My brother, Rob, and his wife, Leigh, are having their first child this year. And one of the best, deepest old friends in my whole life, is getting married this year as well. And instead of being wholeheartedly excited, I'm sitting here screaming in my head, like Mr. Spock channeling for the Horta, "Pain! Pain! Pain!" Nearly ten years into a marriage to a sex addict and six years into life with a son whose autism and sensory issues can make parts of life painfully challenging to him, it's hard for me to look at weddings and births with the same innocent, wild-eyed enthusiasm and excitement that I did from the other side...

My family is my life's blood; my love for them keeps me strong and whole and striving to be better every day. But damn, it's not easy. I came into marriage and motherhood like a fairy tale princess. This was my happily ever after. I found that man who loved me with a passion that was beautiful and dangerous and everlasting, who understood me and accepted me. This man's love burned so strong that I could trust him never, ever to hurt me. We had worked through problems together and worked them out so well, there was nothing we couldn't do together. It was all going to be love and easiness after those vows.

When we were expecting my son, I set up his room with an African theme: giraffes and hippos on his crib bumper, a rocking chair the color of a lion's mane and zebras staring down from the walls. I imagined I'd rock him and sing to him in that lion-colored chair, and put him down snug and peaceful to sleep in his wild little crib. And someday, we would explore the savanna together and picnic on sandwiches on the grass of the carpet as zebras graze peacefully around us. Only that's not the way it all turned out.

My husband lied and cheated and deceived from the day we met. He broke his vows before we had been married a year; he had sex with other women, sometimes without a condom; he hit on my friends; he came close to (but managed to avoid) giving me a sexually transmitted disease. And all while I believed the fantasy we spun together: the perfect marriage, the eternal happiness. Until, one day, the splits in the seams became to great to patch or hide, and he tore the curtain down and destroyed the carefully crafted illusion that had been his life, and ours. He showed me the real world, full of pain and demons, a place that nothing that had anything to do with me could ever touch, not love or good times or sexiness. I look back on our wedding day and wonder who those two vanished dream people were.

After my son was born, I rocked him in that lion-colored chair, but it didn't soothe him. And my singing seemed to physically hurt him; even today, we have to say happy birthday in unison each year, no singing allowed. He rarely slept in that crib; awake or asleep, he would cry like he had been burned when the crib sheet touched his skin. And picnics on the savanna? Well, at six, he only eats (even after a year of OT) four foods, all of which are mushy or puréed, and none of which makes for good picnic food. He's not interested in pretend safaris; from the time he was one until he was about five, he was obsessed with cars and trains, the wheels and the gears and the pistons and rods; before he became obsessed with computers and puzzles.

My life is richer for having what I didn't expect. I love my husband and my son more deeply and truly than I would have if they had been what I imagined. But still, sometimes I miss the wide-eyed bride, whose face hurt from smiling at the dream of a marriage she didn't have, certain it was going to be everything she needed. And sometimes I miss the expectant mother, who made that African nursery for the dream of a baby she didn't have, certain he would walk through this world without pain or trouble.

I know -- if Rob and Leigh and my friends getting married do not -- that they are passing into grace, but I also know, and I ache to think, that they will have to pass through great pain to get there.