On the bumpy road towards found...

[JCJ]

What are you up this weekend Lost? Anything exciting?

[iamlost]

This weekend I'm volunteering early tomorrow AM all day, so probably won't go out tonight. Tomorrow night, I'll probably hang out with my girlfriend who's just getting back into town. Sunday, GAL stuff.

I'm actually kind of upset right now about the "friend" thing we've been discussing. I have a male friend who recently moved back into town and was really struggling with everything, finding a job, an apartment, his girlfriend broke up with him, depression. So, I'm really supportive and kind to him, take him out to eat and drinks when he is broke and depressed and listen to him.

The last time I hung out with him, he makes all these offensive and untrue assumptions about my H, and then says, "it seems like you never had a real marriage anyway." Nevermind that he doesn't know the first thing about it, having lived away for our entire R. At the same time, he's texting his ex that he's out with me in an attempt to make her jealous, which works. She's jealous and I realize not only is he rude and insensitive about my marriage, he's using me, as his completely platonic friend trying to help him out and paying for all his drinks, to make her jealous.

Then he sends me a series of texts thanking me, telling me how much hanging out with me meant to him, and I respond with "Glad you feel better," but basically have been avoiding him since then. Today, I get a text from him asking if he could stay with me while he looks for another apartment. Groan!

So, I write him an e-mail explaining that things are really tough for me now, I'm splitting up with my H, and it's probably not a good time to stay here. I also tell him that, although it's not a big deal, I was a bit hurt about the way he was talking about my M the last time we hung out, and that I know he's going through a hard time, but to please be understanding that I am as well.

I'm probably being overly sensitive, but I just can't deal with people being jerks like that right now. I feel bad that he is having a rough time, but that doesn't excuse him.

Sorry, just needed to vent that. :0

[happycamper]

The last time I hung out with him, he makes all these offensive and untrue assumptions about my H, and then says, "it seems like you never had a real marriage anyway."

Our 'friends' say the most hurtful things sometimes. They need to understand that what they say about our partners is a reflection of our choice in partner. It's not like we know how these things turn out, and then we choose to marry them, is it?!

I've lost friends over the way they speak about H. Sadly one of my closest friends also lives with a similar character, and she's not able to handle H at all. Her first comment was "Well, I have to tell you, we always thought he'd been unfaithful..." - no, you don't have to tell me...

[iamlost]

One of the side benefits of this journey that we're all on is that I've come to truly believe that people project their own unhappiness onto other people, and that it's not personal, but you also can't let it steal your own happiness.

I'm very sensitive and am hurt very easily, and I never quite understood that when someone was rude or mean it really wasn't about me, it was about them, their own issues and unhappiness. I would always just stew about it, fret about it. Lately, I don't as much and I think it's partially because I read this:

People think that happiness is like a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it...You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings...

I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once--all the sorrow and trouble in the world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me.

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all of your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

--Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

[pisces9]

i am proud of you for saying NO to him and stating what you need. that is real strength! now is the best time to clear the air with everyone if the opportunity arises- just like this...sometimes its easier than we think
"Clearing out all of your misery gets you out of the way...."

girlfriend~ you are creating your own path !!!

i love that book- ill read it again....

[iamlost]

now is the best time to clear the air with everyone if the opportunity arises- just like this...sometimes its easier than we think

Too true. And it did clear the air: I had a back-and-forth e-mail conversation and my friend apologized, and now things are fine. Yay!

[JWS]

I think that you handles your self like a true DB Ninja. Funny how friends or Spouses, basically the people we care for the most are the ones that mess us up the most.

Generally speaking most people are a little selfish and only see the world through their own eyes, they tend to reflect their own issues on to dealings with others, I am sure He did not mean to be so insensitive but like you said what does he really know of M.

Hang in there only you can know what is right for you and for your M, and so far you tend to all way impress me with your strength and character.

Night

[JWS]

BTW what are you volunteering at??

[iamlost]

I might give away too much personal info to say exactly what I was volunteering at--but it was pretty much all-day manual labor. I could do nothing last night but drag myself home, eat dinner, watch Anchorman (yes, I own it!) and go to sleep.

Had an interesting conversation with H yesterday. I talked to my girlfriend who I wanted to do something with last night, and she said that we would all be getting together at a bar and H would be there, so she was reluctant to have me come, given how weird he's acted out with me and other friends since the split.

So, I called H and told him, very calmly, that I was concerned about either of us being excluded from social stuff with mutual friends, so he himself said I could come, it was fine. And I said, what I'm really concerned about is our friends being uncomfortable because they think YOU'RE uncomfortable. So, I asked him to please talk to a couple of them (our closest) and tell them that you're not uncomfortable, and please don't feel like you have to choose between us.

He fought me a bit, was p*ssed off at our friends for feeling uncomfortable (?!), and then finally, at the end, agreed to talk to them, so I thanked him and said I was really grateful.

After all that, I was too tired to even go out!

[iamlost]

In other news, I did a lot of thinking this week. Mostly, about how much I've been concentrating on H, and that I really need to focus on myself now.

Part of the pain of this whole situation is that when I got married I thought I had my life sewn up--husband now, babies and house on the way! And then I could just skate the rest of my life on that.

Well, it didn't go like that, and now H is gone, and I feel like I have to start all over and like TRY and stuff again!

Sadly, that's really the problem, that I ASSumed that he would love me forever, and I could get away with being what I see now was an entitled, lazy person for the rest of my life.

I mean, maybe I needed this whole terrible, painful thing to happen to humble me and get me on a path towards happiness instead of a half-lived life.

And happiness takes WORK, which is not music to my lazy, entitled self, but the alternative is to do what I've done since forever--never, not for 5 minutes, be alone; find another man to "make me happy" until I resent him for not actually making me happy, because only I can do that. And then what, find another man, repeat cycle, and continue to not actually BE HAPPY?

I realize that I project an aura of confidence and well-being to most people, but within a relationship, I lose that--I'm insecure, overly sensitive, needy, unhappy, controlling. I would rather be loved than love. I play out childhood/family relationships to painful ends. In other words, I can be a real pain in the *ss.

So, I'm gonna work on getting happy. Figure out what is truly worthwhile about myself, and work on improving the rest, and I guess that's what I want to spend my time here doing.