S&A - am I sensing a change in your recent posts? Maybe things are backsliding in your sitch? How about an update on your thread?
Yes and No. The little new one is now 9 months old. We ML 3 times since he was born. That's not a complaint (I had quite deliberately taken it easy). Each time was progressively hotter than before - the third time my head pretty much exploded. The fourth time, she was just too tired (and the vibe was off from the start) so I "stopped play". So that put me in a bit of a mood.
Also, the LNO is waking up very early at the moment, meaning my wife feels tired nearly all the time. Our other child has been playing up and become argumentative. Plus I've had a lot of pressure at work, and cash-flow problems etc etc.
Ultimately, I think we are all human; we are all swirling masses of energy - separate from but related to and influenced by our external environment. Therefore we are all susceptible to downturns and patches of worry and depression. The single biggest lesson I have learned from my former SSM is not to give in to those waves of depression; to be aware of and let them buffet me if need be, but to resist getting dragged off the beach. For me the Hemingway quote - "A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - is the greatest line ever written. A real lifesaver for any man that troubles himself to think about its meaning.
My biggest problem in the past was to wallow in the waves of negativity, and drift into fantasies of how life, work and sex should be. By the time the "tide turned", I was not really present enough to go out and do some real fishing. It is the vast disparity between fantasies and reality that can prevent a man from even pushing his boat out. However, the alternative is to be forever a spectator on the shores of life.
On any objective standard, I have much improved myself, my career, my marriage, indeed every single relationship I have. By a process of continual change, sometimes dramatic, sometimes incremental. I am properly grateful to the Universe for all of it; it beats any of my fantasies hands-down purely by virtue of the fact that it is real.
However, the process can at times be frankly tiring.
But having written out the above - I already feel better.
I will do an update soon.
S&A
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated" - from The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
Which I take to mean that every man has within him a spirit of relentlessness and optimism. Its already there; he just has to cultivate it.
