What is the drastic change you made in your life?

I quit drinking, made a pretty significant change in all aspects of my life.

Mindfulness meditation…gave rise to a whole host of other changes, due to being more mindfull.

Nine months ago I was made redundant, and found it impossible to get other work in a small Welsh town. So I got a job in a big city 150 miles away. Moving was pretty stressful but it’s the best thing I could have done.

I quit the cancer sticks some 10yrs ago now…....good decision.

My change has been more of an ongoing transformation, rather than a one-time, all-at-once event. Four years ago, I was a frail boy who would sit in my car crying and being berated on the phone by a domineering girlfriend and co-dependent parents while all my new college friends enjoyed their lives. Nearly anything would give me a panic attack or cause me to burst into tears and I was very sickly and emotionally and morally weak. From that point, a series of events, some related and some not, began to unfold where I was forced, one by one, to face down my challenges and demons, and over the course of the next four years I became “harder.” I gradually stopped living to completely serve others with flagrant disregard for my own needs. Basically, my relationships with other people matured and people started respecting me more as I stopped letting them use me as their doormat. As this all unfolded, I stopped being depressed, I stopped having panic attacks, and I became more and more confident with each day. I even became more healthy and physically stronger. The final nail in the coffin that I deposited my old self in was hammered down this past December, when I stood up to the last person who was still capable of hurting me, and now she respects me infinitely more.

There’s a quote from The Fountainhead that, when paraphrased, is something like “I would die for you, but I won’t live for you.” I feel like that describes how I am now, in relation to other people. I would die for anyone I loved or even for any good person in general, even if I didn’t know them, but I won’t devote my entire existence to pleasing them. Four years ago, this was all the other way around for me, and I feel like I’ve never been happier, and people have never treated me better than they do now, because I feel respected instead of exploited.

Marrying my husband was a big change because it meant moving away from where I was and moving often. In the almost 4 years we’ve been married now, I’ve moved 5 times now. In addition to that, we decided to have a tubal reversal done and have more children. I had one from a previous marriage and now we have one together (9 years younger than my oldest) and we are expecting another in September. I don’t regret any of it. These have been the best decisions of my life to date.

Dated men; married a woman.

Getting married. I’d decided I was going to be an old maid and my future would be teaching in a college somewhere. Then I met him. 50 years later, we’re still together.

Moving two times. Once back to Seattle for 18 years. Then again seven years ago agreeing to follow my husband’s career and moving back East for jobs.

I have never regretted either decision.

I ended my first marriage after 12 years. We married young (21 & 22), he from a family with a history of alcoholism. He couldn’t give up the fun party times, even after we bought a house and had 3 kids. Always kept promising to clean up, never could. I left when the abuse escalated from verbal/emotional to physical abuse to me and our eldest(coke/‘crank’ can lead to ugly mood swings!)
Until I l sought counseling I hadn’t realized that I had been a co-dependent person for him for about the last 6 years. That woke me up, gave him one last chance, and when he verbally chose his addictions over me and the kids, I ended the marriage.
Continued counseling enabled me to re-claim myself. When I realized I wasn’t as bad as he had convinced me, I became self-reliant and a damn good mother to three kids. It opened my eyes that one day, those kids would grow and ask me tough questions about why I had allowed the abuse and had not put them first. Since then I lead my life and choose actions so that one day I can look back and know that from that day I left him, I’ve lived my life with no regrets and never see my possibilities as limited by what someone else thinks.

I think the Fluther community is tired by now of me talking about my big change :-D

Quit drinking at age 30, following an arrest during a black out. Been sober 25 years.

Separated after 15 years marriage when wife woke me at 6:30 on a Saturday and told me she didn’t want me at a ceremony for my daughter and to leave so I would not interfere with her getting daughter ready. I had done nothing, it was her mental illness.

Both decisions were liberating.

Getting married and pregnant on the same day. Oi vey.

Right after graduating from college I “ran off to join the circus”. At least that’s what I told my family and friends. I actually joined the U.S. Army. I had not planned on doing that at all so why did I do it? I was rejected from veterinary school and grad school. I felt like a total failure. However the Army wanted me and welcomed me with open arms. HA!

I pulled up my New England roots and moved to California for the sake of true love.

I had thought I would live and die within close reach of the Atlantic, ride the subway and visit the Museum of Fine Arts as often as I liked, have Thanksgiving and Christmas with my own relatives. Living elsewhere never crossed my mind until I was 29.

That’s when I met the right man. And he happened to be a Californian. Who owned a house, whereas I rented an apartment in Cambridge.

Scared half blind, I moved, not thinking I’d stay forever. I thought we’d move back to the Northeast together. But here we still are. Some of the boxes I unloaded haven’t budged since I set them down more than three decades ago. One of these days I should look inside them.

No drastic changes for me. I’m kind of into continuity, I guess. Either that, of after a little bit of time has passed, nothing feels so dramatic in the change department.

Sort of unplanned time capsules @Jeruba?

I have done each of the top four options. I think the most dramatic were emigrating at aged 22. Like other people who have moved I thought I would return to my roots, I didn’t until last year. Getting pretty close to three decades later. I expressed here my trepidation at that return but had a great time and the demons hiding in the closet didn’t show themselves.

I have been married and divorced and married again but I think the other big change for me was deciding I would and could study as a mature aged woman with three young children. That changed my whole direction in life and provided me with independent stability I didn’t have before. I adore my husband, but I know I can be on my own if I have to.

I quit abusing alcohol recently. I’ve only had one slip up so far.

So far, my mind is clearer, I feel healthier, and I’m on a faster track to recovery from my most recent illness.

@KateTheGreat Bravo, darling! You’re amazing!

Some of those changes that have taken place in my life were not done by choice. I had to take employment working in a recycling facility and a warehouse due to difficult economic times. I’ve lost alot of weight too this year but even that was not by choice, but through working at very physical jobs.The only real choice that I made to change something recently was my decision to cut back on chewing snuff, and I have stuck with this plan for over two years now.

Right in the middle of making a drastic change… Divorce, check. Relocation, TBD.

I’ve also drastically changed how I see things.

In my late 30’s I rebelled against being “the good guy”. I reflected doing unto others as I’d have them do unto me left me feeling over extended and under appreciated. I stopped waiting for life to become just and decided to examine closer the breach between idealism, wisdom and reality. Life is much much more satisfying now that I make it okay to treat myself as good as I waited for others to treat me.