I hope your effort to find and book an appt. with a counselor happened!
It is tough to be "2x4'd", not doubt about it. But I think the people that 2x4 the hardest are also the ones that at one point or another were in the very same place.
I truly was on the verge of going off the deep end and so many of my thoughts were just like Kevin's. Evenutally it does begin to take a toll on not only your mind but your health. And I dont mean you just feel down in the dumps or sad, no, its something more than that.
There were many a days I would drive somewhere and not even remember how I got there. As I mentioned before, panic attacks were frequent with me. I lost 40 pounds and I only weighed 135 to begin with. Some people just handle things in a different way that isnt productive to their well being. The constant and obsessive worry is a terrible way to live (I know because I used to do that to the point of become physically ill). And when things get to that point its simply time to get some assistance beyond support groups and books. We all need help from time to time and usually the person that needs the help is the last one to really see it.
It's not about being mean or unkind or hey, lets all pick on Kevin and kick him when he is down. I would never particpate in such things because that is cruel. But I think the people that truly are the hardest on him (me included) are the ones that at one time were at the lowest of the low and on the verge of entering into a very dangerous mental place. Wishing and hoping or one thing but when it starts to become a way of life and all else is sort of ignored, well, you start falling down a slippery slope.
If you would prefer, Kevin, I will refrain from further comment. No harm, no foul. And yes, it is easy to give this advice but I can also assure you that I lived it and its not just something I read in a book.
I struggle each day but now I have the tools to be sure I never get stuck in such a reckless state. It has taken me close to 14 months and I dont ever claim it was simple. It still is the hardest thing I have ever done. But it is possible if you take the right steps.
Feel free to post. I'm just taking some time to evaluate myself.
Kevin
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
I think it's great you are stopping to think and analyze your thought process before carrying on with it. If you can see those destructive forces within, and stop them, you are on the right road. No more self pity from a guy with as much going for him as you have. Just b/c YOU can't see it, does not mean it's false.
But as so many say, we have all been where you are now, for some amount of time. I got my heart broken at age 16, and don't laugh okay? I mean it. I was bonkers that summer as I learned that he had slept with a girl whereas I had refused to but we dated all year and in my eyes, my virtue was unrewarded. I felt so physically sick. In hindsight, I allowed that idiot cheating "first love", to ruin a lot of my junior year of high school. What a fool I was! I knew many many years later that I would not endure something like that for long, again.
Still, h's MLC renewed those old desparate feelings and the crazy desire to understand the crazy stuff....stuff I will NOT understand and that has been a really weird thing to accept. But I accept that I won't "get" how my h moved and chose what he did or thought how he thought. Just dealing with the now, and the going forward-- and you know, that IS enough.
But I'm posting to check on the LICE issues...for ME, when h was gone to the tundra, we had lice with d11 (then she was 8) and then d20 (then 16) and then -- ME!! OMG!!
I'm really NOT OKAY with insects at all. It is "an issue" for me. So having lice for me, was like fear factor stuff. I could NOT stand it and it was a big damn deal. Combing through their long hair AND MINE and having H "miss all the fun"...he'd tell me what to do as if I wasn't doing it right, or it wasn't a big deal, and when h came for a visit and said he'd "help out" with the combing, which takes an hour per kid, plus my own, he did it for MAYBE 15 min and was done....(yeah, thanks...you sure showed me!)
I have a lot of LICE ADVICE for you if you want and we can discuss it all later. But killing those things took about 3 "EVENTS/SESSIONS" plus the constant combing and the school won't let them attend if they find out. We had them in the summer and that was the ONE saving grace but it happened in Europe, and God only knows what the pharmacist gave me for it. It was all written in Italian and my little "Speaking Italian" class did NOT include discussions of lice for some reason....bought stuff that literally looked like some sort of explosive and MAY have been a shampoo....or pesticide?? Well...we lived...
Bet W is having a great time with THIS!! . Who is she blaming? Some kid at school I hope. She'll likely have them too before long...you should be really careful and have the girls wear shower caps to bed and be grateful if you don't get them. You can freeze the pillows for 24 hours in the freezer and the ones that hatched already will die. SOME of the nits will too. (sorry if this is grossing people out but it is nothing compared to having them...OMG....OMG it pushed a big button in me) Be glad you don't have your own place yet!!
For some reason our son did NOT get them, even though he was with us the whole trip and shared a bed twice. His hair was shorter, true. But Turned out later he had "borrowed" the wrong shampoo from his roomate, and it was her dog's anti=flea shampoo he'd been using....so that's probably why HE didn't get them...um, yeah...thought his hair smelled a bit too 'manly' but hey, whatever works.
GOOD LUCK!!
And how is your beautiful new niece??
(( j ))
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
A friend of mine told me he lost his job today after being only 1 week into it. He was kind of freaked out about it. He is divorced to. Same story as everyone else here. I worked with him and he never talked to anyone. Then one day, he found out what was going on with me and started talking to me trying to help me out. I was the only person he talked to.
I sent him some contacts that I have from some agencies and told him to talk to them right away. Hopefully he can get something quickly. He has 2 daughters also.
It made me think again how lucky I am to have a job in this market even if its not the dream job. I'm still lucky to have it.
Alot of people are getting hurt financially and emotionally and are struggling and the walk aways seem to be florishing right now. I hate to see everyone here going through these difficult times and I am realizing that while my situation may be hard on me, yall all have just as hard if not harder situations.
I was to caught up in myself to look beyond and see so many other people have it worse than I do. And yet yall are there for me even though yall are going through your own hell. I realize how selfish I have been in focusing on my own self pity.
Yall are right. I'm 34. I have an opportunity to reinvent myself. I can do this job and study while the market is down. I have 2 great kids. I have my health. I will find someone else down the road eventually that I can be a good partner to if this never gets any better. I have people in my corner rooting for me that care about me. And yes, I can see what a huge drag and drain it is to have someone like me around if all I am is negative. I can rebuild myself. I have time. Its not the end of the world. Better to be 34 and starting over than 70 and in a shelter.
I have time to learn and study. I don't have to get it all done in one night. I have time to look for new opportunities that arise in the future. I don't have to have that dream job right now. At least I am able to pay my bills for now while I try and rebuild. When I am not negative, I have a great personality and a big heart. I'm a nice person. I care about people. I come from a good family with good values.
An older lady was walking down the street tonite in the neighborhood when I was driving down the road and she somehow fell. I stopped to ask her if she was ok and if she needed any help tonite. She turned out to be fine and thanked me for offering to help her.
I'm a good person. I was a jerk in my marriage before all of this. But I'm not anymore. I have value to offer. Money doesn't define a person. Character does.
My neice is doing great. They finally named her. Thanks for asking about her. She is a wonderful blessing and addition to the family. I haven't seen her yet as they live in Wisconsin. But I am sure I will get pictures soon.
My BIL is helping me take steps in my career path and advising me.
He said don't worry about the certification right now. In this market it won't matter right now. It will help later, but not right now. He said keep doing self studying and look for opportunities in the company I am in and in 6 months if nothing is promising, look else where. Maybe in 6 months if the economy is turning around, then look at certification. Just learn the job I am doing now the best I can and talk to people to get the big picture of who all is involved at every level for what I am doing and figure out how to get where they got by asking questions and offering to take on new projects while still doing the best job I can.
There is alot of bright spots ahead in my life. Its no where near the end of the road for me.
Good stuff to keep in my mind.
I have to do the lice treatment again on my kids tomorrow morning. I have the chemicals and shower caps. W is in Florida so I have to do the second round and that is fine. Gotta make sure they can go back to school Monday.
I have a sheltie that is 9 years old and has trouble getting up, but she is always happy to see me.
I took my kids to CC's pizza tonite because that is where they wanted to go and they loved it. And I love being with them.
They wanted to go for a walk tonite and they love that I play games with them. And I am going to come up with crafts and projects for them to do in my place. And I will take them swimming. They love that to.
Life isn't so bad if you look at the things you have going for you and realize opportunities will present themselves with time if you are patient.
I wasn't going to post much for a while. But I guess I decided to after giving things some thought today and tonite.
I have a roof over my head, food to eat, a care, a job, and a chance to improve my future if I am patient and diligent.
Things will be ok if I take each day one day at a time.
There is no reason to cry anymore. What good comes from it. It doesn't change anything. Action changes things, not self pity.
Its time for action. If my W D's me, then she D's me. If she never comes back, then she never comes back. What a waste of my life if I am always sitting around waiting for her to come back. What a waste for my kids if I never move beyond this and live life. They need and want a strong dad that can pull himself together and keep moving forward in the face of difficult times. They need the example. They need the strength and stability.
Life must go on. Its time to pick myself up and move forward and work as hard as I can with what I do have to work with and think positive about what life does have to offer. Part of that may mean me having to remove W from my life so I don't think about her anymore. Its not something I want to do, but it may be what I have to do so that I can keep going and do what is best for me.
I have to stop thinking about what is best for us and start thinking about what is best for me and my girls.
Life will go on. None of us are in the ideal situation. None of us wanted our hearts ripped in 2 and our life turned upside down. But it happened. So you can pick up the peices and rebuild, or you can waste away your life and never be happy again. I'm done with that. What a waste. Why be depressed until the day you die. What kind of life is that?
Kevin
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
Print out your post and reread it next time you start feeling down, and remember you wrote the words and felt these feelings. I know the roller coaster, and what it's like to feel absolutely so down you can't even get up the strength to get out of bed in the morning, and I also know that there are times when it doesn't hurt as much. Reading positive affirmations, like your post above, really does help put things back in perspective when the blues hit, so I offer that as a suggestion from one LBS to another. Hang in there my friend, and keep the faith.
And yes, I had my heart broken as a teenager to. A girl I was madly in love with slept with another guy while we were together. And I even caught her cheating on me on my birthday of all days. Probably because of being cheated on before and the close relationships my W had with guys I was always untrusting to some extent. And then W finally did it and broke my heart again.
So I know I am not ready for another relationship right now. I need to move beyond that not everyone is like that in life.
So fixing myself is #1 priority. And there are steps to do that. And I made a phone call today to 2 different counselors to start getting quotes. One is actually a C I had been going to before when I had insurance. I haven't heard back from him yet on his prices without insurance.
I didn't take his advice before. But now its time to start.
One of these plans of action might end up being just removing myself from W and her life and family as far away as I can from myself. And by that I mean just having nothing to do with any of them anymore at all. No contact. Just see W when I have to and keep it minimal. Let her move on. I don't want to hear about what is going on in her life anymore and what she has been up to.
I can't move on if I am staying involved with her life. The more involved I am the more I can't let go. Thats enough of that. I need to forget she exists which won't be completely easy since we share kids together. I can however set it up so that we hardly see each other anymore. That would actually be ideal for her and it would help me forget about her. I can make it where I pick the kids up from school on Friday of my week and then she does the same on Friday of her week. Thats kind of drastic, but it may be what I have to do to forget about her. Why do I want to keep torturing myself knowing about the guys in her life. I don't. Who needs that?
Not I.
Kevin
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
Me 36, W 37 M: 08/02/97 D13, D9 1st Bomb 02/08 Reconciled 04/08 2nd Bomb: 09/08 W filed for D 02/04/09 Separated 03/09 D dismissed 06/09/09 Still separated...
I am so pleased to read these last few posts from you and I am so very, very proud of you.
If you dont have insurance to cover counseling you might call around and see if you can find a counselor who operates under sliding fee scale.
I did a quick google search using the temrs "counseling in dallas without insurance" and came across this option from the Univ. of North Texas at Dalls - they offer free counseling for anybody in the community. Here is the link:
