Which personal event did you only understand in retrospect?

Question

Which personal event (relationship, job, whatever) did you not understand at the time, but only in retrospect, by piecing things together and reinterpreting them for what they were?

What assumptions or traits prevented you understanding it at the time for what it was?
What did this teach you about yourself?
What brought on the moment of realization?

(I'm looking for SPECIFICS about a personal event in YOUR LIFE - tell me specifically what, when and why, with some detail)

Clarification: I'm asking not about an experience whose effect you could not predict, but a case where you specifically *misinterpreted* another person's behavior, and how and why.

Answer 1

I grew up in a heavily religous family. It was a very secluded type of childhood in the country. All i knew was god and church i didnt really know what happened in the real world. Anyhow my family and I moved to the suburbs when i was around ten. One night i woke up and was laying in my bed. I dont know how i happened to wake up and hear them, maybe they were yelling. But i heard my mum who was pregnant at the time tell my father that the baby was not his. I remember starting to shake all over. This really F'd me up. I was totally innocent up until this point. Because of my family's religous upbringing i NEVER thought this would happen. Anyhow i confronted my mum about it and she denied the whole thing. So i got into drugs and started doing a whole heap of bad things. Years later i confronted her about it again she told me the truth we have a loving and beautiful friendship and relationship now. So pretty much when i looked at what had happened between my parents at the age of ten i could not understand anything about sex or personal relationships. Now i realize why things go wrong in marriges and how it can happen to anyone. I dont know if this is what you were looking for.

Answer 2

Having a a child changed my life for the better in retrospect.

I assumed that having a child would tie me down, that I would miss going out, drinking, partying and I would have to become a "mom" and I would lose my identity as an individual.

Now that I have had a child, I understand that, yes I am tied down and I don't go out partying and drinking like I did before. That stuff doesn't interest me anymore. I have bigger ad better things to occupy my time time.

I knew when I came home from the hospital. I didn't turn on the TV for weeks. All I wanted to do was watch this baby. It has humbled me and taught me that there is nothing moer rewarding in the world. I know this sounds corny and cliché but it is cliché because it is true and I don't think you can truly understand it until you have a child.

It is so weird, I always considered myself a very peaceful andnon-violent person. I wasn't a worrier or uptight person. Now, I have such a protective instinct about my daughter. I have dreams where I kill people becasue they are trying to hurt her. Now I take note of the exits in a building and have finally put up those smoke detectors that have been laying around for months.

I hope this wasn't too much rambling and it helps!

Answer 3

I had certain memories from my childhood when I was three years old. I thought I knew what they meant but couldn't figure out why my mother got so upset when I told her I remembered them. I was 11 years old at that time and I pushed them out of my mind because my mother got so upset when I mentioned them.
Around the age of thirty, I again remembered the event. Now being an adult, I saw a whole new meaning to what transpired and could see quite clearly why my mother got upset. It didn't change the fact that the event happened, only the fact that my mother had been trying to make me think it hadn't and forget it.
Needless to say, it didn't work!

Answer 4

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE ... Love is affected individual and kind; love does no longer envy or boast; it truly is not conceited or rude. It does no longer insist by itself way; it truly is not irritable or envious; it does no longer have a good time at wrongdoing, yet rejoices with the reality. Love bears all issues, believes all issues, hopes all issues, endures all issues. Love in no way ends. As for prophecies, they'll bypass away; as for tongues, they'll quit; as for expertise, it truly is going to bypass away. For all of us comprehend partly and we prophesy partly, yet at the same time as the acceptable comes, the partial will bypass away. at the same time as i replaced right into a baby, I spoke like a baby, i presumed like a baby, I reasoned like a baby. after I grew to change right into a guy, I gave up infantile ideas. For now we see in a replicate dimly, yet then head to head. Now i comprehend partly; then I shall comprehend completely, on an same time as I somewhat were completely common. So now faith, wish, and love abide, those 3; even with the undeniable fact that the finest of those is LOVE. --a million Corinthians 13

Answer 5

Getting older. I remember sitting with my friends on the beach trying to imagine the year 2000. None of us were into it at all because we'd be ready to die then/ 40 years old. OMG!!!
Also meeting my only true love at 15. We married and it didn't work out, but he is to this day a major friend/love in my life. Priceless.

Answer 6

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.

the great love of my life was a great relationship but had to end for reasons I won't go into...when I looked back on it and when it started it really was the first time I saw him...strangely enough, he was screaming at me for doing something wrong (he was the manager of one dept, I was the manager of another)...
looking back, I loved him instantly, and not later when we got involved...

Answer 7

birth