Something I noticed in your sig line. You're 30 and you said you've started to question where you are going and where you have been in reguards to your marriage (and I would assume in your life as a whole).

If you get a chance find the book "A woman's book of life" by Joan Borysenko and look up your age group. You'll find that the unsettling "is this really what I want" feeling is normal at this stage of life. They call it the 30 year transition.

I typed up a segment of that chapter once...I'll try to find it again and quote it for you. It might help shed some light.

I found it under one of JR's threads from June on "observation of age". I've noticed over the years that many of the female WS's are in this age group.

I'll quote an excerpt:

In early and middle adulthood the process of adolescing, or growing up, coexists with the process of senescing, or growing down, periods when our life structures go in to decline. The life structure is defined as a boundry between ourselves and the external world that functions as framework for occupational and family relationships. It is composed of our hopes and dreams, values and talents. How will we fit into the world? What is important to us? What will make us happy?

The period that spans the late teens to mid fourties is one of building the life structure for our adulthood. The early thirties are what he calls a "structure-changing or transitional period that terminates the existing life structure and creates the possibility for a new one". .....

The major task involved in the age thirty transition, which Levinson found to span the years between 28 and 32, is the exploration of new possibilities and the finishing up of old business that may be getting in the way of a woman's continued growth.

Inherent in reevaluating what Levinson calls our "necessarily flawed" early life structures, are nagging questions about how to combine work and family, whether to combine work and family, and whether early marriage partnerships are working out. These questions may be further confounded by the stress of infertility. Many women in their 30's want to be mothers, but either can't conceive or have trouble carrying the pregnancy to term. Will they persevere in trying to concieve or alter their life plan? Central to a woman's age thrity transition is the question "what do I really want?"

etc....

I recently purchased this book for my own obvious need. It's a terrific book to have for the rest of your life. It really sheds some light on every stage we go through as women. And the biological, physiological and spiritual views all fit together to explain just how complicated we humans are!

I hear you J-Bird. It helped me to see that many of the feelings and thoughts I was having could be related to those of a man going through a mid life crisis. I guess it helped me to see that my H was NOT primarily to blame for my state of mind. Much of what I was going through was NORMAL. Unfortunatly I'd already added the complication of the A, so it was difficult to sort out which issues and feelings were due to the A, which to the 30 yr transition crisis, which were typical marital issues, which were MAJOR marital issues, and then we had to add in the extra possible post traumatic stress issues (this all came about after losing everything to a tornado). No wonder it took me a while to figure it all out <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

bump

thank you for thinking of me...I will look for the book.