New attitude, new thread

[kat727]

I was going to mention also in my earlier post... your daughter seems really caught up in this whole body image thing. She is growing and changing and on top of that trying to find her way through the minefield known as divorce.

You should keep the focus on health. Also though, there shouldn't be a day that goes by that you don't tell her how beautiful she is or how proud of her you are. Looks seem to be a big deal in your family, why on earth give her the added stress? Everyone is not beautiful in the eyes of everyone else. There is a reason for this. Something to think about.

kat

[SunFunOne]

"Parents need to fill their child's bucket of self esteem so high that society can't poke enough holes in it to drain it dry"...

I read that today on Facebook and it is SO true. This is particularly true for Adolescents, Pre-Adolescents and Teens. It's a hard knock life. And we have to make our kids strong enough to take on the challenge. Our job as parents is to "give them wings then let them fly". But they won't make it if we don't show them how.

Think about how your avoidance affects your girls. They need to talk about it and so do you. Maybe that will make it less painful. Because truly - all 3 of you are in so much pain. And you need to work together to reduce that. To help each other. To be in it together.

I know it's not easy. But it is necessary.

Barb

[ClingingToHope]

Ahh, the pitfalls of online dating. I finally was communicating with a lady from my town. We exchanged messages for a week. Finally, I asked her out to lunch, she said she'd get back to me with a good day. That was two days ago. Today, she shut down her account.

It was OKCupid, which is a fun site. We seemed to be very well matched from the online questions.

Oh well. Keep going.

[kml]

Online "dating" is really a misnomer - it's really just online "meeting".

Lots of weird stuff like that happens, you just have to accept it's part of the process. Either her old boyfriend made up with her, or someone she dated last weekend turned out to be a great match, or she's someone who realized she's not really ready to date, or she's some scammer who had no intention of meeting in real life. You may never know - just move on to the next one.

Part of what's weird about the online thing is how you may have several contacts going on simultaneously. Can be good and bad.

[ClingingToHope]

Another up and down day. Last day of nine-day vacation with girls and all goes pretty swimmingly until the car ride home when D9 throws massive fit because I wouldn't come off road --- again --- because she was thirsty. We were 25 minutes from home finally after battling traffic for three hours, and we'd eaten 45 minutes earlier.

I lost it briefly when she threw a flip flop at D13, who wasn't doing anything.

As soon as the storm passed she was apologetic. We get home and she's very sad to be leaving.

Their mom picked them up. I found out she and Uncle Fester are taking them out of town to a hotel. I am a little bothered by the example they are setting. But I'm not all that broken up. XW is Fester's problem now. I know soon enough the ice queen who blames her unhappiness on everyone else will show up. In fact, the more they are together, the faster it will happen.

No. I'm broken up right now because the longest stretch of one-on-one time I've had with them in three years is over. As up as most of it was, the down parts get me very down.

I just want my daughters back.

I have LOTS to do now and I have no energy without them.

Update on the OKCupid girl. She put her profile back up and messaged me with her full name so I could find her on Facebook. She said she isn't ready to date. She has her kids 24/7 and was unsuccessful finding a babysitter for lunch and just feels like it's too much.

I found her on Facebook and sent her a message saying I understand. Schedules are hectic and the lunch date is a standing offer. The two relationships -- however brief -- I've had since the split up were online things where we were communicating, they withdrew for a while and then came back.

Maybe history will repeat itself.

KML, I think the online thing is different for men. Women, at least I've read, get a lot more emails than men. I've gone months at a time with no one responding. Now, OKCupid and I have become "Facebook" friends and I reupped Match this morning and get a response from a 37-year-old who is currently separated.

So for me, that's a lot of action.

[whatisis]

In the three or four months I was on POF I was contacted by over one hundred women (I stopped counting after 100 lol). Most of them I did not want to meet but, the fact is, they made the effort to contact me. I would suggest that you look at your profile and really put some time into it. I think women like and appreciate when they see a man putting effort into presenting himself. That's my theory anyway... and I've never used OKCupid or Match

[kml]

What I've noticed is, my women friends do NOT want to contact a guy - they want him to contact them. I think I'm not the norm, in that I'm willing to search for and contact guys that I find interesting.

My friend's perspective on it is this: she's not that confident, she wants a guy who is REALLY into her, and she's afraid that if she does the contacting, she'll end up with a guy who isn't that crazy about her.

Just saying, there are probably a lot of women online who still expect that old-fashioned model of the guy as pursuer, even in that modern format.

And yes, ask a good female friend to vet your profile. Some common mistakes I see in guys' profiles:

- Scowling photos. Seriously, if a guy can't post ONE photo of himself smiling, I pass.

- The half-naked bathroom photo. If you really want to show off your six-pack, include a photo of yourself at the beach or pool with friends.

- All photos taken by yourself. Try to find some photos of you with friends, or out doing things where the photographer was obviously a friend. Makes you look less like a friendless sociopath.

- Photos with girlfriends. It's ok to include photos of yourself with attractive women - IF you explain in the title that it's your sister/childhood best friend/sister-in-law.

- Engineer's English. When I read a profile which consists entirely of simple declarative sentences (subject-verb-object. Subject-verb-object.)I KNOW he'll turn out to be an engineer or computer programmer. Nothing wrong with either profession, but try to demonstrate SOME ability with the English language or you look like someone with really bad Asperger's syndrome.

[ClingingToHope]

Wii, from what I have heard and read, you are way out of the norm. Usually, for guys it's something like a 10-to-1 ratio, for every 10 women you contact, you might get one response.

KML, I pass your rules. I only post photos of me smiling. I do not look good when I'm not smiling. I think I usually put one swimming pool shot up of me tossing my then six year old in the water. I don't have of me with other women or any of me taken by myself.

Actually, I rewrote my profile again and thinks it sounds less depressing, more positive. But I'm truthful on it. I work a lot. I have my daughters a lot. I'd love to find someone and if I do, I'll carve out time for them. That probably eliminates me for a lot of women looking for someone able to dedicate time to them.

Plus, I'm pretty restrictive on the area, smoking (never), politics (no conservatives) and education (at least some college). That eliminates a lot of people.

I know it's going to be hard for me to find someone. Then I think about D9 and her issues and I realize how hard it is going to be for me to find anyone to marry until she's off to college. She's just difficult.

Rare day with basically nothing to do. I walked to work from home. It takes an hour. I'm putzing around, trying to get things done, but I haven't been too successful other than create a list of things I need to do this week.

Good news is that all the fun last week stayed within my budget.

During the walk, when my mind drifted to bad places, I kept saying to myself "Something great is going to happen to me."

Some day.

[ClingingToHope]

Good visit with counselor today. She had me go through the vacation and the times the anger spilled out. She thinks I'm doing fine. I think I'm a mess.

But perhaps I'm an improving mess. I was thinking over the weekend how anger basically affected my mom and dad their whole lives. My sister struggles with it and I'm seeing it in both my daughters.

What if my one goal and just one goal was to conquer anger and fear. Let everything else go. Just beat that. I think perhaps that's the greatest gift I could give my daughters.

My counselor suggested a book "Taming the Beast" and I'll pick it up tonight from the library.

Some texts from XW today. Who is going to buy what for D9's 10th birthday? D13 had orthodontist appointment. She needs a full set and it'll cost more than $5,000. She can't get them until February or March.

That's fine. I'd budgeted for that. That won't knock me off my plan at all, really.

Contacts from OKCupid and Match have died off. Sigh. Did get an email from someone on Plentyoffish.

Tomorrow I go and enroll for fall classes for the MBA. Also, last night I learned I'll get a few more umpiring games in the fall. Every little bit helps.

Lots to do. Wish it were less.

[SunFunOne]

C2H: I think that is a very admirable goal. And doable. It is sometimes better to concentrate on one goal and yours is, indeed - a real gift to your daughters and to yourself.

This is probably the best post I've read from you in a long time. Stay focussed - you can do it.

FYI - sometimes the orthodontist will give you a payment plan. You can find that out easily ahead of time.

Barb