You guys aren't going to beleive this 3

[25yearsmlc]

Ok, I'm going to do my best to respond to all of your posts.

25 - regarding my convo with W, you're right. I should have just listened and validated. I know it's not W's job to make me happy and I honestly thought I was doing MUCH better with that during the 10 months we were piecing. I have spoken to C about this and will see if we can dive a little deeper into it.

Regarding soothing myself, I dont think I ever developed that skill.

it's not too late, Thornton.

When I was 10 years old, my sister (16 years old) was killed instantly in an auto accident. My mom was put on tranquilizers for a year and my dad started working 80 hour weeks. I felt not only abandoned by my sister, but my parents as well.

I spent the 4th grade in home schooling because I developed agoraphobia and refused to leave the house. The house was the only place I felt safe and every time my parents walked out the door, I thought it would be the last time I would see them.

Because I wasn't getting any better, my parents put me in a psychiatric hospital for 3 months. I felt even more abandoned. I developed some issues with anxiety and panic as a result.

^^^^ this is probably why I pick the relationships I do.

Okay, sounds rough. What can you do to change this dynamic, now?


Like Zeus, I would pick women with equally sh!tty self esteem and figured if I could rescue them and save them from their issues, they would think of me as a hero and never want to leave.

Unfortunately, this thinking never got me anything but heartbreak.

so it's not working for you, by a long shot. Again, what can you do about it? (I'll answer that question - The answer is, you learn new ways and get new tools and change yourself so the path of your life is not circular with you in the same position again...) You change the trajectory of your life...

Regarding abandoning myself, this is definately something I do. Typically when I feel my anxiety building, I immediately look for something to take the edge off instead of sitting with my feelings and letting them pass. Sometimes, I'll even come to the DB board as a distraction.

Sitting alone with my thoughts and feelings feels like I have no skin. I'm exposed and raw and I feel everything. It literally can feel like I'm jumping out of my own skin. Often it brings up the exact feelings I had when I was 10 years old.

Thornton, I ache for you. And I feel that you are not really in a great position to be working on the marriage, so much as needing urgent help with your own sandbox. You need to change your view of yourself, get some skin, and equip yourself with tools to build a newer stronger self.

I hope you'll consider that personal growth workshop I mentioned to you so that you'd be in a safe supportive environment and make some breakthroughs...("Essential Experience" in philadelphia, and no, I don't get a kickback for suggesting it!)

Also, How is your dear daughter coping with all this?

What would you like to model for her, as a man and as a father?