[Guest]

Appreciate the response WC, Yes I had been going for professional counsel went twice last week, I tho't I posted maybe I didn't but she had not been or wouldn't go. And not that I'm trying to make excuses but this thing has been running it's course actually for yrs. way before I had come here.
At times we would both seem to have a grip on things but then it would seemilngly slip away again.
I do feel for her, I'm saying I feel for her cause I know she has been thru much with me. I felt I had come to terms with it's not about me only.
I do want her to be happy, I want to be happy.

Yes I know the bar scene could have been done a little better but I guess, and I'll be honest, I didn't care and I'm not sure if I do now. I was wondering of course what would happen if a woman did approach me, would I accept.

I guess in my mind I tho't if I just laid it out to her where I was going that maybe it would shake her up a little. Because again I'm just weary of it all, not been feeling good and looking I guess to get some sort of release, what ever that might be.

If she'll talk to me about the counsel that will help.

I really should not be in a bar anyway, it would be a shorter trip to a pine box if I started drinking with this problem I have.

Your post is well taken, thank you

[WildChild]

It's good she's at least giving the counseling a try. I talk to so many people (you may gotten the idea from the way I write that I can also talk) who are in relationships that have just turned into habit. It's such a pity! There is so much good in life. So many things to learn and try and experience. I'll be the first to admit that I've spent some time in the sea of despondency, more than once. Just climbed out very recently. I can't stay there long but have met people who simply live there. It's such a shame, each our journeys in the flesh is short and we have so much to learn and so much growing to do before we return to pure spirit.

We are conditioned that relationships have to function in this narrow little pattern of ownership and constriction. What should be based on love, sharing, caring and mutual growth and discovery turns into a twisted limiting frustrating thing. I go on a local chat forum for women and it's really locallized to the community I recently moved out of, which is pretty wealthy, very conservative and very fundamentalist type Christian. Not a fit for me at all. Most of them on that board are young, starting families. They astound me with how narrow their thinking is. Their lives are shattered at the discovery that their husband has ever looked at porn or fantasied about another woman. I've had a few up in arms when I've suggested they get out of the box and quit trying to turn their men into Puritan women. They create their own misery by having impossible standards and expectations. More and more I see that much of the unhappiness in the world is based on that.

I look at today's news. I used to be securities licenced, am no expert but know something about how investments and the markets work. The stock markets are the worlds biggest gambling houses, dealing in specualtion on what might happen. Aside from actual commodities, where weather patterns or such destroy crops or something, it's almost entirely based on emotion. We may well see world wide market collapses because of fear based trading. It will have nothing to do with how good products are, great new innovations being made, it will be reactive fear. It's insane.

We humans are own best and really only enemies. We construct these social and legal environments, lock ourselves into them and then commit suicide because we can't live with them or murder because other's won't live in ours! I don't whether to be sardonically amused or in dispair! I fall into it too but at least I can see it at times for what it is.

We do to ourselves on a large national scale and small personal scale. It's because we are 'other' dependant, we draw energy off each other instead of grounding ourselves and drawing from the universal life force (whatever you choose to call it) Most people live their entire lives in a state of at least mild disatisfaction, never knowing why.

I'm in a philosophical mood this morning but the mundane calls and there work to be done and call to make. Maybe if we could each let go of some expectations we would be happier.Just open up and let it flow for a while.

[Guest]

I'm in a philosophical mood this morning

WC that my dear friend is understatement!

I'm more of a down to earth sort of person, simple minded maybe, wanting to live a simple life.
I'm not knock'in your philosophical mood, it sometimes kinda goes over my head. You read philosophy and help books and I read history, both are fine, both are 2 different worlds

Maybe if we could each let go of some expectations we would be happier.Just open up and let it flow for a while.

To me there is a fine line of expectations and dreams, desires.
If we let some of those go will we continue to strive to do better?

[annasthasia]

I have read this whole thread and all I can do is listen to the words...

Your story resonates soooo soooo deeply... I believe, and I sound selfish in a way, you have uncoverd the key to my relashionship with my mother... The bitterness and the anger to a degree....

When I was twelve years old, my mother had breast cancer... Long story short, I am the oldest and I became the "maid" , the parent to my younger siblings and basically the mother of my father to a degree... He took to alcohol...

So, my mother is in the hospital rotting alive, my father is drunk our out most of the time and my little brother is crying in his sleep begging to have mommy by his side... My sister the middle child, just became a complete rebel.

I spent many nights rocking my brother in my arms and I also spent many nights hoping my father would come back home... no matter how late...

My mother had "left" us and in my child brain, I figured my father had "left" us too. His body was with us but his soul was gone...

Anyway... all this to say it was a weird weird place...

My mother recovered and the family was never the same again...

My parents had their issues, but what I could not understand was the bitterness between them... In my naiveté, I thought, mom is alive, dad is alive they have each other... Why do they fight sooooo much!!!

Now, to this day, 47 years later, I understand now, why I have not let any man "near" my soul... I have given my body freely and played and partied but ... no one ever got close to my soul...

The relashionship with my mother is one of detachment... NO need to invest in closeness, she will die anyway... I sort of did the same with my father... NO need to even bother... He will just get drunk and become distant...

I do not blame my parents nor the path in my life...

If anything, I have grown to become a very indepedent person... I have achieved goals, I never thought I could achieve... But... the angst is still there...

So... as selfish as it sounds, thank you... Now I understand...

Perhaps, from the outside looking in... You both have distanced yourselves for similar reasons... I sort of see... I do not want to sound mean...

Her--- You almost expired... You almost left first...

You--- You needed her in your darkest hour and are grateful...

Her--- Why invest if you are going to "leave" me or threathen to leave me again...

You--- Going out by yourself is to me a knife in my heart...

Her--- Searching your wallet... She is very insecure... Phone numbers of other women... etc...

You--- Expect her to "get closer" to you...

Her--- She withdraws even more by going out by herself...

-------------------------------------

This dance can go on and on and on and tear each other apart...

I have no answers... Just the outside looking in...

It is like you both have become afraid of losing each other and you are both using the threat of leaving to scare each other...

--------------------------------

I lost both parents on a deep emotional level... I was never able to connect fully with a man... I have loved though but it seems I always manage to find impossible relashionships where the logistics are impossible to surmount...

Now I know why... Why invest when the divorce rate is 50% anyway... Why bother?

I did do the mariage experiment... I made a very very bad choice... In any relashionships there are shades of grey... I CHOSE to walk out... I just could not invest my soul in the process... I broke his heart but I realize now, that my heart was just not there... I married with my mind, not my heart... Anyway....

Thank you... Now I understand... Man I am all over the place here...

I will leave my message intact... It is personal and it seems my heart is swelling all full of bile and ready to explode... Perhaps it is the healing process, finally...

Thank you and I sincerely hope that you stay well and I soooooo wish for you a fairy tale ending...

Thank you...

Anna

[WildChild]

Wow Anna, thank you for your insights! You are right, I experienced some of that, my mother died just before her 44th birthday, I was not yet 22. I have no doubt that colored my reaction to my husband's cancer, althought there was a good deal more to it. Death is a part of life, personally I don't believe it is an end. It changes our interaction and creates a deep sense of loss. Have you talked with your mother? I think you should, you need to heal this as much as is possible. The cancer and your father's response were not her choosing. Please try, for both of you. You are so lucky you still have her. Mine has been gone for 30 years and I know I lost her too early. I never got to know her as an adult, you still have the opportunity to change your relationship.

[WildChild]

Good Morning In-Need,
I see myself as fairly down to earth and live pretty simply myself. You are right there is a fine line in expectations, dreams and desires. It seems to me that where we get messed up is expecting others to follow or fit into our dreams and desires. This what I was referring to in letting go of expectations. I've realized that throughout my life there is a pattern of being attracted, getting into a relationship, becoming the helpmate, buying into someone else's needs and dreams. I help them get what they want or think they want. Then they have no interest in what I want. I think women do this a lot.

We each have our own dreams and desires that drive and inspire us. We have to let go of the expectation that other people even those really close to us will plug into them. They have their own. The trick, it seems, is to have a shared vision or complimentary dreams and desires

[Guest]

Taken by Suprise - The ball is in my court now!

This what I was referring to in letting go of expectations.

Well, as i was endeavoring to let go of my expectations of her she has taken me by surprise!

Last night or early this morn, and again this afternoon we have been talk'in. Quite a bit actually .

She told me after having counsel that she has seen where she has been wrong in her feelings towards me. The little things that stress a marriage from time to time had become big in her mind and she had become needlessly bitter over it lumping me in with the rest of the men that have disappointed her. She said she recognizes she had to forgive those who have hurt her. She said she felt she has come to terms with that.

She then begin to say she was not advised to but she wanted to ask my forgiveness for feeling the way she has and that she truly does luv me.

Wo! I'm like looking at her
(she had been weeping) and i'm thinking, no, she is not saying this and at the same time I was like, I don't feel anything, nothing. I didn't say anything. All of a sudden i felt like I could not or did not know if i could forgive her.

Normally I'm a very forgiving person, but i've felt so cold inside lately.

So later, I tell her i want to talk, this is after i was on here some and meditating about the whole thing.

So, we sit next to the fire again - I say, Look, I am having problems with forgiving you, i don't know what is happening to me.

I love you for taking care of me, you have been good to me, i know that but my heart has lost it's zeal that i had for our relationship. I don't know if it can be salvaged.

My heart is roaming, searching, torn, confused

She said, ok. I'm going to tell you something, you can go out there and yes you may find someone that gives you the attention and love you think you need, but really you will never find 1 that loves you like I do, no way, I truly do love you and i want to make you happy. I want to please you, I want us to be happy, If you leave i don't believe you will really get what you are looking for!

We each have our own dreams and desires that drive and inspire us. They have their own. The trick, it seems, is to have a shared vision or complimentary dreams and desires

I like the tho't of shared vision, I'm a professional business man, in the corp. world this is talked of all over the place.
This, this shared vision is what I have always dream of in my life with the woman I love, what greater bond could 2 have. It's a cord that binds those together that is inseparable, nothing can break it!

Problem is now I don't know if I've got it in me, but yet i know deep down wherever i go or whoever I'm with there will have to some an effort to make it happen.

I know the tho't of being with another woman can be a fantasy that can destroy a man!

Last night I watched a movie by accident actually, the tittle - The Women, with Meg somebody, If you have not watched it i suggest you do! anyway i tho't, i can't believe i just stubble upon this movie and i'm in the situation i'm in. It's about a man that leaves his wife for another woman and she finds herself and does what she's always wanted to do then he wakes up and begins to court her again with her consent. Good movie! Strange, coincidental,
i don't know!

I've been thinking of going out tonight again but I'm not sure i have it in me or if i really want to, I'm so tired & weary and yes i know Stup17!

Everyone is probably going to call me a j3rk here, but hey, i've laid it out up to this point so I'm trying to get thru it honestly.
I almost did not post because i no what every woman on here is going to say...............

[WildChild]

You are in a transitional state right now and those are tough. You have disconnected emotionally from your wife, are you emtionally connected elsewhere? Do you still feel passionate about (or connected to) things that used to matter to you such as hobbies or an activity that you've enjoyed in the past?

At this time I really doubt that the bars or clubs will do it for you. Have you got some buddies you get together and do something with? You probably do need to connect with people, try something new. Develop some new interests and see how you are feeling. If you want to get out of your marriage then do it cleanly. You need to leave before you go out looking. People change, relationships change, you want to be able to look back and know you acted with respect and honor.

[Guest]

That's just it I don't feel hardly connected with anything at all, I feel like I'm aimlessly wondering around in my house.

All my buddies are not really available right now and the closest 1 would probably be but he's going thru a divorce right now. He doesn't know I'm having issues, I have not told him anything. I don't want to unload on him i guess.

I'm not sure I'm going out to look WC, I think it's more of just going out, just to go out, talk to people i don't know, play some pool drink some rum and get sloppy drunk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well

[WildChild]

That clarifies things though. It's not your wife or your relationship with her necessarily. If you are emotionally disconnected, you need to re-establish that before you can sure. One thing that may help is to get out and do something for someone else. Volunteer at the local food bank, call Habitat for Humanity, call the local senior center, reach out and find a way to make a difference, no matter how small, in someelse's life. You've looked death in the face, had your entire life disrupted, career, relationships, every area, you aren't the same man you were before. Your life isn't what it was before. You have to rediscover what you want it to be.This is why some people having gone through these experiences take their lives in a completely new direction.

Call that buddy who is going through a break up and get him to go out. Have a few beers, play some pool, hit a few golf balls. You both could probably use a break. Find something to laugh about, you need some really good belly laughs. Start small but get some fun in your life.