In the UK - PT21 feeling stuck

[Huddy]

Hi All

Thanks for stopping by last night. As may have become apparent, my mind was not in a great place last night and I kinda just let it all go. Hope nobody was offended.

I am kinda at a place where W's actions don't affect me in the physical sense. Yes, I know she's trying to manipulate me in to some kind of argument or something to see that I'm still attached. Well, I don't take the bait, and I certainly wouldn't mention the dating site thing to her (it's actually kind of sad - not the site, but the fact that she feels happiness will come bounding out of the internet).

So, why am I so 'attached'? Well, I know that most of you know I live 230 miles away from my birth place and my parents are dead and gone. My family are nothing to me (read further up this thread for that reason) and most of my work colleagues are either too busy creeping to the new MD, or, fighting for recognition amongst themselves for promotion. I have a couple of colleagues that I talk to about 'stuff', but they're blokes, and they just don't offer that sense of knowledge. One of these guys is 'gay' for want of a better word, so doesn't really understand female relationships and the other just keeps telling me to tell her to 'f*** off'.

When we moved here, we surrounded ourselves with ourselves. We didn't exactly meet with lots of people and we put our heart and soul in to looking after us. My family fallout, put with W's problems with her family over the years (again, read back about her Dad etc.) meant we kinda just did our own thing. I got homesick and got a bit depressed for a couple of years and W pulled the 'I'll leave if you don't pull yourself around' line. That was about 10 years ago and then our S and D came along and we just got so intertwined.

We had a really bad spell at work, so the boss decided that we needed to start bonding and started 'nights out', about once a month. Initially, W said that it was a good idea, but slowly started to resent the fact that I went out once a month, whilst she was at home. She said 'you get to play at being an adult'. With my S's autism, I also started to work more hours as W couldn't work full time and I needed additional holiday days, as W couldn't/didn't want to look after him on her own through the full six week school holidays.

There was an incident, whilst I was at work, when she called me, in floods of tears, saying that she couldn't cope with my S's behaviour (he went through a stage of gouging at people when he was about 3) and that she was going to 'do something'. Obviously, I went straight home to sort it out and get help. For a short while, W was self medicating with strong cough medicine to help her through the day. I hope that helps you understand why, after all this, detachment is difficult.

She has kinda 'friended' my SD. Things like buying the same dresses and talking about music etc. (rap -I mean, why would a 51 year old woman, suddenly become interested in rap!). I notice that is now becoming a desert zone, as my SD has started spending more and more time at her boyfriends.

I definitely don't want to date. I did have a coffee with a woman in February and I knew instantly that, despite her attractiveness, if W had have come begging at the door, that other woman would have been left like yesterdays' old meal. That wouldn't have been fair to her at all, as she was also on the road from a divorce.

I have done some extraordinary things this year (Hong Kong, holiday on my own with the kids etc.), but I'm actually quite a home bird, and going to clubs etc. doesn't really set my world on fire. I don't do facebook, twitter etc., so I haven't got that to worry about.

Yes, I look for signs - didn't we all? She probably still senses that I earn for her, but I don't show it and won't be begging her back. I'm just, as the title of this thread suggests, a bit stuck, wanting to move forward, but not sure how I do that without entering some kinda weird MLC world myself - do you get what I mean?

I know the MLC'er has to find it all out on own, but what I just don't understand is, and tis is the killer question, why? Why can't they see that everything the need and desire is right in front of them? Why the destructive path, to find, judging by most people's experiences, everything was right at the beginning, or, just sadness, lonliness and pain? I suppose if we could answer all that, we'd be rich!