Sometimes I think it is going well but at the moment it seems to have taken a downhill ride since I gave lovely presents to two of their children for their birthdays.

I was told do not buy the children toys for the children's birthdays.  I bought them beautiful bedlinen instead.

Son's wife said that the children were not ready for those gifts yet.  (I am sure it was just her not wanting to use bedlinen that I had chosen).

The children often sleep in beds with no sheets at all.  Bedspreads are not washed for months at at time.

I am getting bad vibes but no explanation from wife and son said that the gifts were not ideal and they would rather receive sporting sets eg cricket.

We give them so much of our time and energy and save them thousands of dollars with work we do at their place and yet we never measure up. 

I am convinced that we will never get the happy family I would like because they always seem to have attitude against us unless they want a job done by us.

Very downhearted and hurt by their attitudes.

I have twin brothers.  The younger of the 2, JM, and I just do not get along.  We never have.  He had issues with me moving to MA to be with Lg, and ever since then, he treats me like I am substandard.  I called him tonight to discuss our Christmas exchange, and he was completely in another world.  He wasn't even listening to anything that I said, and the conversation didn't last 5 minutes.

It angers me because I am the only sister that he has, and he needs to grow the hell up and get over himself.  It wouldn't kill him to have a 15 minute conversation with me.  And just because he and his wife just bought their first house, it doesn't mean that he's better than me.

yeah i'm posting again. i want answers to questions. i want explanations. i want to know how??
how do you go from asking to marry you and live with you a few weeks ago to now "just chill" "let it happen"
how can people say they love you but still hurt you and keep you hanging on? i am there for him and his son. i'm at football games. i'm at the bus stop to make sure he's on it. i try to stay away then he gets mad when i don't call. he gets mad when i'm not there or i make my own plans. but he could care less when he breaks our plans. i just don't get it. i see him and i tell him to let me go. to stop calling and texting but he says he doesn't want to let me go. he has been through a lot. he recently became a single father. but i don't know if this is anexcuse. he is going thru a lot on his job and still trying to get the hang of being the only parent for his son. i just want to know. i want him to tell me the truth. i want to accept the truth. sorry. i'm at a low point right now. so i have all the questions and i'm scared to accept the answers. i just can't accept that after all this time it ends like nothing. which is weird cuz i went thru this w my ex husband. it was diff. but kinda the same. i knew what the ex was doing. he didn't lie about it. i made the decision to stay. but now i don't know the truth. i don't know what's real. sorry

Diagnosed with Swine Flu last night....and had a complete breakdown realising what I brought home to my baby. 

Her Dad was so belligerent about helping....and sleeping with ear plugs still and can't hear the baby when she wakes up...so sitting here shivering, fever....because I can't relax while he can't hear her.

Point driven home....you're never going to be someone I can rely on.  Ever. Got it.

the ex and i split up almost 4 months ago.  it has been a really rocky split, to say the least.  we pretty much share custody of the kids 50/50, so i have never asked for any sort of child support, the only thing i asked him to do, was pay the babysitter every other week.  i believe this is more than fair.  he paid the babysitter for the first time, last week.  last night, we got in a huge fight, in which, he told me that he was never going to pay the babysitter again.  i of course told him if i took him to court over it, he would most likely be forced to pay the babysitter half the time, as well as pay some sort of child support.  he told me that if i went to court, he would come forward with information about some members of my family, that could get a lot of people hurt.  i dont want to go into detail about the information he knows, for obvious reasons. 

i cant beleive he would sink so low.  when i split with my first husband, we did it very amicably, and we still get along fabulously today, so i have never had to deal with anything like this before.  the advice i was given by family was to just lay low, and just pay the babysitter, and not worry about it.  i dont know what to do. you never think that the person you have married, and who once loved you could turn into such a vindictive monster, but that is what he has become.  any advice would be much appreciated.

nice guys always finish last. You can say whatever the hell you want to the contrary, but it is hard, cold, fact.

So, why bother being a nice guy?? Maybe it's how you were raised, maybe it's genetic, maybe it's something you worked at, regardless of how you became one, you will be shit on. Your boss will shit on you, your wife/girlfriend will shit on you, your kids will shit on you, even your dog will shit on you. So why bother being a nice guy??

Cause you can grow some pretty nice 'maters in all that shit, thats why!!

I walked in embarrassed, feeling tainted like people could see
exactly what I was there for. Then I realized I was in family court, and after overhearing several conversations about restraining orders, and custody paperwork,and references to people in jail,
I realized mine was probably a pretty routine undramatic case. This was validated by the lady at the
information booth who nonchalantly said "oh, easy" when I told her what I was there for and all my
paperwork was done, no lawyer needed. Number F177 was my number.
I made my way through to the waiting room. A huge room ...kind of like a DMV waiting room. All
kinds of thoughts crossing my mind while wondering what everyone else's story was.
The long was wait, another similarity to the DMV. This gave me enough time to work myself into a
near panic attack, trembling hands and increased heart rate.I am now pretty used to these, so I was able to control my emotions instead of bursting into tears right there.
I thought about the cost of the divorce. The EX was supposed to be paying , but hadn't sent the check.
However since we are now not speaking to each other, I had to leave it at the text message I sent him last night resulting in no response.
Thank goodness for Blackberry's I was able to distract myself  a bit with a game of brickbrack on the phone.
Counter number 8 was the busiest one. the lady there was processing so many people faster than any other window. I
wondered how she felt about that. Stamping all the divorce forms. Did it depress her? It would depress me. Playing the final role  in the death of a relationship.
She was probably used to it. I wondered how many she processed a day. Yesterday , i heard a headline on the news about a proposal in California to outlaw divorce . I didn't listen to the full story, but that thought crossed my mind too. I thought, maybe I am doing this just in time. even though I am devastated by the whole thing
the idea of me NOT being able to divorce him brought a feeling of claustrophobia/helplessness over me. For a moment I was glad I was doing this.
My turn finally came "F-177" said the loud speaker.

As she processed my forms, I thought how sad it is. No questions asked. No ID asked for. No "are you sure?". You get asked are you sure when closing a Word document, but you don't get asked for your divorce. Not that I wanted her to pry....just the ease of it all amazed me, saddened me. She handed me the forms and I looked at the date of the stamp on the forms. 27 Oct 2009. I felt defeated...I thought, wow! 3.5 years later this is where
we ended up. Then all of a sudden, out of the blue, a happy, or maybe happy is too much of an exaggeration, a content, or feeling of  acceptance came over me. I felt ashamed of the feeling, but deep down I knew this is way better than feeling sad, and this was my glimmer of hope for the future.
She handed me the forms, said thank you" have a good day". Wow! I just got a divorce and you are telling me to have a good day. If I didn't have a load of work waiting for me at the office, and a night out in the evening planned, I would be a basket case. I'd go home and hibernate till next summer or so!  "Have a nice day too" I said.

I walked out of the building feeling numb. I wondered who to call, who was there for me. My sister, my parents, Tanya (an older lady
who often advised me to just do it and get on with life). I had no one really.  No one I wanted to talk to. I just felt numb.Not sad, not teary. Just numb to everything around me.
As  I passed by people I wondered if there was something different about me. It occurred to me that the tainted way I felt was invisible
to all. Only I knew that I had walked in a married woman and was walking out defeated, single and alone. hmm. no difference to the rest of the world.

Well I am at work, obviously distracted.Still wondering who to share with. oh I guess I did email someone while in
the waiting room. My high school best buddie who usually emails me, and had sent me an inspirational email on Worry this morning.
but when I thought of venting out my emotions right now, I thought of posting them here because through this 3 year hell its always been there And today is no different  as I start day one of a new chapter.

Breathe in...Breathe out...I can do it

This weekend was hard.  My ability to deal with hard situations has gotten a lot better, so technically, I could double-post this in "Something wonderful happened!"    But the loneliness, isolation and struggle over the same things for the last five years keeps re-surfacing.  Yes, I will re-iterate, if only for myself, I've gotten better at facing it.

I struggle to get my daughter out of the house.  She doesn't do transitions well.  Thankfully we have enough of a routine for schooldays that we have that under control.  But getting her out of the house for art class on Saturday, for a beautiful sunny Halloween party on Sunday afternoon at the botanic garden was like pulling teeth. 

After a nice afternoon at a new friend's house, we left at 5 pm and she began to ask that her friend J be invited over for dinner that night.  J is the friend whose mother got on my daughter's case for being "insolent" whereas her own child's you know what don't stink, so I've been giving that friendship a rest.  My daughter has called her friend J about 3 times to get together and they're always busy, so I've told her to give it a rest. 

She started crying and accusing me of not letting me see her friend, so I finally explained to her that I was taking a pause from my friendship with them because the mother was always criticizing my daughter.  I hadn't wanted to say that but I have just gotten tired of my daughter always asking why we can't go over to J's house.  My daughter listened and said, If it was someone criticizing my kid, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with them, either.  I'm glad she understood, but I felt like it was a heavy thing to share with her, and it just emphasizes the fact that we don't have many friends anymore. 

I went out with someone several times and we had a wonderful time, but since then, he has just vanished.  I am a patient, understanding person, but I also know if someone hasn't contacted you for two weeks after a great night out, something has gone wrong - something that may or may not have anything to do with me, but nonetheless, I don't cut men much slack for that kind of behavior.  It just seems to emphasize the undercurrent of loneliness that I've been contending with.

I'm just venting here...but I am finding the cold treatment I am receiving from BIL/SIL really hurtful.  We used to be such close friends and our sons are the same age.  The treatment I am receiving from them just seems so unfair.

I know BIL and his wife are obviously going to be loyal to my STBX but I am not an evil person.  I am not the one who has caused the trouble in the marriage and I am not the one who didn't show up to marriage counselling etc.,  Yes, I am the one who initiated the separation, but all with good reason.

Not sure what I am babbling on about here, I just really feel hurt at the snubbing from them.  I thought we could at least be civil and somewhat friendly, for the sake of our kid's relationship.  They are close cousins, argh. Maybe with time, it will get better. 

The irony of it all is, my STBX had next to zero of a relationship with his brother and parents until I came on the scene.  I encouraged and help them reconnect and become a family again.  They all thanked me for helping the estrangement end and now they are the ones who are suggesting and giving really mean advice to my STBX, about ways to hurt me.

All of my family are in a different country, which makes all of this even harder.  Sure I can phone them for support, but it's not the same as if they were living here and by my side, to help me get through this initial pain and new life.

Thank you if you have managed to read this far.

Before I moved I borrowd a shop vac from my neighbor.  I called him several days before the move and told him I still had it and wondered if I could bring it by that evening after I got home.  He told me it wasn't a good evening and that he would get it when he came that Friday when he helped load the truck.

He never showed up that Friday, and I called several times, and left him a couple of messages asking what to do with the shop vac.  The message I left stated I didn't feel comfortable leaving it in his driveway without his permission.  I didn't hear back from him for two days after I left.  Now he is accusing me of stealing his shop vac.  I guess I should have just thrown the damn thing over his back fence.

This weekend I was In DC for a large event over 600 people there. This is a social group i am apart of called the Hash House Harriers. This really does not have abything to do with my issue, just pointing out where I was when my issue happened.

So I have met this one member at a few other events. We always hit it off and have a great time hanging out. We have never done anything but kiss and alot of flirting. We come from totaly diffrent socail groups out side the Hash, shes a lawyer and well im a 32yro guy living at home going to school. This again is beside the point.

my problem is that everytime we met up and hit it off, I get passed on when she runs into anoter person she might know better. I dont think she does this to hurt me, infact one of our friends told me she felt bad about ditching me and was concerned I was going to be mad at her. I was not mad, just hurt really.

See I have this problem, its called I'mtheniceguyitous. Everyone looks at me as the nice guy, the frined, the guy you turn to when your sad for a hug. Never am I looked on as the hot guy they want to get to know better and see if it leads anywhere else. Now dont steer this into "hes pissed he didnt get laid" sex is not the issue here. I truely have intrest in her, and just felt kinda betrayed that after 2 days of hanging out and have a great time with each other, i get diched when another comes around.

I guess I just really need to feel something again. I hate feeling like the 2nd fiddle, its never a great feeling.

so do I contact her and express my feelings or do I just let it rest. She lives in St. Louis and I live in Cleveland, so the chances of a retationship is slim. I still have this feeling that I should tell her how this made me feel, or would this come of as childish.

My ex started dating his gf two months after I left and has been dating her for almost 4 years now.  I heard about bits and pieces of their relationship from her ex as our kids have similiar activities.

Through out the 4 years, I have learned that they all (my ex, the gf, my 2 kids and her 2 kids) all sleep in the same bedroom when they have "campovers."  I think it stopped when my kids were present after I brought it up in co-parenting, but has continued with her kids.

Too many arguments that are too petty to mention, (like over groceries and time it takes to fix dinner) My ex used his old tactic of yelling in front of the kids when they argured.

My ex left the gf at a soccer field to walk home 2 miles at night with 3 10-year-old girls (one is on an insulin pump) and a baby because the gf was rocking the baby in the stadium and it made the bench bounce.  When she wouldn't stop, he left.

Anyway, I found out she finally dumped him.  Now, he has been going over to her house and "standing around."  In addition, he yelled FU to the ex gf in front of her two 10-year olds.  He did the exact same thing to me in front of our kids.  

He has a hoarding disorder and likes to collect recycleable materials.  He rarely takes them to the recycling center (never taking all of it), choosing to stockpile them.  He has been using her yard as his stockpile and she has asked that he clean it up.  This might account for why he is over at her house.

None of his behavior suprises me.  It sounds exactly like him.

I'd like to think that the divorce made him smarter.  I know I'm smarter about my outlook on life and have developed a more "live and let live" attitude.  I also laugh a lot more now.

I don't why it frustrates me so much when he pulls the same old sh!t.  

Secretly, I'm tickled pink that the gf got wise and dumped him, but I'm also worried that his anger might manifest itself in another way now, so I'm nervous about it too.

I don't know what my point is here.  I guesss I'm just venting.