The journey begins

[ClingingToHope]

Hey, I appreciate the input and I understand where you are coming from. When I was sitting in church I was thinking about what God is trying to teach me.

Humility for one thing. For the longest time I had a seemingly perfect life. Nice house. Two beautiful girls. The dog. The career. The pretty wife.

And I had little patience for others and a sarcastic sense of humor and a sense of superiority.

Confidence in just being me. I still have that addiction to being in a relationship. My sense of self has taken such a beating. I feel so ... diminished. I must remember that so much of my life is good -- daughters, friends, career, health. There are a lot of people who would trade places with me.

I've written this before. I've NEVER been alone. I always lived with someone until these last 14 months.

So I hear you ... and yet I don't want to close any doors in my life. I don't want the next great thing pass me by because I've set an artificial deadline of mourning.

I also don't want to rush into anything because I need to be with someone.

Man, it's a struggle.

I'm going to call my church friend 31 from now on to save time. We've exchanged texts a couple of times. About tonight, we'll see. It's a very unlikely relationship anyway. How many 31 year olds are looking for someone 10 years older with two kids and money issues?

I guess the possibility of it is helping me through.

I FINALLY got a response from my L today on the email I sent Monday. I wonder if he'll charge me double since it's a holiday.

Anyway, he's going to send STBXW's lawyer a letter basically saying if they'll pay me $11,000 in after-tax dollars then we'll agree. If it's money coming from retirement then we want $15,300.

I was reading Gardener's post about his one true wife.

My problem is I now have my doubts. The more I think back and the more I realize that we really started to struggle when D11 hit age 3. That's eight years. So how true was the love?

I have a friend who is thinking of proposing. His girlfriend and he fight all the time. Over money -- she'll go nuts with credit cards when depressed -- over family, hers doesn't really like my friend. Finally, over sex. They've been together almost three years and had sex five times.

I've told him these things usually don't get better with marriage. It just doesn't sound like she's that into him. STBXW and I were really into each other when we got married.

He turned that around on me. He said they've talked about marriage and how hard it is going to be and they are comfortable with the fact that they fight because they work things out that way.

He asked me if STBXW ever really fought. I said, no, not for a long time. We really thought we were perfect for each other and I think we both were shocked when we weren't perfect.

Maybe he's right and I'm wrong and I'm doomed to make that mistake again.

Off to the fireworks. Happy 4th.