Divorcebusting.com Forums Divorcebusting.com Archives Surviving the Big D Archives You can't have everything, where would you put it?

Don't fear the court...if she can do it so can you. The outcome is not up to her, it's for the judge to decide and your lawyers should help you prepare for what to expect in court. AND if both Ls are good chances are the case won't even go to court.

Goodluck on the house...I have a feeling you guys will all like it.

SR, her lawyer sucks. In fact, he's kind of a joke in the legal circles and I'm a little insulted that she didn't get a better one.

So part of me wants to go to court just to see what happens.

That's neither here nor there. Great night tonight. The codependency class on Fridays is really going to help, I think. I realized that I should be seeing STBXW as little as possible because right now she can't win with me.

If she's nice, I start thinking "well, we aren't actually divorced. You never know." I haven't let go.

If she's mean then she's a b*tch.

That lasted until 9 p.m. I hustled up north to meet one of my best friends who is going through the same thing (a D) as I am.

Boy is he ahead of the game. His D was final last week and his Ex took it hard even though it's what she wanted. He was out tonight with his new GF. She's very, very nice. She's a daycare lady at a private school my girls went to when they were small. She remembers D7 and was happy to hear she's doing much better.

I stayed there for an hour before heading to a music venue to see a live band at the invite of a 37-year-old who was my neighbor growing up. I made a play for her when I was 20 and she shot me down.

It was a lot of fun catching up. She's had a lot of troubles. Her marriage crumbled 10 years ago. She moved to the Chicago suburbs but returned five years ago to take care of her mother, who probably only has months to live. On top of that, her brother either accidentally shot himself or committed suicide a year ago.

It puts my situation in perspective. I had an excellent time. We talked. She filled me in on her life. I didn't talk much about mine. We slow danced once -- that felt really good.

There's no future there. She's a band groupie. That's not what I'm looking for. It was great to be invited and I may see her tonight after my church singles group thing breaks up.

Life is good. Very, very good.

CTH, do not get into any kind of strange R with Ms. 37...you're words says no but I'm guessing that little validation demon inside you is working overtime again!

Woke up very tired. I'm pushing it this weekend. Played golf in this 95 degree weather then went to a friend's for a cookout. It was so hot I was the only there for the longest time.

Now? Luckily my church singles group thing was moved from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. because I'm very, very, very tired (and I have a basketball and softball game tomorrow).

I'm not sure how many are going to show tonight. I'm hoping 31 and 35 are there. If not, I think I'll be OK. Things with 31 are just sooo unlikely. She is the type of person I'd like to find someday though. A nonsmoker, athletic type, outgoing but not in a showy way, beautiful but conservative dresser and she interacted really well with the kids of another guy in the group.

That's going to be sooooooooooooooo key.

Hopefully, I'll be able to last long enough tonight to see the lady from last night again. She'll be at another place and said if I'm out at midnight I should stop by. Again, no long-term possibilities but she was fun.

During golf today I mentioned last night's slow dance to my playing partners/friends/coworkers. I think it's the first slow dance I've had in .... at least five years. STBXW and I stopped doing anything socially except for weddings and Christmas parties and we never slow danced at the company Christmas parties.

Swaying to the music, holding her hand with my left and my right in the small of her back. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I know, I know, get the 2-by-4s out. It was just a nice moment -- a milestone on a new road.

CTH, how do you keep track of all these numbers 31, 35 etc? Do you have a program or a scorecard? It sounds like a football game... "31, 35 hup hup hup!

Well, I've seen other threads where people were identified by a letter (Mr. A, B etc.) or a trait (on BBJ's thread).

In my case, I'll identify them by age.

Tonight was a bit of a bust -- but still good.

Neither 31 nor 35 showed up for the singles group night at the downtown taverns. But eight others from the group did show up. I'm still so new to the group I'm not part of any of the inside jokes.

I'll see some of them again next Sunday (July 25) for a family friendly picnic at one of the group leaders' house. I'll have the girls. It should be fun.

That lasted until 11 p.m. and then I headed over to see 37. She was at another bar with some other really good friends of mine so I hung out with them for a while.

37 was having a tough night. Her last boyfriend is a bit of a psycho and was harassing her. 37 has way too much drama in her life for me. By 1 a.m. it was time to go.

So Friday was great and Saturday was ... good. Sunday there shouldn't be any female drama. I have to clean and get ready for the girls. They are here for the week.

There was a development there. D7 texted on STBXW's phone. They were at the family campground, which has a lake. There's a dock out in the lake you can dive off of. But you have to be able to swim to it.

D7 swam to the dock. I guess STBXW helped a bit. STBXW is not a strong swimmer.

There's no way D7 swims to the dock without all of the swimming we've been doing so she followed the text with a 10 minute phone call.

I was a little sad I wasn't there for the big moment. But that's how life is going to be. I'll miss a lot of these firsts and sometimes I'll have them to myself.

I'm starting to wonder if I'm a little bipolar.

It seems as if I have no medium days. I'm either super GALing and moving on with things to do and people to see ...

or I'm emotionally crashing.

Having a really down morning. I had so much going on the past two days that today I just feel .... blah.

I shouldn't. I should be grateful for a slow day. I have the girls for seven straight days starting tomorrow so I have to clean. I also have a basketball game, a softball game and have to stop in to work to drop some files into Google DropBox so I can work on them this week.

See. That's a busy day right there. So I don't see why I'm struggling. STBXW used to complain that -- especially in the summer -- I didn't let her and the girls rest, I always wanted to do something. There's something to that.

In church I was having trouble focusing on the message. It was about armor to wear in battle against Satan.

Two of them struck a chord.

* Truth -- I'm proud of 99 percent of my life, but I have to hide from the 1 percent. I have to be proud of 100 percent and then I don't have to hide from anything.

* Faith -- the ability to trust that what you believe will happen eventually will. I believe STBXW will wake up someday and realize that for all my faults I was the one who would love her no matter what. I believe I'll someday find a R more fulfilling than the one I had for 13 years. But having Faith that that absolutely will happen? I haven't found that yet.

My mantra from Thursday kind of snapped me out of it. I am tired of feeling sorry for myself and I am tired of people feeling sorry for me.

Maybe I'm just tired. I'm considering taking a sleeping pill after the softball game tonight to get a ton of sleep. I don't want to go into my final summer week with the girls tired. I'm already going in a little worried about finances.

Hey man, just wanted to let you know that the peaks and valleys that you describe at the beginning of you post can be helped. Tricyclic antidepressants do just that...they make the peaks not as high, and the valleys not as low. You still feel the things you're feeling...the extremes at both ends are just 'dampened' somewhat. They do help with what you're describing...just something for consideration. Good luck.

STBXW dropped girls off at 7:45 a.m. They are here a week and are playing the Wii right now before we go to my softball game.

They immediately started filling me in on their past week with STBXW. The big thing being there is someone interested in looking at the house.

D11 looked down about it. D7 looked happy. D11 is like me on the house, she doesn't want to sell it but the faster it sells the faster I can buy a house.

Of course, I won't have a down payment for a year so I'd really like to see STBXW suffer in the house for a while. Is that bad?

It's the only house the girls have ever known. It's going to be tough watching them deal with leaving it.

D7 has bought into the fact she'll just go from a big house to a smaller one and a new room. That's down the road. Someone on here once said I'll have truly detached when I want STBXW to thrive. I'm a long way from that.

STBXW and I did not meet eyes. She knows I don't want to see her and she seems uncomfortable here. I keep trying to climb into her head to speculate what she's thinking and then tell myself to stop. It does me no good.

I looked up the Serenity Prayer this morning and am going to try to memorize all of it.

The root cause of my feelings on the house are this. If it sits on the market, not selling, then deep down in my heart I have this .00001 percent hope she'll change her mind and want to work on things.

Realistically, if this house doesn't sell she'll blame her unhappiness on that. Like she blamed her unhappiness on me being there controlling her. The only way she'll realize the life she had was pretty good is after the D is done, the house is sold and the IRS bill is taken care of. That could be another two years.

But that again is me not letting go.

The root cause of my troubles yesterday was feeling back to square 1 on finding a replacement for STBXW.

I know that's wrong. I know I have to break the codependency cycle. That's going to take a long time and this weekend was tough. Friday night was great and slow dancing with a pretty woman reminded me what I'm missing. Then Saturday was a good day but 31 and 35 didn't show for the singles group -- and I was looking forward to seeing them -- and 37, who I slow danced with Friday, was caught up in her own drama and didn't spend a lot of time with me. It just felt like a lost night.

Girls are getting along really well so far. I stayed up too late last night. Time to go play softball.

CTH, you aren't bi-polar, you're just a man trying to get by with what you know how to do best. You keep yourself damn busy to keep your mind from pondering the big hurt in your life. Then you burn yourself out and are useless for a couple of days, then it starts all over. It's hard to find a happy medium. I do it all the time! I have to learn that I don't have to be going day in and day out, it's OK to do nothing. I just find that when I have empty time my mind zaps right into rumination mode but I'll figure out how to put an end to that someday.
Btw, I too struggle with the faith thing. You want to believe that the Lord has good in store for you but it's hard to really believe. I think that's the trust factor. I'm scared to trust God, I trusted the woman I married for 17 years, really believing she would never hurt me, and I took it right between the legs. I'm scared to put all my trust in God, if He lets me down then what do I have left! Anyway, as far as the armour against Satan I'd go with a heavy duty athletic supporter!
Hey, when you have those down days don't be hard on yourself, just look at what the message is, God does speaks to us in many ways. I think the trick is that we have to listen.