Nothing to update. I have had very little contact with XW, pretty much a record for me. The remarkable thing is that I really don't want to have contact with her. She sent a few e-mails and called a few times, but that's about it. Believe it or not I haven't had a hug from her in over two weeks. But I feel great. My PMA is high. I'm out of here all next week visiting family for Thanksgiving. I'm stoked. I'll probably spend part of that time also looking around for my soulmate.
Anyway, here's the daily OM.
Quote:
November 17, 2005 Ask Yourself The Answers Within Us Many of us seek the answers to life's questions by looking outside of ourselves and trying to glean advice from the people around us. But as each of us is unique, with our own personal histories, our own sense of right and wrong, and our own way of experiencing the world that defines our realities, looking to others for our answers is only partially helpful. The answers to our personal questions can be most often found by looking within. When you realize that you always have access to the part of you that always knows what you need and is meant to act as your inner compass, you can stop searching outside of yourself. If you can learn to hear, trust, and embrace the wisdom that lives within you, you will be able to confidently navigate your life.
Trusting your inner wisdom may be awkward at first, particularly if you grew up around people who taught you to look to others for answers. We each have exclusive access to our inner knowing. All we have to do is remember how to listen. Remember to be patient as you relearn how to hear, receive, and follow your own guidance. If you are unsure about whether following your inner wisdom will prove reliable, you may want to think of a time when you did trust your own knowing and everything worked out. Recall how the answers came to you, how they felt in your body as you considered them, and what happened when you acted upon this guidance. Now, recall a time when you didn't trust yourself and the results didn't work out as you had hoped. Trusting your own guidance can help you avoid going against what you instinctively know is right for you.
When you second guess yourself and go against what you know to be your truth, you can easily go off course because you are no longer following your inner compass. By looking inside yourself for the answers to your life's questions, you are consulting your best guide. Only you can know the how's and why's of your life. The answers that you seek can be found when you start answering your own questions.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
Okay, we need to clarify some things real quick, before folks get the wrong impression of our spending time together!
JM, I hope you have a great time over the holiday. I imagine that the time away from you is allowing XW to do her work. Your keeping active and happy is a much better place than sitting alone in misery. Nicely done.
Maybe I'm just a newbie with a big mouth and a bad case of PMA, but I've got a bone to pick with you...
Whaddaya doin' hanging around in a thread called Mr. Negativity? Isn't that joke getting a little old by now?
Here's two things I know:
1. People have a need to be consistent with the way they define themselves.
2. The only way to make a change and really make it last is to make a change in your identity.
3. You're awesome.
Okay that's three things I know, but nothing else for certain
Here is the most recent thing of beauty from your posts that I adore:
Quote: ...the thing I wish for is having someone in my life that brings out the best in me, that is able to share happiness with me, that loves me and shows it and that is open to receiving love from me...I want for you all, and myself, to have a healthy, satisfying adult relationship, and if you're deeply religious, according to God's plan.
Awesome. Outstanding focus. Now. what are you going to do about it next?
Who is the man that's going to attract such love into his life? Mr. Negativty, or a whole new and improved, miles above-average Joe?
I won't be on here for the next week so I'm offering my "Happy turkey day" in advance. Thanks for stopping by Michael. You weren't around for the numerous name changes. There was a brief period of time I called myself Joe negativity since my advice and comments were usually pessimistic. I'm not as negative as all that. In fact, I'm positive that for each of us life will go on and that things will get better. It's not necessarily true that life will include the walk-away spouse or XS
Anyway, I could write this on the other thread since it's a Friday, but I'll write my Friday musing here. A friend got me thinking about the nature of love. She had mentioned that the love she felt for her child was the measure of love.
This gave me pause to think. What is the difference that makes love between parent and child work so well. Why isn't it difficult like these relationships. Even the best relationships need life continuing breathed into them in order to keep love alive. No such effort is required with your children.
In many ways the love between man and wife can be greater. In my relationship with my kids I love them and they love me, but in the relationship I am their support, their source of comfort, their "soft place to fall" (stealing this phrase from Beth because I like it). I don't require or expect my kids to fill that role. I am fulfilled in the relationship simply through the joy of being there for them. In a marriage or other intimate relationship, both parties have expectations that their partner is the one that they can always come to for support, sympathy, compassion, understanding--that their spouse is their soft place to fall. When this doesn't work out then you feel cheated, but if you can make it work so that both parties get what they need from the relationship, it has the potential to be an incredible love. Is the love so much easier to kill in a marriage because expect so much more? Your thoughts?
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
I think the love b/t two adults is more mature. At least that's the expectation - that things will be mutual, back-n-forth, give-n-take. When it doesn't turn out that way, or when the love a person tries to give us isn't well-received or is misunderstood (think 5LL), then we're left with unmet expectations. When a WAS goes back developmentally, perhaps to an adolescent MLC mode, they surprise the LBS with an even lessened ability to give mutually, and the self-centered focus often heightens to leaving the LBS receiving virtually nothing in return, especially once the bomb is dropped.
A parent-child relationship ought to include the assumption that the parent will do much more in the R than the child. That's just developmentally appropriate, so we tend to expect it. No surprises when it ends up that way. Maybe the bootcamp of having totally dependent newborns/infants sets parents up well for a lifetime of skewed Rs with their kids. But the payoff of love is incredible, isn't it?
Well actually I hate to be the one to disagree but I find R's with the kids more difficult to maintain than my R with Andy.
In my opinion, adult R's are easier because of the shared history together before the children were even born, and then of course there's the sexual connection that you can't get from kids, obviously, etc etc.
Whereas in your R with your child, if you split up, there is visitation hell, separation anxiety, a crying, confused child. At least an adult knows why something is happening, but you can't explain it to a child. They are not bothered if mom and dad like each other, they just want their whole family.
If you happen to have any legal action, then that is usually about the children (not your sex or how you cooked the dinner, your children), so this puts a massive strain on things. I had internalized resentment towards my kids every time I read a court report, because it wasn't even about the marriage.
Then of course if you don't live with them, they've grown or changed in some way every time you see them so you have to keep making an effort all the time to find out what they like and things to do with them.
If there's an OW/OM on the scene that they like, you have to pretend that you like them too so you don't hurt their feelings and it rips your heart out every time you hear them mention OW.
Even if you stay together with your H or W, you MADE your child so you are totally 100% responsible and if little Jon hurts his arm it's ALL YOUR FAULT. The implications are mind blowing. It has always made me feel as if I have to be perfect around them, and when meeting other mothers, there's always this competition atmosphere of 'my Sandra is reading Shakesphere already and she's only 4', type of thing.
My own mother made the mistake of thinking she could do/say what she wanted and not make the effort BECAUSE she was my mother, but in the end, because she didn't work on the R with me, I gave up. I left her. I view it the same as a D. I have D'ed my mother. My heart says so. It doesn't always follow that kids will always love you because you are the parent.
I have to DB my butt off continously with the kids but when I'm with Andy, I am me, and I'm more relaxed.
I miss him sometimes, but I can deal with it. When my kids are here and then they go away again, I'm crying all night for my 'lost' family.
I think it's MUCH MUCH harder to be a parent than a wife.
But I feel great. My PMA is high. I'm out of here all next week visiting family for Thanksgiving. I'm stoked. I'll probably spend part of that time also looking around for my soulmate. 
