Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
if i cared to do the research and math, i believe i would discover that the vast majority of my therapy support network has voted for me to find a divorce lawyer for the too-perfect-for-therapy man a married. increasing social distance from him has been enough for me for handling these unbearable phases of our 43 year relationship, mostly because i don't like lawyers. i don't see myself remarrying and i don't much care what the courthouse paperwork says about me. with the safer social distances between us, we were able to work out new steps to the dreary dance that had friends referring us to divorce lawyers. we were able to continue working together on parenting, estate building and the mysteries of conjugal love. over the course of those processes we came to call our matrimonial conflicts, "the egg shell waltz." some of the new steps in our egg shell waltz are pretty nifty. we still step on one another's toes quite often, but? ? ? practice, practice, practice. we may need another 43 years to work out all the new steps.
hubs and i have had different addresses for quite a few of the 43 years we have known one another. those addresses were in different states at the beginning of the current trail of tears in 2018. we were in adamant agreement that our 3 gk's needed to be rescued from the foster care system into which they had been thrust. the politics of that system made it wiser for me to leave my beloved river region and return to the dust bowl state. in august, 2019 the custody of the children was granted to us. we were granted managerial guardianship nearly a year after the traffic death of their parents in september 2019. it was a blessing that most of those court hearings were virtual and many of the initial court requirements were covidically dropped.
fast forward to 2023 and our little ship of fools has stabilized far enough that old fears and habits are reemerging. hubs and i have been triggering into tit for tat skirmishes more often since the start of soccer season for three children gave us a gnarly spike in scheduling and stress. still, methinks i see progress in our new steps to the egg shell waltz which previously kept those tit for tat skirmishes going for months on end. in the theory of progress over perfection, methinks we are still holding steady, despite the uncomfortable moments.
reality checks and advice requested. am i making sense? am i on to something or should i be lawyer shopping?
again i leave the mood icon on the rapid cycling median. feeling crazier than usual today, but need to hold steady for the two soccer games today.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
feeling like it's gonna be a slog today. ((HUG))
that friendships and our work tend to be the music of our lives.
Not saying I don't want a relationship - but personal healing seems to get center stage all the friggin time. lol
Each of you will compromise and if you get mad, please blast me rather than him (you said we can be a little similar).
If there's anything I can do to make your life easier, not sure the site permits it, but I'd buy you two a nice dinner to get away. Do get Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus, it does a good job of explaining how the different genders work though it doesn't solve the problem.
Good luck and many hugs, and recognition of the FANTASTIC JOB YOU;RE DOING.
*If nothing else, you get stories to remember. I remember my son about 16 wanted to go to a gathering which seemed like a party. I said no. He said, why, all my friends are going, why don't you trust me, I work hard in school, why is it that all my friends' parents trust their children and you can't trust me for one night. Reluctantly after convincing for almost an hour, I agreed as did my wife.
Fast forward about 15 years and he has children and we're having beers on vacation. Well you and mom did your best but sometimes your decision-making wasn't perfect. What do you mean? Well, remember that party when I was 16, did you know people were doing various types of drugs and I was the only kid from my class there. I thought you said the other kids parents let them go. Cmon, dad, you can't believe that stuff, kids will tell you anything, you got to be a little smarter than that. He now works in a senior role at a large Fortune 500 company and I'm happy for his success.
Ultimately helping to mold your children/grandchildren is one of the best successes you can experience though it can be tough.
For hubs and I, we do the same 'egg shell waltz' in several major daily living activities. I agree with you, though, sometimes it doesn't make sense until I stop, pause, breathe, option, repeat until calm and clear headed. I then see what fell off the track and note that particular crack for what it is, a part of the whole.
Here's to your success in doing this!
thank you, bobby. you advised that book for me once before. i read it way back in the last millennium and the stereotypes still don't work for me, by my translation of that book, i am from mars and my venetian man is worthy of all the mean names his martian friends call him for letting me have a life of my own.
no doubt about it, mid, that balancing act is part of any long term relationship. even my bachelor friends have to tweak the daily balance of their long term relationship with solitude.
It might be that choices need to be made regarding the schedule of kids activities. If partner/husband is willing, maybe he would sit down with you and figure out what you two are actually capable of achieving. If that is less activities for the kids, they will also enjoy being home and finding ways to just play. I had three kids at one time, all 2 years apart, and I made the house rule they could only do one group activity each at a time but I was also working part time and doing volunteer work like at their school. I knew kids who were so scheduled after school they feel asleep on the teacher's couch while waiting for their sibling to get done with piano lessons and them to have their lesson. It is okay to decide something is too much. I personally needed to have several evenings where we did not have lessons or school things to go to.
But I am a morning energy person and was just tired by night plus I don't handle caffeine and that artificial energy. I had friends who cooked several meals on Sundays and froze them or used them as left overs for the week. I also had a friend who used a crock pot (and now we have instant pots) 4 nights a week. I admired that, I could only manage 1 crock pot meal per week. They would get the ingredients ready in the evening before or get up 30 minutes early to start the crockpot and cut the veggies, etc. Now you can find cut up fresh veggies in many grocery stores or just use the frozen.
My problem now at the age you are is I can't figure out what would taste good so I can cook a meal ever since heart surgery. So cooking is a real problem and mostly I don't. Leads to meal stress. Husband orders one meal a day for himself to be delivered and it isn't healthy eating. He loves that fat and carbs!
methinks the trigger for the current rounds is that this little ship of fools has stabilized far enough that hubs and i have time and cravings to rebuild our adult lives. our 130 acre spread gives us ample space to run individual projects, but the boundaries keep overlapping. it's a style of boundaries neither of us have had to work out before. small steps, big faith and lots of prayer.
figuring out what i am hungry for always has been a major problem for me. when i had problems with making myself eat every day, i was still a decent cook, but i was playing with my food far more than i was filling my plate.
healthy eating? ? ? that phrase triggers my flight instinct every time. i've been known to instigate arguments between healthy eaters who are subscribing to different experts, but i make sure i already have my purse on my shoulder before i instigate. food fights gross me out.