Rolling with the punches

[Redo]

Yea 2Step, with dentist, even facing the bill is one of my fears

Made a mistake and worked from home yesterday. When i do that i usually end up feeling quite down.

also started hearing news that W's cousins is getting married soon. I used to hang out with this guy. W had lot of cousins and i loved this little guy group. Just last year we hit some of the clubs for lil harmless fun during Halloween.
And now, not a single member of her family has ever called me. Its like i am radioactive. Either they just wanted to stay away from this awkwardness or i guess they bought into whatever W has been telling about me to the family. Since i did not have family here in US, i did adopt all of her family as my own. And now during these hard times i realize just what a fool i have been. My family is in all force trying to help me in whatever way they can. W's family, totally off contact.

When i think about this, just makes me sad as to how stupid was I to invest so much into them...

[JustStunned]

MK, My life revolved around doing for W’s family. Most of the people I have been friends with are related to her clan.

Don’t let what you are perceiving get you down. Do the things to improve yourself, including social activities giving you a chance to build new friendships.

Eventually the support group surrounding W begins to fracture. How often can any of us listen to the same negative set of stories as we all try to get on with our lives? Some of your old friends will begin to wonder and they may make contact.

If you are hugely successful with social GAL activities you may have to make time for old friends.

[Redo]

Thanks JS. Yup, i am trying to move away from it. I guess it is just sad that people all of a sudden go from being good friends to strangers just because of this nasty lil thing called divorce.

[2stepboogie]

The family will gravitate towards their family member. Does your fam reach out to her?

[Redo]

Thats the problem. My family actually reached out to her. They initially tried the old fashioned thing of trying to talk to her and find out what issues she had with me. Basically they got the phones hung up on them. Then i reached out to my in-laws and told them that in spite of the awkwardness they might have towards me, to feel free to call me if they needed to.

As i was saying, this is not an issue. I can understand how her family might feel. As i observed, i think people find it very awkward to talk to person who says they are going through divorce. Just that it is a sad state of affairs that her cousin with whom i am good friends cannot even call him and wish him luck on his marriage. It is pretty awkward. I am sure even he does not know to tell me about his 'happy' occasion.

Oh well, on the bright side i was able to get rid of 90% of my woodworking tools this week. It was bittersweet letting my good 'ole tools go. Now i have to get rid of my metalworking tools.

I am finding that if i keep daily goals like these and cross them out from my checklist, i feel much better.

[Redo]

Journalling...

Wow this weekend was an emotional rollercoaster ride for me.. All by myself with no help from others...

So i was talking a colleague of mine who is also divorced. He talked about checking on match making websites to consider re-marrying again. Heard this before and never considered looking at the them. On friday i decided to take a peek. Bad idea. Now I have this thought in my head that if my W does go fully ahead with the divorce, then i'll just give up and look for someone else. Bad bad bad. I thought i was all ready to fight to make my W fall again for me and come back. I am now battling these 2 thoughts in my head.

At least one good thing that came out was this weird feeling of optimism. And feeling that i do need to take good care of my self physically if i need to be attractive to someone else.

I don't know. I feel like i am cheating on my wife. Yea i need to stop visiting those matchmaking websites...

[spellfire]

Hold on to the optimism. Definitely get in shape. There are plenty of fish in the sea, know that you can easily find someone else if you want to.

You are here because you CHOOSE to fight for your W and family, not because you have no other options.

The decisive action of a strong man, not the desperate act of a weak man.

[Redo]

Thanks mike.

Funny, secretly hoping that my life 'might' be better when we divorce as i 'might' find someone better has become this drug that somehow is keeping me in better spirits this week.

But i know just like a drug, once this fantasy is revealed, i will go through withdrawal. I don't know though. I am already looking forward to getting into a new relationship soon if divorce becomes final. But i do think that it might be a bad idea as i really have not worked on improving myself

well i did one thing that i plan to pursue to keep my mind focused. To write my GRE exam. Cant wait to register for that next week.

[ScaredinCanada]

Karma,

I've had the same feelings, and I think as long as they just remain feelings they are harmless - especially if they give a little bit of an emotional boost.

As for the family stuff, in my case only some of my family and only some of my W's family know what's going on - regardless they all pretty much just backed off. I think it makes perfect sense because people generally avoid conflict.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out if we seperate or divorce as I am really close with a lot of a my W's family and they really like me. I've been in their lives for a lot of ups and down over the past 15 years - and mostly I think I've been good to them.

I think over time though family tends to stick with family and the relationships I have with them will fade away. There are some that I will do everything I can to hold onto (nieces and nephews on my W's side), but obviously it will depend on how friendly the sitch is with my W.

I still hold out hope that we can actually fix the problems, become better people and have a new stronger marriage...

For now we can only try and focus on becoming stronger ourselves...

[spellfire]

Funny, secretly hoping that my life 'might' be better when we divorce as i 'might' find someone better has become this drug that somehow is keeping me in better spirits this week.

I've had the same feelings, and I think as long as they just remain feelings they are harmless - especially if they give a little bit of an emotional boost.

It is a called having a feeling of abundance. It is perfectly fine to feel this way. One of the things "nice guys" tend to do is put one woman on a pedestal and tie all their own happiness up in that person, so that when that is ripped away, it feels like their life has ended. I believe it is much healthier for everyone involved if you have a permanent feeling of abundance, and you express your love for someone as an ongoing commitment, by always "choosing" them, as opposed to desperately needing them. Feeling like there is the possibility of numerous other romantic interests is neither dishonest, nor disrespectful to the one you love, as long as you always honor your commitment. It is also more realistic, there simply ARE a lot of fish in the sea. Thinking you will never catch another is just an expression of self-pity and inmsecurity, far removed from reality.

Now, having said that, I am not advocating giving up. I strongly advocate going after what you want. I keep talking about being a strong man. A strong man knows exactly what he wants, and he goes after it.

But i know just like a drug, once this fantasy is revealed, i will go through withdrawal. I don't know though. I am already looking forward to getting into a new relationship soon if divorce becomes final. But i do think that it might be a bad idea as i really have not worked on improving myself.

Stop that negative self-talk. It is not a fantasy at all, everything is a possibility. You are correct though, you are not ready for another R. In order to not repeat the same mistakes over again, you must first learn and grow from this experience. Part of that is being your own man, and not having your emotions tied up in another. Loving someone for who they are, but at the same time being emotionally self-sufficient.