AD I wouldn't define yourself as "something was wrong with me". I think we all did things that annoyed our spouses . I bet they did things that annoyed us. The difference is that we dealt with it. My ex told me how much she cared for me and how wonderful a man I was even after she filed for the divorce? So don't worry about the past learn from it and move on.
M 53 D 20 Separated 6/22/11 moved out 10/24 Together 26 yrs Married 16 W Filed for D 7/21/11 Served 9/6/11 D final 8/28/12
“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”
If i hadnt married him and he hadnt left i might not have ever known that something was wrong with me, it just might have all had to happen in the order it did.
This is true for me.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
Rick, I picked and married a man who abused me for 20 years. I needed to explore why I did that.
Your marriage wasn't my marriage, and I won't be saying to my H that he was wonderful. I'm so glad for you that your XW said it to you.
I won't give my H a pass on destroying me, saying that it's ok because I'm sure I was annoying too. If that's what you meant to say, I disagree.
I will give him a pass because he is perpetuating damage done to him, and I'm glad the cycle can be broken before my sons start to do it.
It makes it very hard for me to see my H for what he was because in between treating me like I was a stupid piece of nothing, he was charming and smart and well liked by other people. So I have to be very careful to stop minimizing what he did.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
I mentioned that just before Christmas my one client, that has been my employment and a big part of my identity for 15 years, terminated my contract effective this summer. I have one more big to produce, where I have a lot of stress putting out or preventing potential fires and ensuring everything comes off without a hitch, which is offset by the wonderful love and attention I get from members who are always very positive and appreciative of the event. There are a couple of board meetings to run as part of it all, where I'm working indepth for several hours and over dinner with the folks who fired me.
[To Rich, as an example, over the past few years prebomb I would come home from all of that to H letting me know that he did not miss me, things were better with me gone, and no he wasn't interested in ML]
But back to this year. This year, I have learned that my replacements are flying in to be underfoot for the entire meeting and attend the board meetings. This is challenging to my PMA and I'm using all my best DB skills to try to get through it. I'm not really very happy about this when I'm completely honest.
I'm collecting mantras to help when I get emotional at a time that I really need to not be. I'm taking excellent care of myself and getting busy looking for a new job, which alternates between ego boosting and ego crushing, so I guess having an ego that is independent of being employed is necessary (detachment).
But on the weekends, in private, I am a bit unhappy about this, quite a bit, yes really very angry and sad.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
Boy, I sure understand this one. I was told in September that the last internal clients of a company with a blue globe in the logo was not only terminating our maintenance contract, but yanking out our system out of all the sites. To be replaced with... nothing.
Like you, I spent a good week sulking and being fearful. (What I wouldn't give to have that 2014 maintenance $$$ right this very minute...) But then I decided to use the situation to learn something. So I point blank asked both groups what led them to their decision. I let them know that if it was our service or products, that they could be honest with me so I could take their feedback to heart. I was blessed to hear back from both of them.
While I received great feedback and learned it was nothing about us - that they LOVED our products and services - had they given me valuable but negative feedback, I would have definitely incorporated their suggestions into our corporate MO. It didn't help with my bottom line, but I decided I needed to hear the honest truth, especially if they were choosing a competitor over us.
What I learned. Business is not personal, and it is not a reflection of your worth as a person. Hold your head high for the job you have performed and the team's perception of you. Business is business. (I know, I'm self employed so that line is awfully blurry at times.)
Now for the good. So please take off the glasses you are wearing and put these rose colored ones on. It will help...
These clients were also somewhat time consuming to my business. They were getting more difficult to service. To my utter surprise and delight, they have been replaced by a new, paying Fortune 500 client... whose name starts with a V and ends with an N. They love our new product line and are using us as the template for their remodeling efforts for internal call centers up and down the east coast.
By shedding my old time intensive client, I opened the door to newer and better opportunities with a new one, and one that will probably be a significant percentage of our corporate earnings in 2014. Keep the faith!
Take care-
Betsey
"There are only 2 ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
I had a realization today that sometimes I need sympathy and commiseration, and if I don't look in the right places for it I tend then to look in all places for it. And I blurt out to the wrong person how disappointed and angry I feel. Maybe the sympathy feels good for a moment, but then I'm kicking myself for not presenting myself as the fully capable professional that I am. I don't want to look like a sad sack, because I want to look like a success...and when I use words that gain me a nice sympathetic look I head toward sad sack. I need to DISCERN where is the appropriate resource for my need at the moment, and get my needs met the right way.
It took me three times of later smacking my head, but I have also now learned to stop telling any friends/family that I'm not making ends meet financially at home.
I learned that what I want isn't pity.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
Argh. I came home a little early cause s15 stayed home sick. And found his friend over, who's a senior and has early dismissal, playing xbox. So pissed, and also had to smack my head because his giant man loafers were in the front hallway. Since toddlers started coming over they have always kicked off their shoes in the front hallway, and they look so much like men on the outside.
Not my proudest moment but i told s if he didnt have friends who were potheads i wouldnt distrust him and fly off the handle when he tries to what looks like sneak friends in. I just dont trust him. He said "but mommmmm, that was last summer, like 8 months ago" - i said oh you've changed since then. I was not being productive. And i really am scared that his friends are potheads, and told him why that scared me. He hates lectures. I don't feel like i'm on my top game here. I love him but i dont know what he's going to do.
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
I can't set goals for him because I don't make his choices for him.
I fully understand that parenting a teen usually involves rule testing, and responding appropriately to that. But accepting it doesn't make it easier.
My goal, for me, is to keep making myself available to my son as a resource, role model, and guide, and as someone who loves him as he is, not on condition that he be a certain way.
For the time being, with my limited bandwidth, that's about all I can do really.
A question for Betsey:
First, I absorbed your kind advice before I absorbed the obvious difficulty of what you went through, so I wanted to come back and sympathize that it had to be hard and you handled it in an outstanding way worth emulating.
But I am now wondering, how did you get there? Were you, right out of the box, asking why they selected another company so you could learn from it? Did you have some help or coaching, or work it through yourself? I want to know what's missing in me that I don't just know to act like that and do it.
Recognizing that I'm in the zone where I can apply what I'm learning these weeks and look as if I came out of the box knowing it too, I am not trying to be hard on myself. I'm just trying to understand how you got where you got with that issue.
In my case, I'm struggling a little. I know I want to keep my cool, but then I lose it a little anyway, in a semi-safe environment. Like here I am whining but what I say here isn't going to be my party line. I'm working on that.
So, who did you learn from?
Adinva 51, S20, S18 M24 total 6/15/11-12/1/12 From IDLY to H moving out 9/15/15-3/7/17 From negotiating SA to final D at age 50 5/8/17-now: New relationship with an old friend __ Happiness is a warm puppy.
