How is it SUPPOSED to work?

[grebjack]

I read that post by Country_song that you referred to.

It was only when she couldn’t do anything that she realized what she wanted to do, and what she didn’t want to do anymore.

It reminds me of our snowstorm a couple weeks ago. My power was out, so my house dropped to 40 degrees and I couldn't cook and my phone didn't work and I didn't have an internet connection and there wasn't light to read by. I missed hot food and warm showers some, but the biggest irritation was the isolation. Church was cancelled on Sunday and then six days of school were cancelled. I couldn't call anyone; I didn't see my colleagues and students; I couldn't even surf these forums. It was like cold-weather camping, where all my waking hours are consumed by basic survival with some hiking thrown in, but I wouldn't choose to go winter camping without a friend in the tent I could talk to once the sun went down. I think you're trying to communicate that I need other people too much and I need to learn to enjoy my solitude, and one of the clear messages of the DivorceCare workshops is that you have to learn to be alone without being lonely. But telling me I have to learn it doesn't give me any idea HOW someone would go about learning such a thing.

My husband likes to tell this little joke: "A man goes to the doctor and says, 'Help me, doctor. It hurts whenever I do this." The doctor responds, "Stop doing that." I am miserable when I spend extended periods of time alone. Why, then, shouldn't I avoid doing that?

Perhaps, as you made yourself more and more busy with the rest of your life, your H may have resented that you weren't more and more attentive with him, as well. Maybe you thought you were, it may not have appeared that way to him.

This rings really true about my marriage, but with the roles reversed. When we first started dating, if he worked late, I would stop by his lab and bring him dinner; if I worked late, he'd show up at my classroom with a pizza. Sometimes he'd help me with my work (I couldn't really help with his - he was writing a Ph.D. dissertation in experimental physics); mostly we'd just take a break together and then he'd do his thing while I did mine, and then we'd go home together. (We were roommates even before we started dating.) We got to a place where _I_ was frustrated by his spending the night at the lab - I might go two or three days without being in the same room with him (what I wouldn't give for that "infrequency" now!) - and I got him to agree to one night a week and one weekend a month and we would write ONAW on our calendar and go do something simple and pointless, like ride the train to an unfamiliar part of town and walk in widening circles until we found some place we wanted to hang out. He used to tease me, jumping up and down in a fake temper tantrum, whining, "Pay attention to me," in imitation of my childish attempts to get him to drop what he was doing when he brought a lot of work home. He now says that he only started working long hours because _I_ did, and he tells a story of my saying, "you're my first priority, but please don't make me give up my second," but I have no memory of ever saying that, and if I wasn't making time for him, why was the running joke about me trying to get his attention?

The first is a challenge to connect with someone. In training circles, it's called "breaking bread":
The challenge is to go out for lunch and eat with someone you do not know and get to know them.

I assume "do not know" doesn't mean ask a complete stranger to have lunch, which might seem kinda creepy, but rather to invite an acquaintance, and there's a woman at work I've tried to connect with several times, but she's a single mom and has always had other commitments. That is the challenge you have in mind, right? Or do you really want me to try to connect with someone entirely new?

I was going to challenge you to think of an amount of money that you would typically "waste" shopping. So double that amount and find a way to safely but effectively loose that money without knowing where it ends up.

I don't much care for shopping, but I "wasted" $36 yesterday buying food for the astronomy club meeting (where "wasted" means it was an expense I didn't have to pay. So I got $72 from the bank today and left it with a post-it that said "spend me" in the Dr. Seuss sculpture garden downtown. I'll confess this wasn't an entirely uncontrolled release. The closest park to my house is in an upper-class suburb, but I left it instead where it's much more likely to get noticed by someone waiting in line for the soup kitchen at the church that borders the sculpture garden. How did it feel? The loss of $72 won't have any impact on my life. The only uncomfortable thing about it is the realization that I am spending $72 to comply with a challenge that I don't understand that was given to me by some guy on the internet whose name I don't even know. I'm not sure why I am cooperating with this - I guess just on the gamble that you will eventually offer some explanation, some insight, that I wasn't going to come to on my own.

So the challenge would be, spend one week "unbooking" yourself. Go to work, but don't do the "extra" stuff that you normally have planned. Instead, leave your calender open. During that week, everything you do that isn't specifically during your work day should be spontaneous.

"during your work day" is a little loosely defined for teachers, since we're expected to plan lessons, grade papers, check in with parents, etc. during the hours when we aren't at school. So tell me if this rises to the challenge:
This coming week I'm only in school Monday and Tuesday. I've already cancelled Math Team on Monday because of the faculty meeting after school. I won't grade any papers or make any parent calls after I come home Monday night, unless something drastic (a fight) happens during the day. I won't bring work home Tuesday night, with three exceptions: (1) I'm allowed to plan lessons for the coming week; (2) I'm allowed to finish recommendations for students with December 1st college application deadlines; and (3) I'm allowed to watch and take notes on the video I have to have edited for the following Tuesday. Thanksgiving dinner is an "extra" thing I have planned, but I can still do that. My divorce support group Wednesday night is an "extra" thing I have planned - will attending that defeat the purpose of the challenge? And it's okay to do things on my to-do list, as long as I don't sit down at the start of the day and plan out my schedule, so that what I choose to do at any point in time during the week will be spontaneous. Kosher?