BANG! Bomb Drop Number Two

[ForeverYoung]

Oh, just so you know you're not alone, I spent an hour or so one night "shopping" for a mail order bride. Seemed a lot easier than dating to me!

[Papa4Life]

FY has a point. At this point anybody who is not a female Hannibal Lecter or who doesn't have the personality of Nurse Ratched on a bad day is going to look like Claudia DmSchiffer (on a good day) to us.

When you crawl out of the dessert and come across a muddy puddle, you think "Bottom's up!" and tapeworms be damned!!!

Just kidding, but it is true that we're probably not in the right frame of mind for starting a new relationship, and who knows, things could still turn around in our sitches. Miracles happen

[mrtwopointfour]

Cheers FY. I honestly do wonder if its making my MLC clock tick if thats even possible, i read somewhere that a partners MLC makes you think deep about your own life. Of course I am far from that, and probably not in good taste to joke about it, but think the big 40 not too far off and single life pending its getting at me more than it would if all was ok M wise. If that makes sense!

Get a copy of Viktor Frankl’s book, "Man's Search for Meaning", and you’ll see what I mean.

Will take a look at this.

[mrtwopointfour]

W continues to be very pleasant, very polite and over nice to me. Why? I know I should not analyse her right now. But I have done nothing different. Is it because she is going away soon and is meeting OM.

How does a W act when she is due to meet OM, moody, very happy, distant. I would have thought she would have become distant but there does seem to be a pattern of being extremely happy before her trips away.

[ForeverYoung]

W continues to be very pleasant, very polite and over nice to me. Why? I know I should not analyse her right now. But I have done nothing different. Is it because she is going away soon and is meeting OM.

How does a W act when she is due to meet OM, moody, very happy, distant. I would have thought she would have become distant but there does seem to be a pattern of being extremely happy before her trips away.

Mine is always very happy prior to her trips away, and there doesn't seem to be any OM. It's an escape for them. Get away from the life they are so unhappy with. My W said she plans on taking all the discounted trips she can get from her work, and has been doing a good job at it!

If your W is not distant and/or secretive, I'd say that's a good sign.

[mrtwopointfour]

Well I may have spoken too soon, as her mood dropped like a rock this afternoon. However I think its because she was stressed and tired, and also something came up which probably made my wife realise that she still needs to consider reality.

Every time something knocks over her fantasy land apple cart and reality kicks in she turns, becomes cold, snaps at me or finds fault in my actions again. She also started dropping in the odd comment on being apart again. Predictable really. Sign that I am detaching, because it did not bother me one bit.

I am not, at the moment, relating this mood to her trip. Until the above came up she was more than happy as mentioned in my last post.

As for secretive? Well - she has told me once or twice, that she is staying with a particular friend. The rest of the time she just refers to her and her friend as 'we', but she has told me the hotel she will be staying in during her time away.

In contrast last time she went away, she stayed in a totally different city to where she had told me she was going. So, yes that was her being secretive. This was during my snooping period, and it nearly pushed me over the edge when I found out where she was staying. Never, am I doing that again!!

So FY I hope you are right, I hope its excitement because of the trip away and this time she is going where she says, and who she says she is with. If not - well, not a lot I can do about it!

[Papa4Life]

Great job with detaching, 2.4, excellent. Her mood should not influence your mood. And doesn't that throw them for just a bit of a loop when they notice the 'safety net' has been rolled up?

And do you think it's a coincidence that suddenly she's all but printing out her itinerary for you for her trip this time? I think not. She might be trying to subtly make it clear to you that she's not going to do anything that might upset you on her trip. Could be she's hoping you'll keep the home fires burnin until she returns.

You've made some great progress, 2.4. Bravo.

[mrtwopointfour]

Interesting article on LinkedIn today about how being in constant pursuit of happiness makes us less happy. I don't think i am allowed to post links here but here is a snippet from the article

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In a series of new studies led by the psychologist Iris Mauss, the more value people placed on happiness, the less happy they became. I saw it happen to Tom, a savant who speaks half a dozen languages, from Chinese to Welsh. In college, Tom declared a major in computer science, but found it dissatisfying. He became obsessed with happiness, longing for a career and a culture that would provide the perfect match for his interests and values. Within two years of graduating from college, he had bounced from working at the United Nations to an internet startup in New York, applied for jobs as a supermarket manager, consultant and venture capitalist, and considered moving to Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Colombia, or Canada.

These careers and countries didn’t fulfill him. After another year, he was doing standup comedy, contemplating a move to London to pursue an advanced degree in education, philosophy of science, management, or psychology. But none of these paths made him happy. Dissatisfied with his own lack of progress toward happiness, he created an online tool to help people develop more productive habits. That wasn’t satisfying either, so he moved to Beijing. He lasted two years there, but didn’t find the right cultural fit, so he moved to Germany and considered starting a college dorm for adults and a bar for nerds. In the next two years, he was off to Montreal and Pittsburgh, then back to Germany working on a website to help couples spend more quality time together. Still not happy, he abandoned that plan and returned to Beijing to sell office furniture. One year and two more moves across two continents later, he admitted to his friends, “I’m harder to find than Carmen San Diego.”
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Can't help but wonder if this how is the a MLCers mind thinks when they suddenly begin to weigh up their time left and their happiness. How nothing they have done so far is making them happy so they start bouncing about trying to find happiness they think must be out there somewhere. Dumping everything they have built to start fresh - the easy option rather than really spending time working out what is making them miserable.

[mrtwopointfour]

and if you are wondering how the article ends.

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He’s no longer bouncing around from one continent to another, following the advice of psychologists Ken Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky: “Change your actions, not your circumstances.” --------

Lets hope my W gets that email from LinkedIn - ha ha

[mrtwopointfour]

You've made some great progress, 2.4. Bravo.

I appreciate your optimism, P4L. Not feeling so positive about it yet myself. I think she is feeding me snippets of info rather than telling me the full story. I am of course reading into this and should not. But the mind does race away sometimes.

I've not really seen any evidence yet of her being effected by my positive mood. well, maybe that's not strictly true. My positive and happy mood is in turn making her less grumpy. That's a good thing I suppose as it means she will see life does not have to be doom and gloom when around me.

On a good note, she is back to being happy today - so hoping that the down mood was due to the reality check not her trip away.