living room of this trailer house. You couldn't look anywhere without seeing her picture. I thought she looked like she was struggling herself with possible self esteem issues (she settled for a boyfriend living on his mothers couch and struggling with a drug habit, and lots and lots of makeup) but my hubby pointed out that she looked high in a couple of the pics. I personally have never seen someone high, but hubby grew up with his brother and saw the brother both drunk and high. So I guess he would be familiar with it.

The brother has 3 beautiful children with his (still) wife and had also plastered pictures of them everywhere. Nothing wrong with that. He just went so overboard though, that it made me wonder what he was trying to prove. Why did he need 2 picture frames that said 'father' with his pic, and at least 10 pics of the girlfriend? Why did he need another 6 or so pictures of his kids? I understand the kids, but why the girlfriend? It was just wierd. All I can hope is that this is some sort of assignment from rehab. Otherwise, is he trying to impress his girlfriend?

I'm just guessing now.

But the 2 situations are different and similar.

I'm to tired of typing on this laptop to go into it more tonight.