Heliotropic Life Style / Love and Friendship

Over the years I developed a philosophy that served me well in my business life, but was never able to institute in my marriage. I tried, but the stbx and I were just never able to come into proper alignment.  Let me explain. Have you ever seen flowers track the sun across the sky?  That is heliptropism.  If you see a field of sunflowers you will see that they turn their faces to the sun as it moves across the sky. They receive the optimal energy this way, and stay strong and healthly. The flowers that do not track the sun, they die early.   In business I use this example of how I want the organization to run.  The sun is the corporate mission, and we, the humans in the corp, and the flowers. We all need to recognize the corp as the source, and align ourselves the same way towards the goals of our jobs.  It doesn't matter your job, your boss needs to explain the goals clearly, and you need to understand and explain clearly back at the boss, or your subordinates and or peers.  If everyone is aligned, success becomes more corporate driven, easier to find, rather than each individual having to find their own way. As well as this has worked in business, in my own marriage, the place I truly wanted this to work, the only alignment possible was if I aligned with her thoughts and ideas.  There was never an agreement of purpose with us. We both would say we want the kids to do well in school, but she translated that to mean they had to be punished for doing poorly. This is just one example, but a good point of discussion.  She would hover over the kids, helicopter parent, and try to get them to work harder.  Me, I'd rather the kids failed. Not that I for a moment wanted them to do poorly, but I would rather they learn the lesson, what failure means, and figure out how to avoid it.  I always rewarded success with my kids, she would punish failure, and threaten punishment for any task she thought they were deliquent in.   In having goals in marriage, she would not ever sit down and discuss. If we would talk about these types of issues, she would come up with what she wanted to do over the summer, or what she wanted fixed around the house.  Not, how do we prepare for college, or retirement, or anything that I felt important really.  I wanted us to discuss wills, this was after our oldest was born, she wouldn't really.  So I did my own, based on my desires for the children's welfare. To this day she has not, at least not to my knowledge. Now that the end of this marriage is in sight, the divorce will be finalized shortly, I will no doubt seek other relationships. Since I failed so terribly at this last marriage, any future realtionship, anything at all serious, will be one where I am my yet unknown future partner will be in better alignment, this I am sure of. My current self, I am trying to live my life in alignment with God's purpose, and strugle to keep on the right path.  My future life, If there is to be a woman involved, and I hope and pray that at the right time, there will be, we wil then together be in alignment, with each other, but under God's alignment.   But I clearly am not ready for and am not considering any new romance at this time. I've thought about this, and prayed about this, and now is just not the time.  I did meet a woman a while ago, a truly marvelous soul, really the entire package in my mind, she is smart, funny, spiritual, knows her mind, professional, well spoken, many of the attributes I find so attractive in a woman.  I asked her out on a date, a little nervous, I mean I haven't dated since the 80s. But it was such a fun night, laughing and talking and having a truly great time.  But, we did not kiss good night, even though I'm pretty sure she was wanting me to.  It just didn't seem right at the time, and then shortly after, we talked on the phone, and decided not to see her again. She asked that I call after the divorce is final, maybe I will, but I can't promise that - even though I felt drawn to her, I am counting on guidance from Jesus, and He will let me know, when, and with whom.   One thing that hurts me, I know that many of us on DS are hurting, and my upbeat attitude lately has been attractive to some people that I've met.  I have to reiterate, please, it hurts me to hear someone say they love me, or want me to think about being with them.  I can not hear this, I am not ready, please, be my friend, I do want to be yours, but don't go there, don't put me in an uncomfortable position like that, I will stop talking if this continues.  Even though I have been in a great mood, even though I care about my friends, my family, my self, know that I am still fragile, I am still healing, I still have hurt in my heart, and your positive friendship is what I desire, is what helps me, is what allows me to reciprocate. But I will not tolerate pressure to artificially move a relationship forward, that is just not something that I will do.  I have been fortunate lately in that I have regained much of myself that I lost during this failed marriage.  I have started talking to people, I have made new friends.   At work I have talked to and met people that I've worked with and now consider friends. The church that I visited on Friday, that whole wonderful event came through a new friendship developed at work with people that I had previously knew, but didn't know, not really.  Now Carolyn is my sister, and her husband my brother.  ON this DS site I have met several wonderful people, not only met, but consider valuable friends. You know who you are, and you know how I cherish your opinions and I thank you so much for helping me. I've never been one to make alot of friends, during the marriage she didn't want me to have friends over, most of my friends just well we grew apart.  But now I am reaching out, and finding it is easier to make friends, and I do so hope that I am worthy of your trust and friendship.  I hope that we are aligned in mutual respect, able to help each other when hurting, and able to share a little of the happiness when we find it.   The other day I woke up with this song running through my mind http://youtube.com/watch?v=8IKQijCmFb0 this is a link to a bad cover of the song but will give you an idea. Its called there's not enough love in the world. That's really so true, there is so much anger hate angst bitterness, I swear we need John Lennon and his message back, now more than ever.  I pray for love, from God, to shine on all of us, to let us emulate His love for us, and let us grow in the light He provides us from above.