Hindsight

Dave and I had a pretty good life.  Even with all the ups and downs.  We loved each other.  And I have said time and time again if I had to go back and do my life over I would still choose him. And I would because I have never met another man like him in all the good ways.  And we take the bad with the good.
That said however.....if I knew then what I know now....things I would have done differently.  I would not have been so keen on his idea of getting custody of his children.  He was concerned about them and wanted them with him.  And circumstances presented themselves for it to happen.  So we did that.  That meant I was a full time parent of two school aged kids and all that entails. And we gave it all we had.  We went to soccer games and ballet lessons.  We did boy scouts and bluebirds.  We had family vacations and camping trips.  We did all those things that families do..
I had been warned before I got married to never marry a person with children and an ex-spouse.  Obviously I had not heeded that advice.  Living it I understood where it came from.  At the time I thought Joyce was making my life hard.  Hindsight said she really wasn't.  Well maybe a little sometimes, but not bad.  She could have been much worse.  My own attitudes colored a lot of what happened and was said.  And don't forget children learn early early (like 18 months) how to manipulate and they did. It is much easier to play parents off one another when they don't like each other.  One child kept that up into her 30's and didn't like it when her parents no longer disliked each other.
The thing about parenting that you learn when you actually do parenting is that we all do the best we can. Some are better than others but no one is perfect.  Most people don't set out to hurt or damage their children.  And bad things that happen are not your parents' fault if they didn't do it themselves.  Sometimes we all make choices that put someone in our lives that are not stellar.  I notice that all those non-stellar people from Joyce's life aren't there anymore. That says that she made better choices along the way.  Most of us learn as we go.  We do the best we can.
I have come a long way on my thinking of Joyce.  Way past the jealousy and anger that is associated with the first wife of the man you marry.  Hindsight says she would have done okay had she retained custody of her children.  Not perfect.  I was interjected into the mix and I certainly am not perfect.  I did the best I could as a stepparent with no authority.
I don't regret the life I had, but honestly I would not have put the effort, time and love into relationships that weren't what they seemed.  Although I am still pretty sure that the resentments that appeared were not there when we were all young.  I'm pretty sure they came when the children were adults.  It is much easier to blame the life choices and consequences on someone else and I make a pretty good scapegoat sometimes.  And that's all right.  As I say....karma baby.