Getting Better??

[AntoniaB]

IB you said this: "3 years ago I was living a nice, middle-class life. Now I am so far down I don't know if I will EVER make it up again. How did this happen???? (rhetorical)"

I have to tell you something. I get this entirely... I was putting my XH's and my money into this ever-growing retirement fund when he bailed. I felt like all we worked for was gone.

I have to tell you that since he IS gone, that when I get my statements from my mutual fund company, knowing that XH is paid off and cannot come back and take one more cent, that suddenly, the payroll contributions that I have made for over 10 years MEAN SOMETHING.

I have to say that being dumped has given me this extraordinary wakeup call, and an awareness of how what I put in, I can get out. It's so weird to me, that when I have extra money, I end up spending it ON MY HOUSE. I don't choose to spend it one me, but on my house. I think I appreciate the effort far more now than I would have when his income made it far easier to blow money left and right.

What I have noticed in general is that all the crap XH and I talked about doing to our property I am doing but without his income. I am taking chances that he and I never took even though we had so much more money coming in.

It's funny...I feel like MLCers are supercautious and then they crack and become super NOT cautious.

Maybe the thing that binds us all is that for whatever our faults are/were, we are people who more or less figure stuff out and are more logical and objective and reasoned about major life decisions....