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  • January 20, 2016 at 11:31 am #93140
    Brock
    Participant

    As indicated by the topic title, I don’t know where to start to deal with the feelings I have. Most importantly, I don’t have anyone to talk to about them. I feel bad even writing down that I’m less than happy, like it’s a failing. I know rationally that’s not true, but that doesn’t really help.
    Well, let’s sum up- I got married just out of college, moved 1000 miles from where I grew up to take a job, and along the way had three children. When the youngest was three, I found out my wife was cheating on me. Although I wanted to make it work for the kids (and myself I admit), I was willing to try to make a go of it. She, however, was not. I got the ‘I love you, but I’m not in love with you’ line. People really say that? Sadly, yes. That led to our divorce in short order after that. Kicked out of my home, limited to visitation to see kids.
    Well, that was fifteen years ago. I remarried within about a year of the divorce, to a very different (nice) woman who was also recently divorced. She had two children from her previous marriage, around the same ages as my children.
    I hoped we could lean on each other to heal and focus on all of the kids.
    The first few years with my new wife were up and down, facing the stresses of a newer relationship, and juggling five kids in all kinds of visitation, and difficult exes.
    My son, the oldest, never accepted my new wife, resulting in so much conflict when he was over. Finally, about ten years ago when he was 13, he decided to stop coming to our house and seeing either of us. This was very painful, but also a relief in an odd way. Still I didn’t want it this way. Move forward a couple more years and my oldest daughter also stopped coming to our house and seeing either of us (also at age 13!). This was crushing for both my wife and I. I admit I did resent that I felt my wife often forced me to choose between her and my children. She resented me for not taking her side against the kids without hesitation.
    So at this point, about 7 years ago, only my youngest daughter would come over on visitation. Meanwhile my two step children lived the bulk of the time in our home.
    It was also about this time when my wife just stopped being affectionate in any way with me, and has slept in a different room ever since. Being the hugging type, this has been very painful for me personally. But at the time there was so much going wrong, I just curled up and hoped bad things would stop happening. I focused on spending what time I could with my daughter.
    Just recently, the youngest kids have started college away from home, so for the first time every, really, my wife and I are alone in the house.
    Without the kids there every day to focus, I’ve been able to look around and see where I am after twenty plus years of raising children and all of the divorce/remarriage/estrangement traumas. I don’t feel I have a purpose any longer- no reason to get up in the morning. I wish my wife and I could improve our relationship, but after so many years I think I’m emotionally repressed. I’ve made attempts to offer to work with her to improve our relationship. She seems uninterested in changing the status quo. The status quo doesn’t work for me anymore. It’s frustrating in that I feel I have to take her version of the relationship or be forced to walk away from the relationship.
    Over these years, I’ve put on a lot of weight, and now as I’m getting older, I’ve developed high blood pressure. I’m sure its due to the weight, but also the non-stop stress I’ve put on myself over the years, and the unending stress I feel every day thinking about what’s wrong, trying to find a way to fix any of it, but at a loss.
    Also over the years, I devoted myself to wife and kids, and don’t really have any friends to speak of. My wife usually prefers doing things with her mom than me. I feel really lonely, and no way to change that. I’m a good person- I don’t want to cheat or go around my wife in some way. I’m left sitting watching tv every night by myself. Don’t want to sound self-pitying… just trying to be honest about the situation.
    I’m not sure anyone will have anything that could help me with these feelings, but at least it felt a little good just writing this down, with the idea another person may actually read it.

    January 20, 2016 at 1:26 pm #93150
    Alicia1211
    Participant

    Hey Brock, I understand how it feels to feel alone and with a lot of difficult things happening to you, I’m going through a difficult time myself but after a lot of thinking I noticed that in this cases you should lift yourself up, look after yourself, your happiness belongs only to you, not your relationships or your job, it belongs to you so own it! The worst thing you can do right now is not doing anything, go out and search something that you would liked to do and you couldn’t, you have the time now and It’s never too late to start, maybe try to learn a musical instrument? to paint? You can enter a course and get to know other people so you can make some friends, I used to get my friends for granted until now, I’m having a really difficult time I understand how important they are, look after yourself first so you can be strong enough to deal with everything else later.

    I hope you feel better soon

    January 20, 2016 at 6:05 pm #93156
    Cognition
    Participant

    Hi Brock,

    Based on what you mentioned, it sounds like the common factor there is that you miss having a genuine connection with someone. If there is one thing you can do tomorrow that can improve your life significantly, what would it be? For some people, it would be exercise because getting in shape tends to have a positive effect on our mental well being. While others will travel to give themselves a chance to step away from their immediate environment . Like the frog, sometimes we have to step out of the water for while to realize how hot it is.

    With changes, I would recommend to start off with something that is easy to implement so you can start immediately. There is a chance that you will need to try a few things before finding something that resonates with you but that’s part of the adventure.

    Good luck on your journey.

    January 20, 2016 at 7:43 pm #93166
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Brock:

    I am sorry to read that your first wife cheated on you, that you were restricted to only visitations with your children, then you married again to a woman who rejected your children, two of them stopped visiting you because of your second wife rejecting them, insisting you take her side and I suppose you did… this is very unfortunate.

    What do you think about … separating from your current wife, living alone, in PEACE, making a few friends… trying to heal your relationship with your three children, particularly the two who stopped visiting you… and in living in peace, you can lose weight and get healthier?

    anita

    January 21, 2016 at 10:21 am #93242
    Brock
    Participant

    Thanks all for your comments, they are helpful. Sometimes it’s useful just to have a soundboard for what one’s thinking.
    I agree I miss having a connection with people. Not unique to me, but that sense of belonging has always been a strong motivator for me. Having felt like an outsider my whole life has only made that urge to belong greater (not that I don’t really enjoy being an outsider at times).
    Over the years I’ve come up with my own ‘simplified unified theory of life’ (sounds grandiose, no?) Just a simplified way for me to make sense of the whole thing. What I’ve come up with…
    Life really is just three parts-
    1. The Mechanics of Life- From learning how to tie your shoes to work an ATM Card to paying insurance- the knowledge that most need to operate in the world as an adult. Much of our time is spent dealing with this part. (My wife lives in the mechanics of life, to the exception of the other parts. Don’t misunderstand, my wife is a truly good person, probably better than me. She’s got her own damage that gets in her way, like anyone else. My two entranged kids were way, way out of line at time as well- they were mostly at fault for the conflicts with my wife and me; we our course bear some blame too)
    2. The Purpose(s) of Life- Why one gets out of bed in the morning- could be a job, family, your dog, God, training for a marathon, growing an award winning rose. For me, my purpose has been my wife and kids for over twenty years. With my kids needing my support less and less now that they’re old enough, I feel I don’t have much purpose. Something for me to work to discover, but I admit it is depressing to acknowledge I don’t have a lot of purpose now. I have had a steady and good job for many years now, and am in a supervisory role at this point. My job does provide a modicum of purpose, but my gut feelings tell me I need more and/or better purpose.
    3. The Happiness of Life- This one is easy for anyone to relate to, I think. From day to day enjoyment of things in one’s life, to friends and family, vacations, special events. I’ve had all of that at one point or another- why most of it stopped is a mystery. I am trying to work on small things I enjoy, and trying to involve my wife when she’s willing. We’ve never really been on vacations- we’ve talked about going here and there, which is a positive start. Also trying to do smaller things close to home- all good, but far to infrequently for me. My work is of a scientific sort, but I do enjoy art, music and sports. I’m pushing myself to try to go out and involve myself in those things I enjoy- that inertia to get started is always a tough one. I am an impatient person, and a natural troubleshooter/perfectionist, so I see problems to be addressed and want to jump in and fix them. Sometimes I push to hard and fast, but I really feel time moving quickly, so seems there’s no time to lose. I’m working on trying to be in control of my own happiness and not depend on someone else to make me happy. Part of my being happy, though, is sharing that with someone else. Life is just so complicated- too complicated to figure out. Not breaking any new metaphysical ground there!

    Now I know a lot of people, same as anyone, but I really don’t have any friends. Not saying that to be self-pitying, just trying to assess the situation clearly. My friends have been my wife and kids. My wife still is my best friend, though that doesn’t mean we have a great relationship. There are twelve people that I really value- my five kids, my wife, my parents and brother, and three old friends who live out of state from me. In a perfect world, my relationships with all twelve would be great. As it’s not a perfect world, two of the kids are estranged, as are my parents and brother. My old friends are still that, but being a thousand miles away limits what those relationships can be. So, that leaves my wife, and the remaining three kids (my daughter and my two step-children). Relationships take two people- I try not to spend too much energy on those who currently don’t want a relationship with me. So, I focus on the relationships with those remaining four people.
    Unsurprisingly, my relationship with my wife is the trickiest. It’s all pretty simple- brutal, but simple- I can accept the relationship as it is, we can both change things to make us happier together, or we can go our own ways. I obsess over this far too much for my own good- all of yesterday seemed to be one long panic attack. I finally did tell myself that there’s no urgent rush to force the issue right this second. Rather than approach her with my list of complaints, demands and ultimatums, maybe in the course of the next couple months I can offer to my wife that we make a conscious effort to improve our relationship.
    I do try to keep positive- I’m actually a suprisingly positive person. Every relationship with anyone, though, has a beginning and an end. I’ve never managed to turn around a relationship moving toward its end (yet). There’s hope I can, but relationships take two people. In the meantime, I’m still working on eating healthier and trying to lose weight. I think I could lose all of the weight if all the relationship drama were lessened, but that may never be the case, so I keep pressing on with trying to take care of myself.
    Everyone sees me as strong, never sick or weak, able to carry any load- man that has never truly been the case, and even less so the older I get.

    January 21, 2016 at 10:54 am #93244
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Brock:

    You wrote above: “Sometimes it’s useful just to have a soundboard for what one’s thinking.” I hope then that posting here is helpful to you as a soundboard to your thinking. If you need any input, please let me know what it may be. Otherwise, be well!

    anita

    January 21, 2016 at 4:01 pm #93251
    Cognition
    Participant

    Hi Brock,

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts and reading what you wrote, it sounds like your focus in the last few years has been on your family. The question I have is who do you confide in when things are not going well in your family? Sometimes when we place a lot of emphasis in one particular relationship (e.g. family, work, romance), it can put a lot of pressure on the relationship because your happiness becomes dependent on it. When that occurs, every minor issue becomes a big one and you become obsessive about everything that happens in the relationship, wondering what you can do to make it work. Eventually, the relationship will collapse under the weight of this pressure because the harder you push, the faster the other person will run. If you ever felt frustrated about being the one who does all the work in a relationship, you will know what a crappy feeling that is.

    So rather than focusing on the relationship, a suggestion I have is to work on yourself. Cultivate friendship with other people as it provides an opportunity to debrief, get support and see things in a different perspective. Find your purpose so that you are not just playing through the mechanics of life. People that are deep into their passions and purpose are far more attractive than those that settles for mediocrity.

    As the saying goes, the most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. Here is a good article on this point:

    http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2015/09/the-most-important-relationship-in-your-life-that-youre-probably-not-paying-enough-attention-to/

    January 23, 2016 at 6:43 pm #93447
    Brock
    Participant

    I definitely lack a person. To talk to, and act as a sounding board about SOME things. My wife fills that role for a lot of things, but not our own relationship. I do agree that working on myself is a good starting point for myself & all of my relationships. Thanks for the sounding boars here!

    January 23, 2016 at 6:43 pm #93449
    Brock
    Participant

    Ha, sorry about the many typos…

    January 23, 2016 at 7:23 pm #93455
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Brock:

    Sounding board it is then! Do your best to have peace of mind… find a way.
    anita

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