What was it like to face the worst choice you have ever had to make?

I am in this position now, although I haven’t decided on the decision yet.

What was the situation?
Teenagers shot one of our horses in between the eyes, which didn’t kill her. I had to decide if it was worth it to put her through surgery or euthanize her.
How did you make that choice?
I had to stop thinking about what I wanted, and do what would be in her best interest.
In this case, it was euthanasia.
What was your thinking?
She might not make it through surgery, and she is still going to remember the incident.
How did you both feel before making the choice and after?
Her before: In a lot of pain.
Me before: Panic-stricken and terrified.
Her after: R.I.P.
Me after: Felt guilty, but knew she wasn’t suffering.

It ripped my heart out.

I don’t know if I have a “worst” but there have been situations where making the decision meant compromising a lot of myself, which was painful.

It was a piece of cake.~

@rangerr: WHAT THE HELL. What happened to the kids? Why the fuck?

What was the situation?
I had to decide whether or not to tell my wife I had cheated on her.

How did you make that choice? What was your thinking?
I love my wife and because of that I couldn’t hide it.. I had to be honest. Though, in retrospect.. I often wonder if I could have saved everyone some pain if I had just kept it hidden.

How did you both feel before making the choice and after?
Her Before: Appeared happy, but wasn’t entirely
Me Before: Appeared happy, but wasn’t entirely
Her After: She decided to cheat on me. Probably wonders if we’ll make it.
Me After: Wondering if I should have kept it to myself. Wondering if we’ll make it.

^^
Right or wrong, this is complete honesty. Perhaps it has caused me and others pain .. but I still believe that honesty is the best policy. Maybe I’m wrong.

@asmonet Nothing. We couldn’t prove it was them.

@rangerr Oh man I’m sorry. That must have been horrible and to think they got away with it….. Who would want to shoot a horse anyways? :(

Oh man, it’s a tie!

My divorce
I didn’t know how to get back the feelings I once had and I fought giving up when I had pledged to my husband/best friend and myself that if ever something went wrong then I’d try everything to save our relationship. After a while it seemed only fair for us to our separate ways and retain our friendship. Doing this meant I gave up on the only other person than my grandfather I’d ever really trusted or believed or in, that was a lot of security and love to walk away from and I did it chancing I’d never be loved like that again.

My Grandfather’s death
He was suffering terribly with Alzheimer’s, had watched two of his older sibling die badly from it and was set on making his exit before he felt he would get too bad. When my mother and I could no longer safely care for him at home then he went into a retirement facility which he hated. He was there less than a year when he told me he was done. He purposely stopped eating and started trading pills with other patients thinking some of them might put him out but in the end it was the weakness from lack of food and a cold. I knew what he was doing, he knew I knew and asked me to let him be. It was painful see him over one last Christmas (his favorite holiday) pretending he’d see us all in a few months time. He died less than two weeks of our visit. I chose to let him go instead of alerting anyone.

What was the situation?
My choice to leave my husband of over 20 years. I knew I wasn’t in love with him (never had been really), but I made the decision to have three children with him and facing the prospect of what it might do to them pained me in ways I cannot even describe.

How did you make the choice?
I decided we could no longer be married. I made the choice after lots of soul searching, contemplating, journaling and therapy. I finally came to the conclusion that in order to be the best mom I could possibly be, I could not go on being miserable.

How did you feel before making the choice and after?
Before making the choice my stomach was in knots constantly. I was wired and tired at the same time and I was running around in circles in my mind. The stress was so intense that I tended to perseverate about it to anyone and everyone. After I made the choice – along with moments of guilt – I felt immense relief.

@SuperMouse Shew….like a huge, huge rock had been lifted off of your shoulders, but Lord, the things you had to go through to get it off. Been there…but I was only married 10 years. It must be almost unimaginable after 20….I applaud you…

@Val123 Thank you.

What was the situation?
Deciding whether or not my in-laws would remain in our lives.

How did you make that choice? What was your thinking?
My mother in law lives in a house with her husband, my husband’s two brothers, their SO’s and their children. My mother in law and one of my husband’s brothers abuse prescription medication, which includes buying it off the street. My husband’s brother has stolen from all of us, sold his body to other men for drug money and I witnessed one of the many times he was so close to death I am amazed he survived. She takes 10— 12 methadone a day. He has taken up to over 40 vicodin in one sitting.

She loves my children. They love her so much. It was always fun at Grandma’s house for them. They don’t have great relationships with my parents, so it was their closest family connection they had. We just got so tired of false promises and we finally realized that we couldn’t fix it.

How did you both feel before making the choice and after?
Me Before: At the end of my rope, tired of being disappointed
My Husband Before: Fed up, felt like his own mother didn’t love him

Me After: Relief, Sadness, Still dealing with my childrens grief a year later, but I know the decision was correct. We heard last week that she burnt her kitchen so badly it needed to be gutted because she was cooking at 3 in the morning all drugged up.
My Husband After: Even bigger relief. He no longer talks to any of his family members on his mother’s side. If they aren’t addicts then they are enablers. He feels that although we hurt our children with the decision, we made the best decision for their future that we knew how to make. His brothers are 22 and 25 and living in their drug addicted mother’s basement. The cycle has to stop somewhere.

Another well-worded and brilliant Q – I’ll have to think about it some more – it means I shall have to think back about something that ultimately turned out to be the worst choice- and what it was like to face that decision ((before knowing its outcome, obviously) – I likes it. Will sleep on it and get back to this thread, shortly. Not calling you shortly, @daloon.

Way ta go Day! @daloon

My divorce was hardest, and in looking back I wonder if I would have done things the same. This makes me think very carefully and also mistakenly some present day problems.

The most difficult decision I had to face took place when I was about 24 weeks pregnant with my daughter. My pregnancy was one complication after another and I was in the hospital for the vast majority of it, ate through a tube in my arm because i was nauseous 24/7 and threw up if i ate food. i was sent home with my pic line in my arm (food and meds went into it). home health nurse came that afternoon and i mentioned my arm was red and hurting. i had gotten a blood born infection through the pic line which turned into pneumonia, collapsed lung and preterm labor. due to sharing blood with my daughter she got the infection also and wasn’t moving. then i went into preterm labor to the point where the contractions were less than 10 minutes apart. Finally the only thing left to try was a drug called magnesium sulfate. however I am a pretty serious asthmatic and using that drug carried a very high risk of making me very sick, even possibly killing me. on the other hand i was fighting tooth and nail to stay pregnant. i knew what it would mean to have a 24-week preemie and the low probability of survival. so it came down to protect the life of the mother or the baby. this was agonizing for me because to me she was already a person with a name. my husband’s view was there can be other babies but there is only one of you. also had to think about the possibility of him raising her alone if we decided to go with the mag. as hard as it was after much talking and thinking we decided to decline the mag sulfate and leave the outcome in God’s hands- now I have a very healthy, smart, funny and precocious 6yr old.

@madsmom1030 Oh man! Thank you for sharing that with us, and I am SO very glad you guys came through it OK!

@madsmom1030 Thats a wonderful story, but I am a little confused about the outcome. Did you have another baby? Or did your baby survive? Sorry if I sound coarse but I really did not understand the ending to your story. :/

My 6yr old is the baby- so she survived. I was able to hold out to just under 32 weeks and had an emergency c-section due to fetal distress. she is a very healthy 6yr old that keeps me very busy.

@madsmom1030 Thats wonderful! I am so happy that you were allowed to keep your baby and still be alive at the same time. Isn’t that such a divine arrangement? :)

@madsmom1030 glad the decision turned out happily.

Edit: My divorce, and its impact on the kids – and, I guess, on me as well; it’s been ten years and still all alone again, naturally.

in a word…...............Harrowing!