Hi all - "was never in love"

[Mat]

Wow - 4th page started. Thanks so far to everyone that replied. I don't call out every single person's name, but each message has given me something very valuable and helpful.

So I've been reading DR, and I think I've been procrastinating on taking my actual actions. More precisely, my goals, and 180s. Damn shame since I did so well initially, sitting through the seminar that I downloaded and making notes, thoughts, etc.

I think what's happening is that it's easy for me to watch and listen something, and pay attention, but looking at myself and asking the hard questions is another matter entirely. Is it fear? - that would be a popular view on a board like this. Could be that I'm a lazy POS. In school I barely read the text, and almost never did all the problems at the end of the chapter.

I guess this long preamble is just more procrastination.

So I'll start with some goals.

One huge thing that I need to change is to be able to communicate my emotions clearly, sincerely and calmly. This means, for instance:
- Expressing dissatisfaction with how I am managed at work, without feeling like I'm about to well up
- Talk to friends about what I appreciate about them. Be able to say something genuinely nice, without feeling weird and making it sound like a joke

The reason I am choosing these is because I have been cut off from my emotions my whole life, and it's been getting in the way of everything. I believe it's because of my upbringing, as my mom, and dad to a slightly lesser extent, is like that. My sister revealed to me that she went to a counsellor before her third child as she had a panic over raising them in the same environment that she was raised.

Anyway, it has been quite an impediment to my happiness - and my wife's. Not being able to express emotions means that I don't even express gratefulness to friends. I can't believe I have such good friends. And of course, there's my wife. I don't see how we could have possibly connected.

If I take it back up one level, it's about processing emotions as well. I actually dread people expressing their emotions to me. I don't know what to deal with this stuff.

Thinking about emotions even feels like a chore. I shy away from looking inward and confronting hard questions. But it's not just emotions - I'm stuck in the same job for 10 years, for instance, in spite of having disliked it from year one. I lived in 3 different countries, all the moves organised on my own, put myself through a 40-grand graduate degree. And then all of a sudden I get stuck in this job, and get married. It's like I got married after I did the exciting stuff - no wonder she got bored with me.

Well, this started out intending to be structured but quickly veered off into a stream of consciousness. Hopefully I'll get to discuss this with the counsellor and put some structure around this whole thing. But I'll go to bed for now and try again tomorrow. This time I won't put it off until 9pm, that should help.

Thanks for reading...