Dear Dee,
There are a lot of similarities in our personal stories. I have by no means worked it all out – in fact, I am still struggling with some aspects of being single at 50. I want to be very careful what I say to you, because although we have similar stories, our ultimate solutions may take us in very different directions. What has been very helpful to me is to embrace my new freedom and learn how to MAKE MYSELF HAPPY.

I go out with my friends weekly.I joined an Eagles Club where I can go out by myself if I need to, and they provide opportunities for me to donate my time & talents to really worthwhile events. I started doing needlework and drawing again. I read more now than I have in years. I bought a kayak and THAT was really huge for me. It is almost a spiritual thing. I get out in the lake where it is quiet and beautiful and I talk to God. I talk out my problems, my doubts, fears, goals, etc. I do a couple laps around the lake and float around until my anxiety has completely left me.

I hope you can find a useful nugget or two in there. Wishing you a bright future – wherever your path may take you!

Lulu

Mistakes are a constant. Whether they are major or minor are irrelevant. We are imperfect beings, prone to live our lives making nothing but mistakes. However, progress requires that we make them. How else would we become better otherwise? You and your husband are proof of imperfection. As are your children, as I am, as a stranger is, as the president and priests and teachers are, etc….In this truth, we are all innocent and will always be. So if you haven’t already, please forgive yourself. You move on also because of the same reason. Accept the fact that you did not and never will have all the answers. Accept that mistakes are acceptable. Also, do your best to see the positive in this. Two of your children are adults and are well away on their own journeys, you have one that has resource of four loving adults to refer to for help, you and your ex-husband have recognized and forgiven eachothers’ mistakes, ending things amicably, and you now both have a chance to pursue a new happiness. 🙂

So please be more cheerful, for you have every reason to. As for goals, chase what you believe will make you happy. If you’re unsure as to what that is, it means you have the great opportunity of exploring and experimenting. Once you find it, the motivation will assuredly appear right alongside it.

Hugs,
Al

Hi dee
You sound not as low as perhaps you feel and that’ is I think part of the fake it till you make it syndrome unconsciously .
I’m 53 and struggling with a very painfull realisation that my 17 yr family life will never be the one I had planned for due to my impending divorce and to my many struggles with myself and my lack of ability to take responsibility for my negative habits .
Sexual abuse in childhood, aswell as domestic violence, aswell as growing up in an environment in N.ireland rife with violence of political and war like in its nature, gave me the perfect excuse to adopt numerous selfish habits which then became crutches of different disguises .
On the outside I was desperately craving love and affection and strived to show a constant drive and passion for work to secure a future for our family.
However on the inside a tortured existence hidden behind a mask of ignorance as to why I felt this way.
I understand you can never hide what or who you truly are , and to have a life of loving existence you have to start inside, deep inside , forgiving yourself is the only way you can ever be true to yourself and when you learn to do that your whole life will honestly open up in front of you .
I had a look at your site and more importantly your photos …they really say a lot about the inner beauty of your heart ..you truly have a gift of presenting reality in an honest view ..in the form of a photograph
I wish you to know life ,the world and the people in it are truly wonderful we all just have to find a way of seeing it that way
Love and a heartfelt hug
Sean

Dee
While I was driving back to my moms where am building my emotional strength again ,I was listening to a guy called earl nightingale on the subject of how we think and more importantly what we think about internally reflects externally in our behaviour,oura ,or whatever word is used to discribe this truth.
It’s about what we think about and how it more than any other aspect of our life truly determins the outcome of our overall present state of being.
Now I have to be careful as there are far more eloquent writers and wordsmiths on this site than I , all I can do is speak from my heart.
I am 53 years old have one son at university doing a masters degree at the age of 28 after surviving what’s called a “subdural empiema”
He caught sinasitus through the airline airsystem whilst on holiday to Greece with friends at the age of 17. When the surgeon explained it had travelled through his eye ducts and came to rest on his brain and subsequently had spread vigorously behind his skull.,I was beside my self with terror not fear because to be told he may not survive the operation was the lowest point of my entire life and as I write this to you now Dee and relive that episode of true fear I am almost embarrassed at my unmanly weakness of falling almost apart by the breaking of a relationship where we all are in such good health,eyes to see,ears to hear,mouth to speak,
Limbs to work effortlessly, and above all a brain so magnificent and full of so much ” UNTAPPED ” ability and wonder it leaves me cold to feel at times so pittyful in my heart.
My Sean emerged 5 weeks later with a 4 inch titanium plate covering the hole in his skull from his ordeal of drips ,injections,monitoring equipment,24 hr vigilant nursing to go on and last year get a first in his university degree and now like I say studying for a masters degree. ” proud” and eternally gratefull does not even come close to how I feel but you get the picture (sorry for the photo reference )
My second son Ryan is 24 yrs of age and is holding his life together by thread sometimes it feels, as he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder this year after be sectioned against his will to a state of the art mental hospital. I spent today with him and every free day he will allow me. He and his brother are from a young relationship and when that ended it wasn’t long before I found what I thought was the holy grail of true love.
The following 16 yrs of life where driven by people pleasing, trying to prove I was good enough and compromise of my nature,intelligence ,honour, self esteme and ability not to loose or let go of the burning pain in my heart. All of this was driven by me ” me”
I could justify all day long the behaviours of myself and the manor in which I had no self control over the crutches I leaned on from alcohol , to self pity and to blame everone and anyone ,this circumstance and that circumstance was always easier than to do what was truly needed…that was to do the right thing.
I guess in the end the powers that be …after 16years conspired to save me from myself and my wife and her 3 children from a tortured future.
Believe me as I right this the honesty burns deep because we have a 14 yr old beautiful daughter to add to the collection.
So that’s 6 children between us .
I believe deep within all of us we want and crave one thing through out our existence here on earth and that is to be loved and to be able to share what we have learned through our life experiences what that true love means to us .
However unless we can love ourselves we will always come from the position of “do as I say …not as I do…”. and if we wouldn’t except that principle from anyone else , then why do we expect that from others…Wow where did all that come from..sorry
I’m getting tired of my own self pittyful waste of the precious short lived time we have on this earth, and at present like you desperately pushing to unlock that self imposed emotional prison cell so I can once again strap on my armour and pick up my sword in the defence of this truly wonderful life we have been gifted with.
We are I believe exactly where we are supposed to be until we learn what it is we need to learn ….in order to find the wisdom and grace needed to be a true and honest part of this great existence ,we need to lead our children through the murky clouded waters of emotional trials and tests that they “will” encounter
By our own example of courage, determination,strength, will,and most importantly love of thy self….to end I realise why on an airplane they at the beginning of the safety instruction they explain when the cabin looses pressure and the mask falls from above, you should put your on mask on first before the child ..even though that goes against your instinct…fix you …then when they truly need it you can fix them.
I hope Dee my outpouring did not detract in any way from how you feel but I do hope you feel your journey is not so lonely
You matter just as much as everyone else
Warmth and love
Sean

Dee,

I am sorry for the difficult places you’ve found yourself within, and can understand how difficult it becomes when we have spent so much of our time caring for others. Sometimes it goes on for so long, we don’t even recognize ourselves anymore. Sadly, this is often the tale of mothers, who set aside their needs for their children and family. In my eyes, they are tales of unsung heroes that have invested their light into nurturing and caring for the children of the planet.

That being said, there is of course the real challenge of developing your own happiness. Don’t despair, dear sister, because even though your spirit has been tangled by years of neglect, your heart has remained strong and fluid. Said differently, you have a deep and profound love in your heart, inspired by your children, and it is quite usual to feel unworthy of it yourself. Perhaps its not embarrassment that you feel as you look in the mirror, rather shame. As though you don’t really, truly deserve that love… and so you giggle or cry or avoid… anything to help make it more bearable. But, sister, mother, goddess, you are not only deserving of that love, you are its avatar in the world. Said differently, from the moment your children were born, you held them to your breast. When you needed sleep, you set aside that need to offer comfort and sleep to the babe. When you needed to be held, you set aside that need to hold your children. It happens, unfortunately, that habits of tossing aside the need can arise, which grow quite naturally into resentment and escape. Frustrated with the kids, the husband, yourself, the world… for your needs unmet, song unsung. But don’t come here acting like you are undeserving of the love you spent years and years giving. Of course you are, dear sister. Of course.

The thing is, there is simply no need for fear or shame to blossom for you. There is always guidance when we open to it, grace when we need it, and a house that is our own. Some nights seem darker than others, but have faith that the love you have grown in the world through your efforts as a mother will come back tenfold in radiance and wonder. This doesn’t happen through some magical outside force, rather, it is drawn into your life through the compassion and grace you have given to others.

The byproduct, perhaps still resting on your shoulders, is a dumb cycle of guilt and suppression. Perhaps you feel guilty for wanting things. You wanted some tender attention, so you sparked up some romance. You wanted some space, so you moved out of the marital bed. Instead of regarding these as signposts along your path of self knowing, perhaps you still feel ashamed of what you did. There is simply no need (as you noticed in my post earlier). Instead, those “mistakes” can become pure white information about what you like and don’t like. Said differently, the same heart that pushed you toward giving a ton of your time to nurture and grow your family pushed you toward the affair. Much like when we are stressed, sometimes our nerves act up and we get a twitch, a warning sign that things are seriously out of balance. Another way of looking at it is like water. You were perhaps like a woman in a life raft, dying of thirst (needing loving affection). It built and built until even though you knew it was salt water, you drank it deeply into you. Fell hard and fast, most likely, feeling alive again after so much thirst. As it digested, though, of course in cankered. A woman who gives up so much for her family doesn’t often sit well with feeling like they betrayed it. So, even that was just another excuse to beat yourself up, another on a long list of reasons why you are imperfect, a failure as a woman, mother, wife. Luckily, that’s total bullshit.

But here and now, there is still the woman, Dee, looking to rekindle that inner fire, the grace and song that she used to sing. I love where you’ve gone with saying you love yourself into the mirror. Consider a little different approach. Consider trying to look at yourself in the mirror. Don’t push, don’t prod. Theres been plenty of that. Consider instead a little gratitude. Look at the girl, the goddess, who gave up a lot in the name of love. Thank her! Thank her for making the world a better place by loving her children. Thank her for keeping clothes clean and food ready. For school lunches and after school stuff and the bazillion other needs that came up that you championed without hesitation. Sure, you fumbled a bunch of times, but you rose to it far more often. Then, perhaps slowly, gently, you could look upon yourself as one of your children. Your own precious jewel to tend, polish and see grow into wellness. Imagine what you might offer to your child, standing there beside you, feeling sorrowful for the life they have lead. But as you look with compassion for them, you see the blessing they have been, the whole of their life, and how little of their own beauty they saw. And even so, bereft of self knowing of their beauty, they kept going, for love of their children… because, well, of course! Can’t you see it, Dee? The beauty and wonder that you are?

So really, let the shame, the guilt, the self criticism go. Let it go! Your heart is strong and wise, let it bloom! Let that warmth inside spread to the ends of the earth, because you have tended the garden with your best song, and you deserve a life of joy. Namaste, sis, may your song bring peace to your precious heart.

With warmth,
Matt

Sean,

Thank you for the kind words, and for letting your heart blossom with appreciation. Namaste, brother.

With warmth,
Matt