Finding my way into the light

[dusty70]

H,

I too went the OLD route but have recently closed my accounts. I met someone out of the blue, went out a few times and realized I wasn't ready. I have continued to GAL!! really like my new direction in life! The ex! no more blaming me that I know of, we haven't talked outside of some lingering financial stuff and the kids. She has actually soften a bit from her hardened shell! Has been more pleasant around me when we did see each other and now when she sends me messages about the kids every time she adds a little more to the conversation like how i'm doing and hope I had a good weekend etc..... We are doing a great job co parenting! We do help each other when we need to.

[JujuB]

I think a week is perfect. If you wait too long, its easy for them to get side tracked and ghost. as women tend tonbe bombarded with lots of messages and dates in those sites.

[TBSakaJ9]

H.....IMO meeting sooner the better. I just gone done chatting with a girl for a week and we met on Thursday........we had great texting convo but wasn’t what I expected when she walked through the door.

I think you meet asap and determine if there is mutual attraction. If not then game over, if there is then IMO you can explore it further. Remember back before OLD people met in bars, or wherever. They saw the person first and then got to know them and wouldn’t even approach someone if they weren’t attracted. OLD kind of puts the cart before the horse so for me I prefer to meet asap.

[TBSakaJ9]

Bingo! Finally a great fricken date! Cute and her personality was awesome!

[Holding]

Happy to hear it, J9! I'll jump over to your thread for all the juicy details.

[Holding]

Recently, probably within the past month, 2 different people have asked me if I still love my XW.

This question freaks me the F out! Why are they asking me this? What are they seeing that I'm not?

I answer no. I feel no love for her. The only thing I feel toward her now is frustration and anger. I'm still angry that XW broke me so completely as a person and hurt our kids. I know that's a victim mentality, and I certainly don't spend my whole day sitting around thinking that. But I recognize that the emotion is still there.

I do miss my W, who no longer exists. As I've said before, the M was maybe 20% good, 80% bad. I miss that 20%. I deserve better than that, but I still miss that little slice. Now I'm out looking for a whole pie made out of that slice.

Interesting fact: a few months ago, I had to be present in a doctor's office with XW for an appointment for my kids. I was there for about 2 hours. It was very cold and standoff-ish, and we didn't say much to each other.

Should I be detached? A friend who was recently divorced said there's no way detachment is possible for me, especially considering the length of my M. My friend says the thought of XW will probably cause me some distress for quite a while.

[LH19]

H,

It's concerning that you are admitting that your marriage sucked the majority of the time but yet you still miss it. You are basically acknowledging that you don't deserve better.

I understand you were together for a long time but you are about 8 months out you should be pretty detachment by now.

What does Holding want to do with the rest of his life? You need to start doing some serious self care and fall in love with yourself.

Are you exercises get your mind, body and soul everyday?

[Holding]

LH on point with a 2x4!

I think you missed my point. I miss the good part of the M, not the totality of it. I do realize I deserve better, and I'm looking to find something better in my future R(s). Maybe I'm still in the grieving process, letting go of the last feelings I have of the M, such as it was.

For the rest of my life, what do I want? My main goal at this point is to be financially secure (something I never had in my M). I'd like to find someone to have an awesome R with and possibly get M again, though I also accept that may never happen, and I need to be cool with that.

[focus22]

My main goal at this point is to be financially secure (something I never had in my M).

I set out to do this too.

I'm still working on it, but I achieved a huge part of it last year/very early this year when I paid off my mortgage. It felt incredible...mixed between finally feeling totally secure in my own home (something I missed as a child a bit) and managing to set myself - and achieve - a huge goal.

I know how I managed to do this (what work I did), and I'm now concentrating on expanding on this.

What does financial security mean to you? And how are you going to achieve this? In what sort of time frame?

[Holding]

Focus, financial security is a process for me, with stages. I keep refining things, but here's what I have so far:

Stage 1 - Pay off credit cards and car (complete)
Stage 2 - Refinance house (in process) and establish new budget
Stage 3 - Push for raise or new job
Stage 4 - Build up savings account
Stage 5 - Start paying off student loans aggressively, until paid off early
Stage 6 - Start paying off mortgage aggressively, until paid off early
Stage 7 - Fill a pool with gold coins and dive in?

My M was an 18-year ponzi scheme, where we lived paycheck to paycheck, constantly ran up credit card debt, and borrowed money from relatives. We even started out from a horrible position, by putting the cost of the wedding reception on a credit card. I'll never forget the time I had to buy a few gallons of gas with a bag of pennies. We also borrowed money from our kids to pay bills. (Yes, you read that right.) It was shameful and I refuse to ever live that way again. That behavior was all my XW, and I'll admit I did nothing to try to reign her in because I was a wuss. (Wow, writing that out has given me a lot of clarity.)

Focus, that's great that you paid off your mortgage! Congrats! Are there negative tax implications for you now that it's paid off? In the US we get a tax can write-off when we have a mortgage.