Doug, do you have hobbies? Sports you participate in? Male friends?
If no, no, and no, did you have any of that prior to marriage?
Yes, although I lost a lot of my identity within the marriage. W complained a lot early on about me going out and doing stuff and leaving her behind with the kids. I assumed this was a casualty of married life, and largely curbed my social / fun stuff. If you recall from my initial post, I gained two young stepkids the day I got married (we all actually lived together for a year before the wedding date). Further to that point, W and I never developed much of a couples' life without kids. There were bits and pieces, but I'm sure that was a circumstance that contributed to being where we are today in the MR.
BL42 fairly said that it was on me for allowing that to happen - the loss of GAL on my behalf. Some things that fell by the wayside were coaching varsity baseball (though I replaced that with coaching my kids' teams), rec softball, ultimate frisbee, going out socially with work friends, and happy hour outings. Looking back, a lot of friend activities were absent for W too, replaced by kiddie responsibilities. That played a huge role in my unofficial diagnosis of MLC for W - the time has arrived for her to do things for *her* and not other people.
So, I am trying to reclaim some of the things I liked. I want to get involved with something charitable and hopefully consistent. I've been reconnecting (present tense) with several friends that sort of fell by the wayside. I get the concept and purpose of GAL and I wouldn't say it's not going well...I do wish I still lived near the beach now that Ginger and LH19 mention it. Grew up about a 40-minute drive away which has morphed into a 4-hour trek from where I now reside.
