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PigPen #2625616 11/21/15 08:06 PM
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Thank you for dropping by PP and for the compliment.

I am afraid that it is my sensitivity and vulnerability that scares men away. That kind of feeling and intensity overwhelms men. My general impression from the men I can safely talk to about myself, is that no man wants to feel responsible for upsetting? destroying? breaking? disappointing? such a sensitive soul as mine. I'm like that favourite toy no one wants to play with because it's too special it might break. LOL

I read PP about you rarely feeing or sensing that your wife truly passionately desired YOU ( and I mean YOU, not necessarily, just the physical you, but the soulful vulnerable YOU, the YOU that ignites passion and desire in someone else just because of who you are). With the two men I have loved in my life, those feelings were a constant, nails down the back, skin ripping passion.

Its too much, I think. Could you really have coped with that much passion, that much want, that much desire?

I'm too much for most men I think and particularly so for men who for one reason or another, can't, won't or are unable to connect/manage/cope with their own sensitivities and vulnerabilities.

My sense is PP, you ARE a man who has great ability to access passion and emotion. We have all witnessed how you have grown to a become a glorious sensitive while astutely strong masculine energy. Maybe you are now ready to meet the woman who knows the power of her feminine sensitivities, vulnerabilities and passion and allow you the experience of being someones object of affection and limitless desire.

Your post hit a fragile spot, sorry if this is a bit rambled. I know in my head what I wanted to say.

With much love

JellyB XXX


Last edited by JellyB; 11/21/15 08:08 PM.
JellyB #2625651 11/22/15 02:25 AM
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JellyB

I know a lot of DBing is figuring out where we went wrong and then working on ourselves...

However I think in your case, you need to embrace many of your traits that you seem to fear are flaws. You are obviously brilliant, gifted and unique and have a lot to offer a partner. I feel like the man that you end up with is going to be a strong, experienced, and highly confident individual who wants more then a cookie cutter companion.

Don't worry about the men that are scared of your sensitivity and vulnerability. They are beneath you anyway.

Perhaps if you start thinking of your "flaws" ( passion, imaginative, soulful) as incredible assets that many of us females do not have, the guys you are meeting will be able to see it that way too.

You kind of remind me of that girl with the beautiful long curls that wants her hair straight like everyone else. smile

(I'm not just writing this to be one of those "you go girl " supportive allies. I have read some of your past posts and I am just so deeply impressed and inspired by you... I think often of the support you have offered your exes daughter. Truly selfless and just amazing)


Me: 42
H: 43
Twins age 5
Physically Separated 7/2015
u-turn #2625657 11/22/15 03:46 AM
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Lovely U,

It would never be my intention to make you sad. I am sorry that for now the idea of intimacy is a bit thorny and uncomfortable. And I am sorry to hear that you feel yourself moving away from an aspect of yourself that obviously came naturally to you and brought you fulfillment.

Please if you could read my post another way. I am scared at the moment, not an overwhelming fear, but it is there, the fear I am never going to be able to fully trust an intimate partner again.

I know that I am in place where, I will never surrender myself, both my authentic self or inner self totally to another again. I was boundary-less for many years of my life. The loves in my life had my absolute devotion, they had ME- all of me. I retained nothing for myself. This will never happen again.

I feel somewhat jaded, in that I am naturally an open and idealist person - to feel defended/untrusting is not my way. The pendulum has however swung this way. But I feel this will only be for a short time. While I am healing and my boundaries become apparent to me and to others. I feel like a toddler taking tentative steps on teetering legs.

I don't want to stop being open, idealistic, sensitive, sensual and sexual. My post above was more about the sense of hope maybe that in time, there will be someone to fill my life and create the intimacy I feel is so very important in loving relationships. To provide and be provided the loving time and touch I want to give and receive.

Please U don't give up these aspects of yourself. Your wants and desires, to receive and give love. Let time do what it needs and let fate and opportunity and your higher power/self do the rest.

In the past, I have had visual images at times, fleeting as they were, of my hands holding pieces of my broken heart, and wondering "how the h*ll am I meant to put this back to together". The answer is one small piece at at time. Even now as I write I am captured again by our conversations about scars. Lol I have come full circle in a moment.

I know that when I write with you in mind lovely U, that I write to a kindred soul, who knows the depths and breath of my journey. You have understood, with me saying little. And U, if I have learned anything I think that is exactly how you talk about how you feel "you name it" and wait. My sense is that if the right person is listening, the next bit involves an affirmation and the desire to know more, to seek to understand. Maybe a wish isn't required U, maybe just a leap of faith.


Arohanui my friend

JellyBXXX


Last edited by JellyB; 11/22/15 03:55 AM.
mutatio #2625666 11/22/15 06:19 AM
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Hi Mutatio,

Well I think your idea to travel through Australia for 6 months is an amazing idea and one I would like to do myself. My mother is Australian from a small town south of Sydney called Wollongong. Our family travels have been mostly to Sydney and my mum's home town. You can't go wrong with visiting any town in Australia. An amazing trip is either from Adelaide through Alice Springs up to Darwin or alternatively the other way. This is an amazing historical adventure. Many of the Grey Nomads (retired folk who have brought motorhomes) travel this amazing landscape.

Another way to do it if you enjoy trains is one of the oldest railway in the country called the Ghan. As I recall the Ghan follows the original telegraph line.
There was some great race of various people to be the first to get from Darwin to Adelaide without going out to Sydney. (I think don't quote me -it is however amazing history)

Adelaide has amazing food and wine, access to some beautiful beaches. The city was designed by the same person who designed Christchurch in NZ. The cities are set out in almost in entirely the same way. as you head north the weather gets drier and hotter and soil gets orange and then the closer you get to the Red Centre, the soil takes on amazing tones. The light in Alice Springs and particularly Uluru (Ayres Rock) is particularly amazing. If you have artistic inclinations and understand how light effects space and how it hits objects Uluru will set your heat aflutter. You will never likely see a bluer sky or as sunrise and sunset come and go it is breathtaking. I imagine it is similar to the Grand Canyon or other desert spaces in the US. The spiritual aspect of Uluru cannot be underestimated. It stands as one of the most spiritual places I have visited. I imagine it would be has moving as some of the aboriginal spiritual places of Native American Indians.

There are other amazing rock formations called the Ulgas and Kings Canyon is also impressive. The light is equally amazing. As you move north towards Darwin the weather changes. The air gets wetter. The Humidity of Darwin is notorious. Darwin has an equally interesting history. It was in WW2 had guns in place has it was felt that the Japanese would potentially invade Australia via Darwin, as it was so close to Asia. There is an amazing airforce and airplane history to Darwin if that is something you would be interested in.

Melbourne - great food and cafes, Brisbane beaches and shopping. Barossa the wine and food. Hunter Valley. You can't go wrong with Australia. There is so much to see. It is overwhelming to NZers, as it is so vast compared to how little NZ is. I have never been to Perth, from what I have heard you either love it or hate it.

As for NZ. The landscape is not as diverse as Australia. We are a very green country. What you see on Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, is definitely what NZ is like. Lush, green. Mountain ranges and riverbeds. In NZ you are likely never more than an hour from a beach or a water way. As you move down the country the weather changes as does the scenery. Auckland's top temp over summer would be 30 degrees celcius. Auckland's summer heat is humid. As you move down the country the heat gets drier, Nelson and Whakatane have the most sunshine hours and their temps get to highest about 30-35. Christchurch and Dunedin can get up that high too. But in the Winter the south island gets cold and it snows regularly. It snows in the middle of North Island. NZ has a strong mountaineering history, so if you like to tramp and mountaineer, NZ is definitely the place. There are regional parks up and down the country, often with a mountain as focus. Lonely Planet Guide gives really good references for NZ. The love the south island.

We are lucky enough to that you can see stars at night all over NZ. The light pollution has not taken that away from us get.

I love NZ, I have lived other places around the world. There is just enough hustle and bustle here. There is enough sense of being and urban society, but we are still connected to nature and the land. We love good food, innovation, art, creativity. Our isolation from the rest of the world, makes us independent in some respects. We have terrible stats related to child abuse, suicide, domestic violence. Our native people the Maori have a rich and spiritual culture, their language is expressive and spiritual. They are sadly over-representative in the stats related to poverty. But sadly that is the case with most indigenous people.

NZ is a culturally diverse community people from the Pacific Islands, and from Asia. Also NZ has been liberal in it's response to asylum seekers and refugees so the cultural landscape is changing all the time. The migration for work has also made a huge impact. My feeling is that NZer's are generally an open and accepting society. We take pride in our stances on politically divisive issues. We are generally liberal thinkers and in our politics related to difference and diversity.

This is a special little country and I am a very proud kiwi and love where I live.

Ask me anything else I would be happy to tell


JellyB XXX

JulieH #2625668 11/22/15 06:57 AM
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JulieH, a very insightful post and one I really appreciate.

JulieH, I have long brown hair, a lot of it but very thin, the kind that fizzes and breaks easily, but I have a lot of it, so it can look thick, but it is a head of hair that can't decide if it is curly or straight - I straighten it regularly lol

I have struggled with feelings of not belonging and not fitting in for most of life. I really have wanted to be "typical" or "normal".

I guess the thing I struggle with is imagining a man who would be interested in falling in love with someone like me.

I am a bit stuck with this. It has been a running theme on a number of threads now. Not sure what to do about it. Hmmmm

Thanks JulieH.

JellyB xxx

JellyB #2625676 11/22/15 09:09 AM
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Hi Jelly B - when you're posting about who may be out there and would love you, I think it's more a self-love question. I presume you've read Brene Brown, given your thread title. I found her stuff incredibly useful. What advice do you think she would give here?

xx


T 13 M 7
Me 48 H 46
SS 15
BD 7.14 PA
D final 5.16 (H filed)

We receive & we lose, and must try to achieve gratitude & embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the losses - Dubus
Sotto #2626745 11/26/15 08:04 AM
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Lovely Sotto

Thank you for posting. I have been revisiting The Gifts of Imperfection this week, after your little prod. I knew when I read your post that you were right on the money about the self love.

It is a real challenge to me to accept myself as I am and not let the shame gremlins eat away at what little self confidence and worthiness I have. My mental health breakdown right before bomb drop was me raging a war against the shame gremlins and perfectionism. I was very low and could see nothing in myself that was worth of love. I can honestly say I was lost in a sea of self hatred.

It took some time to dig myself out of that big black hole I had gotten myself into, and I my sense of worthiness is well still patchy to say the least. There are moments I catch myself saying and doing things that are so lacking in compassion for myself. I see it now where for many years I just had no clue. I thought I was just a realist, I thought being real about my faults ensured that I would always have insight into the things I needed to change, to grow, to be the best JellyB I could be. In doing so kept telling myself I was never good enough.

So in response to your question I think Brene Brown would say, that I need to let go of my need to please and be perfect to attractive the man of my dreams and become simply be my most authentic self. That I need to lean into my ability to be vulnerable and courageously connect to others and just be me, and likely the right man will get it and be attracted, and I won't need to ask the question of why a man would fall in love with someone like me.

What ya think? Did I get close? lol

Thanks for posting Sotto , your words are always wise and kind.

JellyB XXX

Last edited by JellyB; 11/26/15 08:07 AM.
JellyB #2626821 11/26/15 05:03 PM
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JB,

It's not your emotions or sensitivity that scares men away directly. Men can't mind read, so what's in your mind or heart isn't the issue. The question is about your expectations and your behavior.

What do you expect from your men? How do you behave if they don't meet those expectations?

These are the same questions I was challenged with. I am parallel in many ways with how I feel about my sexual desires. I feel there is something wrong with me since the women in my life have rejected me. But they didn't reject me because of the lust in my heart. It was due to expectations/behavior.

Because I feel ashamed of some of my lust, I felt the need for validation. I expected them to understand my desires. Then I expected them to fulfill some of them as that is how I felt accepted. Then I behaved in ways that weren't healthy at times. I pressured them to do things they didn't want to do. Or I built up resentment if they didn't. This lead to a breakdown in the relationship.

So it wasn't the desires...it was what I demanded from them and what I acted out if I didn't get what I wanted.

Now, that all said...have I really grown? The answer is only a little. I still have strong desires in my heart, and frankly I don't think I'm a good fit for most women. Maybe all women. Since day 1 I've been trying to explore the boundary with sex. It's not a need because I can live without it, but it is a need that can only be satisfied in the R. I have read thousands of pages of debate about this, and I don't have a firm conclusion. But at this point I have concluded that there are things I want in a marriage that many women wouldn't accommodate, so I will stand by and wait until either I change or I find a needle in a haystack.

I too share your jaded view of things. At times I feel very wrong for my desires because if so many women would be put off by it then it seems to point out that I'm some type of pervert. On the other hand I also feel that most people these days are too selfish to be in a relationship. Everyone thinks they're mature and their view point is 'correct', and as a result the amount of generosity is shrinking because they are right and they know best. And the commitment is through the floor as well, if my partner doesn't see things my way that means we're not compatible and they need to ship out.

I am not worried about ANY of this. The facts are that being jaded for now is my way of my heart protecting itself, and my way of knowing I'm not anywhere near ready for another R. I can see my overall level of anger and pain decreasing little by little, so I don't see any reason to think I'm 'stuck in the past' or clinging to a victim role. And since I'm not about to be in an R any time soon, there is no reason to worry too much about whether or not I'll find a future partner that will want to be with me. I understand the fear of being broken and alone prompting us to figure it all out, but sometimes just leaving it alone and living a good life is closer to self acceptance than endless hours of self-analysis. The fact is that I've only been with two women in my life, they both were longer Rs and they both left me. I can't use that to conclude no woman would be with me. The TRUTH is that I was approached by both women, and I had very low standards thinking that if I accepted a woman with problems than she'd put up with mine. That didn't work out too well. Not sure how I'll do things differently in the future as I don't like dating, shopping for a woman, etc. But again, not an issue today.

So my advice to JB is to figure out more specifically what you're doing that has put men off. From there you can either decide to manage yourself differently, or be upfront about what you bring. Best case scenario there is a man out there that's the yin to your yang. Realistically I think it's possible to find a man that can feel like a yin sometimes, then go through some tough patches where it's not all sunshine, but that will at least remain faithfully committed for the count, and will circle back around and make it a worthwhile lifelong partnership. Worst case we are betrayed again and again by people that use the same language of commitment but follow societies lead on fair weather spouses. Either way we will do our best, enjoy what we have to in our life, and will be relieved of this burden eventually.

Happy TG.


Me:38 XW:38
T:11 years M:8 years
Kids: S14, D11, D7
BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
Zues126 #2626906 11/27/15 04:09 AM
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Thanks for popping by Zues. I know you are only visiting on rare occasions so appreciate your time and thoughts.
Wow, what do I expect from the men in my life? I don’t think I have ever thought about in a conscious way before.

Off the top of my head in no particular order :
• Commitment and faithfulness to the relationship and me
• Loyalty
• Commitment to making time
• Identifying common goals for now and future
• Fun
• Emotional and Physical intimacy
• Acceptance and understanding
• Pulling ones physical and emotional weight.
• Be my cheerleader, my sounding board, my protector
• Love
• Challenge me, support me in areas where I am weak or need to grow.

Just as I am mulling over this – when my expectations are met
• I shut down emotionally – I stop talking about my needs and wants
• I feel betrayed
• I feel misunderstood
• I ask “why are you not considering my feelings, my happiness”.
• I wonder what is wrong with me that my needs would be his highest consideration
• I feel resentful
• I start listing in my head all the things I do and give that makes his life better, more beautiful easier.


How do I behave:
• I get sad
• I give more
• I stop talking about anything to do with my needs
• I get passive aggressive
• I become kinder and more loving on the outside
• Inside I am getting more and more numb
• I stop doing anything that brings me joy or happiness
• I crawl inside my cave and pretend

And then I breakdown emotionally unable to contain it any longer. And I spew and I cry and I blame and make him responsible for deep sense of betrayal and loss I feel, that he didn't see how unhappy I had become.

So there it is Zues the ugly truth of it.

It probably disinfected, it probably looks alot uglier. Pho's husband reminds me exactly what I was like, am like. Reading her sitch triggers alot of shame for me. I have had to stop reading it.

As I am writing this at work at the end of my work day, but I wanted to respond while I knew you were around.

I need leave work as I have some preparation for a morning tea picnic with friends at local park and I am really disorganised.

There is more to say about your post and my reflections. I will try to get again to post some more tonight.

Thanks again for your support and care Zues. You and V are often the prods I need to dig deeper. Missing Lady V already.


JellyB XXX

JellyB #2626908 11/27/15 04:23 AM
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Quote:
• Commitment and faithfulness to the relationship and me
• Loyalty
• Commitment to making time
• Identifying common goals for now and future
• Fun
• Emotional and Physical intimacy
• Acceptance and understanding
• Pulling ones physical and emotional weight.
• Be my cheerleader, my sounding board, my protector
• Love
• Challenge me, support me in areas where I am weak or need to grow.
Quote:


Everything on this list looks totally reasonable...at least to a degree, most of the time. But I think we need to look at more specifically where you felt betrayed and short changed.

To use my same example, take my sexual desire. If I put "physical intimacy" I don't think anyone would question that being on a list of expectations or desires in a marriage. On the other hand if I put something over the top like "I expect my W to do anything I ask at any time because she belongs to me" that would be an impossible and unhealthy standard. But it could still be on my list as 'physical intimacy'.

So my question to you is...which of those bullets is understated? Which is the one that makes you feel there is something wrong with you? Which is the one that WAS wasn't able to meet? In reflection, was he truly unaware and insensitive, or was he typical of most men and the bar you are setting was out of reach for any man?

PS- I'm not leading here. I'm asking you the same questions I am asking of myself with sexuality. I don't have all the answers yet either.

Thanks for being around JB smile

Last edited by Zues126; 11/27/15 04:23 AM.

Me:38 XW:38
T:11 years M:8 years
Kids: S14, D11, D7
BD/Move out day: 6/17/14, D final Dec 15
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