Thank you Tina, that does sum it up for me. I really only have two major differences and that's the lifetime friend - I was an army brat before internet and I moved a lot. The other is family. I'm closer to my in-laws than I am with my own. This has caused me to think about some stuff I'd read in the forums here. Is MLC something that has to do with unresolved childhood things?
My wife's biological father passed away some years before we met. He had left her mother and her and never called but 2 or 3 times a year. You would never know this the way she speaks of him or how it seems her greatest memory was a trip to go see him when she was in HS. When he got sick he came home. She cared for him until the day he died. In sickness he gave her what she always wanted - her dad. Her mom had remarried before this went down and my wife's current father is the best, which leads me to another thought.....
It would seem to me, although only 38, that I'm quite the candidate for MLC. I've not known my father since i was 3 and have never had one since. I had been raised by an older sister and my mother. I love them both, I just never related to my mother and my sister and I are busy with our own lives. we catch up here and there, but I've never known family like what my in-laws have given me. They are there for me and treat me as their own. She has something great in them and they are standing on the outside waiting for my wife. They have expressed their hurt "for" me so I've made a point to leave them out. My wife will go to them before she ever comes to me for anything. I don't want to get in the way of that.
Having been an army brat I've been around the world and experienced so much, but I've been slow to grow up to adulthood. There are reasons for that as there is with anything, but I have often gotten angry over this past year about not having a father, someone I could learn from, someone who could have helped me get back on the horse in a tough childhood. Someone who could have taught me that being a man isn't what I saw in old war movies and action flicks, but a dude who could share what he feels on the inside every now and then.
And yet I feel fine......
Also, I reread what I wrote above and I forgot to point out (ADD), that while it's true that females had been my friends the majority of my life, I ended all that. When we moved in together 13 years ago I chose, out of respect for my wife to be, to not befriend females. I never wanted her to doubt me. Oddly enough though, some 9-10 years back she found a long brown hair in the shower. She has black hair and I guess it was enough hair for her to want to question me about it ( I have 'short' brown hair ). I did not get upset with her, but I still remember how I felt hurt that she would question my integrity. I gave up any friends I had for us because I liked spending time together. I made a choice with my own free will.
One other thing Tina, thank you for making me smile today. It comes easy these days, but this is different. I feel a little goofy when you called me Sadak. I chose the name from my favorite painting - "Sadak in search of the waters of oblivion". I used to see the painting as my struggle with learning about my ADD and how my life went from knowing what was to a bunch of what if's. I lost a lot of teeth getting slapped with that one. It was a picture of my struggle to find myself and my wife. I see it differently now. I don't see pain, I see that no matter how hard the journey it is, or will be - it was/is worth it.
