Yay!!!!! Finally a new thread.

[antlers]

Oh, and I made pretty clear that I would like to avoid D IF there was a way for us to have a healthy R. But otherwise, I am about me and my kids.

I admire your dedication AAK! I think you're getting stronger and seeing things with more clarity...good for you! You are a lot stronger than you think. You realize, as Michelle does, that divorce is not the answer to marital problems. Sometimes it can't be avoided, but...you continue to DB and remain committed, and I'm in your corner. I hope you have a great day.


ps - keep fightin' for it!

[aliveandkicking]

Not a minute of sleep. I'm down. And I mean DOWN.

I don't see a way out of this. I have knives in my stomach. I don't think anyone in my family understands what is happening. I feel like the crazy one. I don't know if that woman can help, she almost instilled more fear in me (how hard it will be to D him). What am I going to do, go on to therapist #6...I feel like no one can help me. My kids' little hearts are right in the middle of this...

And, what is wrong with me that I'm not in a better mood? H seems to be jovial most of the time.

I'm rambling, no sleep and I mean none and leaves me in what shape for my kids? And to work?

I am going to a meeting this morning for an organization I am volunteering for just to channel some of my energy and meet some people.

I will try to pull it together. I feel physically ill.

[aliveandkicking]

Oh, and I made pretty clear that I would like to avoid D IF there was a way for us to have a healthy R. But otherwise, I am about me and my kids.

I admire your dedication AAK! I think you're getting stronger and seeing things with more clarity...good for you! You are a lot stronger than you think. You realize, as Michelle does, that divorce is not the answer to marital problems. Sometimes it can't be avoided, but...you continue to DB and remain committed, and I'm in your corner. I hope you have a great day.


ps - keep fightin' for it!

Dude, I am fighting for my sanity at this point. But thanks.

[SmileysPerson]

I'm down. And I mean DOWN.

Coming at you in the alt.

[Thinker]

Not a minute of sleep. I'm down. And I mean DOWN.
...
I will try to pull it together. I feel physically ill.

I know what it feels like not to have slept, to struggle to pull it together to be able to work, to be so stressed you feel sick.

It does get better. It does go away. I promise.

One day at a time.

You're OK. You'll succeed.

[aliveandkicking]

Not a minute of sleep. I'm down. And I mean DOWN.
...
I will try to pull it together. I feel physically ill.

I know what it feels like not to have slept, to struggle to pull it together to be able to work, to be so stressed you feel sick.

It does get better. It does go away. I promise.

One day at a time.

You're OK. You'll succeed.

Yep, I thought I had made some progress from that place but I am so jacked up right now.

[SmileysPerson]

I don't see a way out of this. I have knives in my stomach. I don't think anyone in my family understands what is happening. I feel like the crazy one. I don't know if that woman can help, she almost instilled more fear in me (how hard it will be to D him). What am I going to do, go on to therapist #6...I feel like no one can help me. My kids' little hearts are right in the middle of this...

First step, slow down, friend. This is a pattern in your sitch -- you make progress, you move forward, then Monsoor does or says, or doesn't do or say, something, and you slide baaaaaaccccckkk, all the way back, all the way back to looking at this thing, la cosa nostra, this thing of ours, in its leviathan-like nakedness, in its full monstrosity -- and you try to fight it, David versus an ever-expanding Goliath.

But "this" -- this is a Big Problem. It's Too Much Problem.

Around middle school, when we start learning (being forced to learn) algebra and the dreaded "word problems," one of the first lessons that is drummed into the brain-pan is that we have to break the problem into smaller chunks. That's what those stupid parentheses are for.

There's a similar dynamic in interpersonal conflicts. It's called "Incrementalism" in the theory of negotiating strategies. It doesn't always work, but it often does. And it doesn't require a lot of knowledge or training or anything other than common sense.

Because it's exactly the way instructions are written, exactly the way recipes are written. You can't have a peach melba, for example, until you first get a peach.

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

(Epictetus, Discourses, Book I, Chapter 15)

Break what you're facing into more manageable chunks. Break those chunks into even-more manageable chunks. Solve a problem. One problem. One teeny-tiny, itty-bitty problem. Reward yourself. Move forward.

I understand your frustration, believe me. I was every bit where you are as you are. And the thing that saved me wasn't mojo or the Spiers Doctrine -- but keep that under your hat, okay, I have a reputation around here -- but was simply recognizing that this thing was too much to take in that way. It was like trying to sip water from a fire hydrant.

And I understand the temptation, the desire, the drive, the internally generated demand, the need to understand why. Why? Why why why?

But you have to let it go. And it sucks, but yeah -- you're the only one who can do that and who can make the decision to do it. The why just doesn't matter at the end of the day. In a sense, it's like the difference between "organic" acting and the Adler approach. The back-story is irrelevant. What happened, happened. You have to confront the here and now.

One problem at a time. One day at a time. Or if that's too big a bite to chew, one meal-time at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time. One now at a time. Now. And now. And now. And now....

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island (among other things), once wrote, "Life is not a matter of having good cards but of playing a poor hand well." Life dealt you a hand -- dealt us all a hand -- and the task, the challenge, the obligation, the need is to play it.

As @Coach says, you can handle it. But you don't have to handle it alone. That's what we're all here for. So your family doesn't get it. I had to put my foot down to stop the smack-talk about WAW in my family -- dig it? I'm DEFENDING the woman who is LEAVING me to my OWN family? Because I can't have loose talk like that around my (her) children. So the family....

You have us. All of us here, and we all have each other. And it's not a perfect substitute for real connection like in a family, but by the same token it has none of the baggage associated with family.

I'll close with another quote, this time from the Nobel Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer:

Those who have learned by experience what physical and emotional pain and anguish mean are a community all over the world. They are united by a secret bond.

I'm one of Smiley's people. I live in the secret world -- the world of that secret bond. You are, too. And so are Thinker and AlexEN and SMW and Sara and Coach and Greek and Gypsy and and and.....

You're not alone. You don't have to face it alone. You don't have to struggle alone.

One second, one minute, one hour, one day. One challenge. At a time.

[aliveandkicking]

Thanks, that helps. Going to this meeting despite the urge to get back into bed. I'll read this again a couple times.

[AlexEN]

As a noted scribe once marveled, "I love how these threads seem to intertwine"... well, it was something to that effect...

I just meandered over to @Gardener's thread after catching up on this and @Smiley's and others' threads when I happened upon this post... which ties very closely to what appears to be the current theme running through several threads at once: TRUST...

[So, as an aside in response to @Smiley's question on his thread, I think a thread on TRUST is very topical. Trust, both extrinsically (trusting others) and intrinsically (trusting oneself), is hammered by the range of emotions felt at times like this... There is even a body of academic research on this... I found this Abstract:

We find that incidental emotions significantly influence trust in unrelated settings. Happiness and gratitude, emotions with positive valence, increase trust, and anger, an emotion with negative valence, decreases trust. Specifically, we find that emotions characterized by other-person control (anger and gratitude) and weak control appraisals (happiness) influence trust significantly more than emotions characterized by personal control (pride and guilt) or situational control (sadness). These findings suggest that emotions may be more likely to be misattributed when the appraisals of the emotion are consistent with the judgment task than when the appraisals of the emotion are inconsistent with the judgment task..]

But, the post on @Gardener's thread said this:

My two cents. You are very hard on yourself (I can relate). You may be attempting to pursue this like a marathon at the end of which you win the trophy (W)...at a certain point I don't believe there is a chance the WAS will forgive or believe your changes if you are still grasping for how to break through to them. One who is strong and secure and more desirable judges him/herself by his/her own standards (now that you are on such a positive track you can probably trust yourself more).

...Very basically, you know that pain and suffering are parts of life and parts of you and you refrain from resisting or trying to avoid those feelings. You live and know they are there and they don't own you.

I keep thinking that if I was evolved enough, I could get through this without so much pain, but my best days are one's in which I let it be. I am human...

So, you, all of you, including a rough night, or sad feelings, or questions on here, or humility, confusion, whatever are all ok. You are a good and sincere guy it seems. Again, I think you can trust yourself more and accept that you are human.

@A&K, I know you know who wrote that... It was very wise advice... @Smiley is right, you don't have to handle it alone, but even when you ARE alone, trust your own counsel to others... TRUST YOURSELF MORE...

-AlexEN

[25yearsmlc]

Lots of good stuff here a/k....but I thought of something I wanted to pass on before work today. Remember Alec Baldwin's meltdown on the voice mail he left his daughter? his career was NOT helped and he barely recovered. He is a talented actor with a lot of friends but it took its' toll and his tone has changed big time.

Soooo I was just wondering about you and these voicemails your "soon to be famous" h leaves you, or his notes, or his actions OR his inactions, sins of commission and omission, so to speak...I was just wondering what a wonderful Public Relations bonanza he'd be in People magazine (I MEAN WHEN HE GETS FAMOUS OF COURSE....OF COURSE!!!)

And if your h gets to the point where he believes he could be famous, you may have a weapon up your sleeve you forgot about. NOT saying you have to use it, but I sure would ask him what "his public" or "his clients" would think/feel about him, OR THEIR FANS ABOUT THEM-- IF IT got out that their manager/hero/agent/ assistant-or whatever he calls himself now--is a jerk from jerktown, leaving his wife and kids w/o money, while mooching off rich people and forgetting to pay his bills AND forgetting to actually file for div --BUT going ahead and dating and whatever....but wait, "sources say he LOVES HIS KIDS" and by saying it, that makes him a good father of course... Look, celebs can and often are stupid, but not as much as you or he may think. When it comes to leaving kids and guys leaving "starter wives" as your h has done, many in the industry see right through it. THey don't trust contracts with people like that. Trust matters.

Keep track of these "not soloving HATE messages" and or journal about them, with dates. That will help you a lot with the kids in court, it's NOT DIRTY,or below the belt; it's honest unlike him, and besides, aren't you tired of feeling impotent? Finally, you may have a weapon and it's HIS MOUTH and there is sweet irony in that.

On that happy note....gotta get some sleep. No, I'm not blaming your h for my insomnia (the start of it yes, but not the constant waking up. I did get some writing done and now have to go "sell" it.
Talk to you soon. Hope my idea is as smart as it sounds to me now, as I'm sleep deprived. Last night I thought it was "damn smart!"...
(( j ))