Piecing. Can I make this work?

[Rose888]

I can't speak for your wife, but I'm of a similar age and I've been married a similar time, and I can tell you that about 5 years ago, I started to really wish I'd kept my maiden name.

It has absolutely nothing to do with my H or how much I love him or my level of commitment to our marriage.

It has everything to do with feeling like if I scratch beneath the surface, I AM my maiden name in a way that I AM NOT my married name.

That probably sounds crazy to someone who hasn't had to change his name as an adult. And I've used my married name longer than my maiden name.

I think for me, part of the realization had to do with meeting more and more families where the parents had separate last names and seeing that the world didn't fall apart.

Now, when people ask, I encourage them to keep their maiden name.

Again, nothing to do with my H. I hope to be holding his hand into our 90s.

[doodler]

She's always just been Mrs. LiM.

LiM,

I think the issue is that LiM is a terrible last name. It's only three letters long and two of the letters are capitalized. I'd never want to be known as Mrs. LiM.

On the other hand, a name like Mrs. doodler has an air of sophistication and refinement. And, if you speak Pig Latin, doodler becomes oodlerda; that has a special ring to it, doesn't it? Compare that with iMLa; it's entirely nondescript.

So, Mr. LiM is it any wonder your wife wants to middle-ize her maiden name?

[BluWave]

doodler, LOL, you fool, haha!

I never changed my last name but probably because my H's last name is longer and I like the way my last name sounds more. That's it. However it would be nice to have the same last name as my kids. For me, my last name, whether I change it or not, doesn't affect my feelings toward H.

Lim, is this more about the name or more about your questioning her commitment to you? I think it's normal in piecing to look for anything and everything that could be defined as a breach of trust. What does your gut tell you?

Blu

[LiM]

I'm headed off to the court house to change our names to Mr and Ms Doodler right now! I think it is exactly what we need!

Thanks for the 2x4's guys. This is a hard one for me but I guess its something I've got to give on. I actually consider myself a feminist. I wholly support women being treated as equals. In fact, I wish to God that women would be in charge of running the worlds governments. The world would be such a nicer place.
But for whatever reason, it has always been important to me that my W have my name. It means a lot to me.
She's always fought to maintain an independence that I never sought to take from her. I want a strong, independent woman in my life. But at the same time, I want to feel needed and appreciated. My W was taught by her grandfather to never "need" a man. And I think that is a good thing. But I just feel like there has always been the barrier between us because of this. We left our families, became adults and married to become a single, cohesive unit. That doesn't mean that we can't have our own identities, friends and activities. But having the same last name was just always important for me.
Is it worth it to throw 20 years of M in the trash because of this? Of course not. It just when you pile everything up, I feel I can't do it anymore. I've bent over backwards to make this easy for her. Probably too easy.

Blu, its hard for me to read about the struggles that you are still facing when you are a year ahead of me in all this. We are struggling with the exact same feelings. So how much longer do I have to sit in this pile of $h!t? I hate it. I can't stand it. I want it to stop. I'm tired of being nauseated. I'm tired of being sad and miserable.

GAL? Well, not much to it. I still work out most everyday but I don't do anything else. I participate with my W in her activities because that is important to her and I was neglectful of that in the past. The problem is that I don't want to do anything else. I want to work on repairing my M but I'm miserable most all of the time. I love my W and I want to get that special feeling back. But its not coming and I'm afraid its never going to come.
I guess I need to force myself to get out there and start doing something for me.

[LiM]

Had a talk with my W last week (after the feedback I received here) about her using her maiden name. I was not angry and just told her that it hurts my feelings. She told me I was a jerk and that I need to get with the times. We talked for a while, I cried, and she eventually apologized for doing that without discussing it with me first. She said it was not right of her to do it without talking to me about it. The next morning, she sent me a text message saying that she was still sorry for doing that.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and I've decided that I will talk to her tonight and tell her that I'm ok with her using whatever name she wishes and that I will not be upset about it. I will tell her that I will support her, love her and be proud of her no matter what name is listed on her outfit.

Drove to a neighboring state this weekend for my W to compete in her triathlon. We had a pretty good weekend and my W appreciated me being there to support her. During our talk the other night, she told me that "they" (OM and his W) would be there and suggested that we not go to the race. I told her that we absolutely would go to the race. A friend had told her that they would be there. I ended up seeing OM and his W. I turned around at one point and saw OM's W walking by. She waved at me and I waved back. I was worried that she would approach me and try to talk to me but she didn't. And thankfully, OM didn't come anywhere near me. That was rough but I feel like I did ok with it even though they ended up sitting down about 30 yards away from me.

I know I've got to start focusing on the positive stuff we have going on in our lives and to stop dwelling so much on the negative and the pain. I know I've also got to get back to focusing on me more and doing some more for GAL.

[Coconut]

Lim,

I wrote this to cbtdad, but I think it applies to you too..

Your S is your life, you do anything for him, enjoy spending time with him, but he is not your passion. I'm not saying you shouldn't find happiness in being with or taking care of your son, but he should see your passion for life outside of him, that's how he will learn to find happiness in life himself.

Happiness is found from within, passion makes a person ooze with happiness... If you find a passion, your focus will shift from looking at your MR to find happiness, and you will bring happiness into your MR. Your W will see your happiness, she will be attracted to your happiness, she will want to share in that happiness with you.

It's not easy to find passion, I look back at my life and see different passions at different times. Once I found passion in working out, it is no longer a passion for me, now I just do it and am happy I do it, but I'm not passionate about it. I was once passionate about volleyball, but now it's just fun, I don't wait in anticipation for the next game. Other passions I've once had that are now just fun are fishing, modifying cars, jai alai, mountain biking, bowling, etc..

I don't have a passion right now, I know I need one, I keep trying new things so I can find one, I want something that I desire to do and become the best I can be at it. You need to find a passion to bud, we all need our own passion in life.

I'm not going to comment on your comments to W, but I believe it demonstrates that you are angry because you are not getting what you want from someone else to make you happy. You can't control what she does, so you gotta find your happiness somewhere that you can control, inside yourself.

[LiM]

Thanks coconut,

Its amazing the insight members of this board are able to have into each other just based on the things we write here. Its like you know me better than I know myself.
You are correct; I have no passion. I feel like my ability to have passion about anything in life has been taken away from me. There really isn't anything I care strongly about any more. I've just stopped caring.
I used to be passionate about my job; the company I founded; the product I developed and patented. Now I resent my job and wish I could walk away from it but I can't.
My W is passionate about her triathlon stuff and I resent that. I resent how it took her away from our family, physically and emotionally. I resent that the sport introduced her to OM.
Its like I've come to resent being passionate about things because my experience is that doing so causes pain.

I could become passionate about something. There are things I would like to do or become more involved in. But my fear is that if I find happiness outside of my M, then I won't want my M anymore. Instead of deriving happiness and excitement from being passionate about my M, I will find that I get potentially more happiness and excitement from things outside my M. I'm afraid that if I have that external pleasure, I'll look back at my M as only a source of pain and will then choose not to stay in the M.

[JujuB]

Hi LIM

I am so sorry for your struggles. I remember reading how even if your WS does decide to come back, that the real battle is piecing.

I don't see how anyone would not feel resentful and depressed and question the potential for future happiness by piecing together a marriage in which there was betrayal.

I can't really give you any advice regarding piecing. But i can tell you this...

The other alternative is filled with difficulties as well. The divorce process [censored] and leads to the same feelings of loss of hope and passion and depression. Meeting someone new and getting some attention only left me with some temporary ego gratification, but the reality is my son has no family unit. And the anger is there regardless, in addition to the mourning.

There's no easy path I guess. I'm sorry your going through this.

[doodler]

I could become passionate about something. There are things I would like to do or become more involved in. But my fear is that if I find happiness outside of my M, then I won't want my M anymore. Instead of deriving happiness and excitement from being passionate about my M, I will find that I get potentially more happiness and excitement from things outside my M. I'm afraid that if I have that external pleasure, I'll look back at my M as only a source of pain and will then choose not to stay in the M.

LiM,

You're in a bad place right now and I have no idea what to recommend. What I usually do when when I don't have any good advice is I ask myself this question, "What would Captain Kirk do?" That's when I realized, Captain Kirk wouldn't have any advice for you either, he'd just reach out and slap your silly @ss. You've seen Star Trek, you know how it works, a good slapping and then everything is good again. So, my advice is, get someone to slap you around so you can clear your head and go on to new adventures (sans any alien nooky).

[Coconut]

I could become passionate about something. There are things I would like to do or become more involved in. But my fear is that if I find happiness outside of my M, then I won't want my M anymore. Instead of deriving happiness and excitement from being passionate about my M, I will find that I get potentially more happiness and excitement from things outside my M. I'm afraid that if I have that external pleasure, I'll look back at my M as only a source of pain and will then choose not to stay in the M.

Forget the 2x4, I'm swinging a 50 foot steel I-beam at your head...

If you ever decide that you don't want your M that is ok.. But damn man, being miserable so that you wont want your M to end isn't the way to go. Go out and find yourself, feed your soul and find your happiness.