Hello new neighbors!

[Zues126]

My best friend is going through a really hard time in his marriage. At the crux of the issue is that he feels he was put on this planet to play pool, and he hasn't achieved his goals with this game. It is beyond soul crushing to him. He only has a few years left before he's too old to compete at the highest levels. Maybe to some this seems trivial, but for him it's like a woman who always wanted children approaching an age when she couldn't have children anymore. This is his life's purpose, and something he feels like he needs to do.

When he has tried to write off playing pool and give it up it doesn't work. He gets depressed. He gets resentful. He can't be a good husband and father. He can bottle his pain for months at a time, then he just can't do it anymore. It kills him that his wife basically doesn't seem to care that he's dying inside, and that she's ok with it as long as he shuts up and provides for her and the family and bottles it up well enough. When he can't do that anymore he'll announce that he's going to play pool more, and she'll stand back and give him some room to play. But pool is a tough game, and when you're competing with 22 year olds that play 12 hours a day and devote their entire lives to the game, it's hard to win when you're working hard 5-6 days a week and negotiating with your wife to find half days to go practice once a week. It just doesn't work. So he'll work like hell to practice up and compete, but then he'll lose a big match or something will happen that makes him realize he just can't make it work, and he's back to hopeless, suicidally depressed.

He's thought about leaving the family and just playing pool, but he won't do that. He's thought about suicide, but he won't do that either. He feels trapped into just slaving away for his family and counting days until he dies.

The point of all of this is that he is angry with his wife. See, she works part time, and if she went full time she could earn enough that he could cut his hours way back and play more pool. He wants this more than anything in the world. They could downsize their house a bit, she could carry a bit more weight for a while, and he could make this work for him. But she is absolutely not going to do this. She keeps telling him, "You are going to work". And he can't take it. He feels all he needs in the world for him to be fulfilled is to just take some weight off his back for a while and she absolutely refuses. He's totally stuck and feels she's the problem.

I haven't told him exactly how I feel about it because he won't hear it, but my feelings are: That's life, bro. It [censored]. But there are two points here.

First of all, life [censored] for all of us. That's how it works. Yes, it is heartbreaking you don't get to achieve the one thing God put you on this planet to do. It is. It really is. But you know what? There are millions of people that die too young of starvation, lack of medical attention, or in automobile accidents. There are people sold into slaver or sex trafficking. There are people that are falsely imprisoned and spending their life in jail over mistakes. There are people that are hit by texting or drunk drivers that spend their lives in wheelchairs. All of those people, everyone in fact in some way or another, everyone has their hopes and dreams die. Everyone suffers. The fact is that we're all going to lose everything, suffer, and die. Yes, it [censored]. But it's life. And you can't change that. You can't solve that.

And secondly, and mainly, in fact the reason I wrote this entire post, is that it's not his wife's fault. I keep thinking, bro, it's not your wife's fault that this world costs money to survive in. It's not her fault that this is our world. Yes, she could work full time and not be able to stay home with the children a couple of days a week, but you know what? That's her pool. That's what she feels she needs to do. That's what life is about to her. And the same way he only has a few years left to play pool, the kids are only their ages once. She's talking about home schooling next year, etc. Now I get it may seem unfair that she gets to unilaterally decide she doesn't have to work full time while he has to, but you know what? She is reasonable about letting him travel, compete, and play a healthy amount of the time. Is it enough to compete with 22 year old world champions? Heck no! But that is not her fault. That is just the darn world we're living in. It's not her fault. The fact is she could work 7 days a week and he could get hit by a truck tomorrow and never lift a cue stick again, or he might still not be good enough because he's too late in life, or maybe there are others that just want it more, or whatever. And even if he wins a pro event he'll still lose those gift and then lose everything else and eventually his life as well. That's darn sure not her fault.

So the main point of all of this is that just because your spouse could potentially be a robot that did everything you wanted and needed them to and it would make things easier for you, doesn't mean that if they are their own person with their own conflicting priorities and needs and independence that they are awful people. Donald Trump could solve all of my financial problems by giving me 10 million dollars, he refuses to do that, what a jerk! No, it doesn't work that way. That would just be unreasonable expectations. I might as well buy a dog and get upset he won't play chess with me.

So when I read about the resentment you have towards your WAH you list all of these things he did or didn't do, and I'm just like, J, it's not WAH's fault that life is a m------f------. It just isn't. If you were single those years your life would've been hard as hell regardless. You just wouldn't have had a scapegoat.

I don't expect you to just let go of all of your anger immediately, or to suddenly be able to accept the circumstances of your life and have it trouble you no longer. At some point though your anger towards WAH may be a bit greater than is merited by his actions, he's just another suffering fool stumbling around this world doing his best in his own lost way. At least recognize this has more to do with your expectations and your disappointment with how our world works. This helped me anyway. Once I realized there was no one to get mad at I calmed down a bit.

This post isn't all about you either J. I've been watching my best friend for a while now and reflecting to how I felt resentment during and after my M. This is about all of us.

If nothing else know we're hear with you and I am hearing your pain J.