Eibrab,

If you only knew how little "control" I had during the A you would not be paying any attention to me. I can talk to you because I have seen what out of control does and the results of it. I have learned so much about myself and how others interpret my actions thru all of this stuff I feel I have become a different person. Paradise, Holiday and you have all contributed to this different sense for me.

Paradise has beaten a sense of calm into my head that I like. Anger, confusion and hurt only get worse if you can't learn to let things go. Yes your H knows better than anyone how to push your buttons. He has years of on the job training in this. He knows he's doing it but he is hurting too. Why not have everyone join in? Your mission is to diffuse the conflict and get things moving in a different direction when it starts. I know you shouldn't have to be the one doing the concessions. Read the MB books again and they will all say that the BS's does all of the heavy giving early in recovery. For you it is still early. Things will get better if you keep up your faith. You can do this!
Be like Holiday and give the rest of us something to be proud of you for. It will also give the rest of us something to aspire to ourselves. A loving and healthly relationship with the person who means most to us in our lives.

As for showing others what you are made of you have done that already! The only people you should concern yourself with are your children and your H. Everyone else is secondary and really immaterial anyway. As long as you know you are doing the best you can for your family and yourself you should be content and let everything else come as it may. Immerse yourself in family and the horses and live for yourself. You are a good person and I can see it just in your posts. Just be yourself and take this one obstacle at a time. Believe in yourself, you can do this!

Journal

It is great to see everyone chatting and in good spirits.

I am back from an extended weekend away. I did go to the cottage after all. I was the last to clean up and clear out - but with road closures and such, I ended up turning back and staying up two more days. Pure indulgence, solidary walks, reading by the fire, eating left overs, snowshoeing in 2 foot high snow, in a wonderful white winter paradise! Blue and I are rested and relaxed.

It was an interesting weekend. Mr. Midnight's new skiing buddy and her girlfriend were there when I got there, plus my regular cottage mates. A bit awkward, but I made friends, cooked her a lovely dinner and smiled as she told me "what a good man my husband was." I bit my tongue and said very little. It is surreal to think someone you just met probably knows alot more about what your husband is doing than you do. At one point, I had to choke back ... a casual reference to him being an emotionally retarded alien [censored] ...

As you get older - your developmental intelligence is said to increase which includes: dualistic thought - the ability to hold radically opposing perspectives in your mind at the same time and see the truth in both. I thought about this alot over the weekend. My husband is a good man. She is right. He is also an emotionally retarded alien [censored]. I am right. People can be many things at the same time.

She went downstairs to call him after Saturday night's dinner dishes were cleared. They had a long talk. I wondered where he was and who he was with. I washed dishes with one of my chalet mates who asked me what it felt like to be in my situation. I said:

"It is just like being in a dust storm. You have to close your eyes and mouth, stand perfectly still and wait for things to settle. So many strong emotions buffet you like a high wind, it is impossible to see things clearly and everything you know - all that is familiar in your life is lost in whirling clouds of grit that stings and leaves every part of you raw and hurting."

I realize now that for large chunks of our marriage. I neglected him. I loved him faithfully, I took good care of things domestically. I have paid the bulk of our expenses from the get go. I gave him everything but my undivided attention.

I am programmed for work. It excites me like skiing thrills him. I have lived decades where working 70 hours a week often with lots of out of town travel was the norm. When I was home I was often so tired - a turnip would be more fun.

I believe to live life with grace, you need to have faith in your self, those you love, those you don't love, faith that life with all its challenges is exactly as it should be...

I am going to ponder that thought.. Blue is sitting here with crossed legs and a pained expression on his face... He needs to go see a man about a dog!

Paradise,

I just wanted you to know how much your thread means to me. Your journal posts especially.

Thank you with all my heart.

LA

Hey PB - I envy you! Sounds like you had a glorious weekend away!

I love your dust storm analogy, you do know how to put things so eloquently.

I second lovings post, I really enjoy reading your journal entries.

....WOW...

holiday

I second the Wow..

Only I find myself trying to blow hard to try and see through and not being patient enough to let the dust settle..

Paradise... you have been a gift to so many here. Maybe the pain you've gone and are still going through is how God is using you to help others.

I know you've helped me.

Blessings,

Eibrab

Only you Paradise!

How you can write things as beautiful and inspiring after doing the OW's dirty dishes is beyond me. I could do it but it would be after coating her plate in arsenic. Maybe you could train Blue to lift his leg on her on demand. Or better yet show her a new ski trail that ends at the nearest cliff!

How do you do it? A weekend with the skank in the same cottage? Even the Dali Llama would be proud of you. And I don't buy the fact that you neglected him in the slightest. If he's not saying anything to you , you are doing what needs to be done in the most efficient and timely manner you can. If he needed more it was up to him to say so and get your attention. He sure didn't complain about your work productivity did he? Well if he had a complaint in the marriage department he was perfectly capable of making this known to you. Alien [censored] yes, neglected no. He made a choice based on his feelings of entitlement and a lack of respect for you. Nothing you did or didn't do would have changed this.

I usually can see where you are coming from, and agree with your thinking when it comes to figuring out our WS's. On this one I have to disagree totally. Midnight made a choice to leave the confines of your marriage. For whatever reason he did this it was a choice on his part, not a disease and not an out of body experience. Clearly a good person can make these decisions because from all you have said he is a good person same as my EX. The how and why of these decisions we will never know. We will never know because we weren't there to see, hear, and feel all that they went thru to get to that point. Guessing and theorizing is all we can do. All that did for me in the last 11 months is make me miserable. I have given up on trying to figure it out and am not going back.

I'm not saying you have to give up your faith in Midnight, all I am saying is not to put this back on yourself. You didn't do anything so wrong as to entitle him to go outside the bounds of your marriage. An A is never the way for a rational and respectful spouse to handle marital issues. To accept that you weren't the perfect spouse is normal, to accept that you should have given him your undivided attention given the situation with work and your Dad is going overboard. Give yourself more credit than that, you deserve it.

pb...I didn't have much time this morning, but this is what I wanted to tell you exactly as dh has said it.
I was and still am giving my H my "undivided" attention. That is definitely no guarentee on how "he" is going to behave in our marriage. It is my choice to be this type of wife. In no way do you need to start thinking "his" A and going outside your marriage is your fault.

Unless of course (and I totally doubt it) he sat you down, prior to the A and told you bit by bit, how his "needs" weren't being met, you then were given the opportunity to seek marital help and your marriage still didn't fulfill his "needs"

No girl, this is all on him and his poor choices. I don't think you were given a say in any of this.

And like dh says, dont' give up your faith in Mr M, just don't start making yourself miserable thinking "only if".

I love ya and your posts,

holiday

Hi Holiday, Dukhuntr, familycomesfirst,Lovinganyways,Eibrab,

Wow alot of traffic today. Thank you very much for your compliments. I do like journaling. Sometimes I find myself saying things I have written and writing things I have said. It is improving my conversation.

It also helps settle my brain. Kind of like ironing - your thoughts - getting all the wrinkles out - it makes for smoother mental processing.

I don't think I am responsible for Midnight's affair. I do think the Harleys' are right in that there are risk factors that go hand in hand with needs not being met. I contributed to our marriage being vulnerable.

To create optimal solutions that provide the maximum benefit for all involved in whatever dilemma being confronted - the key is always to see the situation clearly through each participant's eyes and wholly understand the priority of their needs. It is the same challenge whether you are trying to structure a financial deal, work out a legal, political, or organizational conflict or in a much more personal arena - save a marriage.

I need to understand my husband and I don't anymore. Relationships can become ridiculously complex. Yet the underlying dynamics are simple. You love. You don't hate. You don't hurt. Infidelity hurts. You are putting the one you love in harm's way - emotionally and physically. It is heart breaking and life threatening.

There is a great quote on another site from the Dalai Lama -my hero which reads:

"Our greatest duty and our main duty is to help others. And please, if you can’t help them would you please not hurt them!"

It is so basic isn't it.



Cheers,

PB

Journal,

I have had a long busy day and I can't settle down. I tore my bedroom apart tonight. Vacumed every inch of it, including the mattress, taking everything out of the closets, dressers the like. Wiping out entire colonies of highly developed intricate dust bunnies and fingering long jagged rips in my mattress cover. Blue does like to dig.

I sat cross legged for a good 20 minutes in my closet admiring my shoes. Sitting there looking at them in their neat rows, I wondered if there was special therapy for my vice.

I picture a waiting room full of well clad women, sneaking glances at each other's feet. Sniffly and emotional as they confess to being obsessed with kitten heels, hand tooled cowboy boots and glittery strappy stiletto evening sandals. The January and July sale periods would require extra meetings, maybe even a buddy system.

When I walk through a store and inhale the intoxicating leathery aroma of shoes crafted by Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, Chanel, Guicci, - it sends shivers of exquisite excitement coursing through me head to toe. I don't even need to own them - most times just trying them on is enough.

Some years back I had to wear birkenstocks exclusively to remedy a foot problem, going through their catalogue brought tears to my eyes and made my lower lip tremble.

It seems I also have a clothing addiction. I started buying clothes rather late in life. During my university years, I wore only jeans and tee shirts. I owned one dress. I wore it to my sister-in-law's wedding. I remember standing on the country club lawn with my Husband. lisening to him say "You should have at least bought a new dress." Honestly the idea never occurred to me... It would now.

When I started consulting I worked with a brillant brit who had impeccable taste. He would rap my desk and say "Best bib and tucker tomorrow..." I would look back at him and frown...not a clue.

My early fashion sense was guided by his mouth.

If I got it right he would smile a big relaxed smile. If I got it wrong, as when one day I biked to work, forgot my pumps and clumped into a meeting in sneakers - his lips would compress into a thin straight line.

One memorable day, I tried wearing new thigh high stockings with elastic tops: as I stood giving a client presentation - they slowly drifted south to form puddles of folds around my ankles. His lips disappeared entirely.

Nowadays, I would quip about a wardrobe malfunction and smoothly yank them off without interrupting the flow of my talk. I was young then - it was a red faced disaster.

When I draw my hand across a row of my suits I remember things. I can pick up a jacket and remember when and where I bought it. How much I paid. When I have worn it. Who I was with. They are a visual record of how I have spent my time. I have trouble giving them away because I fear I will loose the mental triggers to prompt those memories... I still have my going away outfit.

Certain items, I have worn till they are ratty and shredded. My husband could always tell when I had a really rough day. I would immediately pull on a frayed ragged 20 year old Marci Lipman sweat shirt that hangs together by will power alone. Old clothes comfort the soul.

I packed up more of Midnight's things tonight. Holding back a few treasures: a 40 year old belt made of shock cord and shackles which use to hold up the worst looking pair of track pants imaginable; a watch I gave him for his 25 birthday. A 1979 National Team tee shirt - transparent from wear, softer than duck down that still smells of him.

When we hold on to things we should let go of - there is always a reason. I have a friend who buys too much food. She has three freezers filled to the brim for a family of three. Worse yet, she will slyly try to store pork chop buying sprees in the basement fridges of friends.

I have the urge to purge these days. I pull cupboards apart again and again - getting rid of things in progressive stages of letting go. There is a great book on decluttering by Karen Kingston - Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui.

The dog was very bored by all this domestic rigor. The only time he perked up was when I cleaned out my husband's sock drawer. He views socks as a kind of portable wealth. He regularly raids the luggage of our weekend guests to add to his portfolio. He is sock rich and I have many many strays.

Gloves have a similar appeal, Mine seldom match because he will actually jump up and stick his nose in my coat pocket to steal them. Sometimes I don't notice the theft and they are abandoned in our travels - to lie lonely on the ground -hapless victims of canine avarice.....

Morning Paradise,

Cleaning is a good way to settle the mind and relax isn't it? When I get antsy and unsettled it seems to be therapy for me also. Shoes just don't hold the same appeal to men. I wonder what it is about women and shoes. All the women I know seem to have the same facination. I never appreciated this until I packed up the EX's stuff for her and it took two large boxes and two lawn and leaf bags to contain all of them.

I have a question for you today. My DD had a really bad day yesterday and I talked to her several times on the phone and tried to get her to come see me after work. She made several excuses not to come over or to see me. Then I see her at the basketball game last night with EX and the OM. She just couldn't bring herself to be honest with me and tell me she had plans with her mother and OM. It made me upset that she felt it was better to mislead me than just be straight forward and tell me she had plans with her mother. Do you think I should address this with her or just let it go? What bugs me is this is her mother's way of doing things. Never direct and truthful. Do they really believe this is less hurtful to me than telling the truth?

I feel the same as you in that I don't understand the EX or my daughter's thinking in this regard. Understanding someone else's thinking is nice but how do you ever really figure them out especially if they can't seem to express their thoughts to you?

Dukhunter..

May I chime in ?

At times, I would have acted as your daughter did. In my opinion, she just didn't want to "deal" with telling you. Not out of disrespect, but maybe out of cowardice - a statement said respectfully.

I suppose it would be hard for a straight forward person to understand... it was just easier for her to skip around the truth - probably without the intent to lie, but to avoid hurting your feelings or any conflict.

It's not bad quality at some times, but certainly telling the truth allows for no further discussion or "getting caught" as she did.

I'd find solace in the fact that she needed someone yesterday and turned to you.. she knows she was caught. If you don't react at this point, maybe she'll be completely honest with you next time.

Fingers crossed.

Blessings,

Eibrab

Paradise..

I have three dogs. Two big bulldogs and an elderly Welsh Corgi. The corgi is a special individual, very set in his ways and wise beyond most people.

The bulldogs, however...

One of the barns at the farm is an old bank barn. There is a hill running up to the top where one can drive right up to the upper level. This is the sight of everything missing from our lives and that of any unsuspecting visitor who might have brought something of value to a curious dog.

I have found shoes, socks, horsebrushes, a mirror (yes - unbroken) various farm tools, many neighborhood balls from every type of sport, and even once a small wool-like dog bed with a lovely plaid pattern to it.

Never had a claim to the dog bed... nor any reports of one missing around town. As rural as we are, I suspect there might have been a mission and some accomplices involved in this acquisition.

I ask them on occasion about their morals and values.

They make the corgi answer. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Blessings,

Eibrab

Hi Eibrab,

Your dogs sound like mischief afoot. They must love life in the country; having their own safety deposit space by the barn, lots of animals around, things to sniff, chase, bark at. Most of the bulldogs I know are sort of slow, give messy friendly kisses and like to sit down alot. They seem to smile all the time.

There is a great book called "How to Speak Dog, the Art of Dog-Human Communication" by Stanley Coren. You would like it alot. It might translate the finer points of corgi's excuses.

I am going to curl up tonight with Blue and watch a movie. I hope you and yours have a great weekend. Give Silver a hug.

Cheers,

PB

Excerpt from Jed Diamond - This was posted on the fortysixty forum - it is worth reading...

Why Mid-Life Men Leave Perfectly Good Marriages
by Jed Diamond

“He says he loves me, but he’s not in love with me. He talks about leaving our marriage, but won’t tell me why. I’m devastated. Our children are hurt and confused. I love this man. What do I do? Help!” This is an excerpt of a letter, typical of many I am receiving every day, from a woman who is mystified about the behavior of her mid-life husband. Though, I hear most often from heterosexual couples, similar dynamics are present with gay and lesbian couples I’ve worked with. What’s going on here?

Certainly one possibility is that these aren’t good marriages at all. Many relationships deteriorate through time, yet one or both partners are oblivious to the unhappiness and pain that their spouse is experiencing. There are marriages that should have ended long ago, but the couple stays together because they are afraid to leave. However, there are other marriages that are really quite healthy, though all relationships of any length have their ups and downs, yet one spouse feels driven to leave.

There are, of course, many mid-life women who leave perfectly good marriages, but here I want to talk about the guys. Why do so many men leave their partners after 15, 20, or 30 years of marriage? The couple has often weathered many of the stresses of raising children, developing financial security, and seems to be ready to enjoy their later years. Yet, just when things seem to be going well, he becomes increasingly restless and wants to move out. His reasons are often vague and confusing. “I just need to find myself,” or “There’s nothing wrong with you. I just I feel like I’m missing something in our marriage", or “You’re making my life miserable. I can’t stand it anymore.”

It’s usually the woman who contacts me first. She’s emotionally distraught, hurt, angry, and afraid. “I don’t know what’s happened to my husband. He’s changed. We’ve had our good times and bad, but he’s always told me how much he loves me and how glad he is to be with me. All of a sudden it seems like I’m his worst enemy. I just don’t understand.”

When I talk to the guys, I find that they share similar experiences. Somewhere in midlife, often following some kind of loss—a parent dying, children moving out of the home, an illness, a sports injury, a bout of erectile dysfunction—he begins to become increasingly irritable. Rarely does he recognize the connection between the loss he’s experienced and his feelings of dis-ease. At first he is not aware that he is becoming unhappy. When he begins to recognize that something isn’t right, he looks for the cause.

Weeks, months, or even years can go by. All of a sudden things “click” for him. “It’s her.” Like a new born duckling who imprints on the first object he sees, these guys often associate their wives or partners with their unhappiness. Though they are rarely conscious of it, the undercurrent of their thought process goes like this. “God, I’m really feeling unhappy here. This is terrible. I have to find out what’s causing it. Martha just made one of those remarks that I hate. She’s always saying things to irritate me. Now, I see. It’s Martha, Martha, Martha!

He then begins to see her less as a source of joy in his life and more as a problem to be confronted or, more often, avoided. He becomes increasingly unhappy. He alternates between withdrawal and demands for more attention, love, and sex. He wants to be held, nurtured, and told that he is the best, but he can’t get past his perception that she is the source of his unhappiness. Even when she is loving and nurturing, he interprets it as a jab or attack.

She picks up on, usually unconsciously at first, his changed attitude. She becomes more irritable, defensive, and frustrated. Her negative attitude and behavior becomes additional validation that his perceptions were correct. “She really doesn’t like me,” he thinks to himself. “She doesn’t respect me. Nothing I ever do is enough for her. What’s the use?”

Over a period of months and sometimes years, these negative attitudes and “self-talk” cause the couple to become more and more estranged. At its most extreme, he becomes convinced that she is bad. “What kind of horrible woman treats her man with so little respect and care?” he thinks to himself in despair. She becomes convinced that he is mad. “He must be losing his mind. He’s acting totally irrationally.”

Enter, the other woman. Well, actually she’s been there all the time. She may be his trusted secretary who listens to his frustrations at work. It could be a co-worker with whom he shares dreams for the future. It may be his best friend’s wife who looks so nice and who gives him that certain look that says she thinks he’s someone special. It may just be the “feminine” in the world–All those anonymous, but lovely women that we see walking down the streets every day, or who gaze out at us from our television and computer screens. In the past she may have been someone he just noticed. Now he notices with ever more attention. “If only I had her,” he muses. “If she were in my corner, everything would be OK.” His fantasies may be sexual, but the need is for much more than sex.

If the wife comes to be seen as the problem, the other woman comes to be seen as the solution. Somehow she must have the key to his future happiness.

Since there are no secrets in the world of intimate relationships, the wife will “know” that there is another woman in the picture. She’ll know it even before she becomes aware of it. It will begin as an undercurrent of fear and anxiety. It the awareness finally bubbles to the surface, she may keep her concerns inside for awhile. When she finally voices them, he will most often tell her she is being ridiculous. “You’re imagining things,” he says. Or, “We’re just friends.” Or, “All men look at pretty women.” He may, in fact, believe what he says. She may accept his words and believe that her fears are ungrounded. He’s rarely aware of what’s going on until it’s too late. She rarely sees the underlying dynamic until he’s past the point of no return.

It may be months or years before he actually walks out the door, but in truth, he has left long ago. The couple may come to counseling and he may say he wants to work things out. He often is trying to “keep his marriage from falling apart.” However, too often his internal mind-set has solidified: “My wife can’t give me what I need. She’ll never change. There is some female out there who has the key to my happiness. I’m going to find her.”

Does this sound familiar to you? Have you been in the husbands shoes? How about the wife’s or the other woman’s? What did you do? How did it work out?

It’s one of the great tragedies I see in the world today. So many couples break up, just at the point when they could begin to heal old wounds and have the best relationship of their lives. What’s worse, neither really understands what’s going on. Like addicts hooked on heroin, they are pulled along a path that promises delight, but ends in destruction. Is there a way out? Tune in to my next post for some additional answers.

Another excerpt posted on the forty sixty forum by New Outlook - from an magazine advice column...

By Cary Tennis

Feb. 2, 2006 | Note: This letter arrived Dec. 2, 2005, the same day as the referenced column. I did not know what to do with it for some time. I had no answer for it.

So I put it aside.

Finally I got an idea. -- C.T.

Dear Cary,

Your advice to Lost in L.A. was excruciatingly correct. I hope he listens to you. If he doesn't, he can count on a horrible, slow-motion shipwreck that never stops groaning and cracking and coming apart in new and agonizingly surprising ways.

When I look back, what I see is myself in some sort of trance, making insane and rapturous decisions, rationalizing in tongues and somehow pretending to myself that what I was doing made perfect sense and that my own giddy "escape" would somehow provide a happy ending for everyone. Or that there was some cosmic safety net that would gather everyone up and protect my children, my good husband and myself from anything remotely resembling dire trauma and ruin.

Ha.

There is no cosmic safety net that blocks inevitable consequence.

Consequence is immune to even the most desperate remorse. It's as cold and inexorable as a moving glacier. Fantasies of undoing are not efficacious. Frantic efforts to somehow mend the thing, to fix the pain one has caused, finally seem both selfish and masochistic.

Consequence is a cold, hard thing and if you can bear it for yourself, good; try bearing it in your children's faces. For the rest of your life. So, Cary, what advice do you have for this fellow in L.A. some six years later, if he ignores your good advice, comes to you and says, "I'll never again feel whole and untroubled. No one who placed their trust in me and whom I love feels whole and untroubled. I did not protect my spouse or my children from imbecilic folly and it was my fault. I'm unable to simply disappear from the face of the earth; my kids still walk it. My ex-spouse still walks it, and lives seem to be irrevocably spoiled. I failed to protect them from myself, and the affair and the divorce has indeed become the pivotal trauma of all of our lives. It's not a single event that recedes into the past -- the fallout just doesn't quit, for any of us. I'm tottering on the edge of a smarmy self-loathing that's even more self-absorbed and ignominious than the stupid, blissed-out hedonism that got me here. I want to be clearly and straightforwardly remorseful, confess my error (I have, of course), endure my own situation with some sort of grace and compassion, and just do no more harm to anyone else ever again. Just, you know, buck up. Especially for the kids. But I feel terminally broken, myself.

I was married for 30 years! Cary, what IS a ruined life? If you wake one morning, and then every morning, for YEARS, and all you can see is ruin, remorse and the requirement to get up and put a good face on it, and pick your way as carefully as possible through the rubble, which you do, though you can't see any way to redeem anything, and your beloved children are floating somewhat helplessly away toward some other horizon, and you are genuinely helpless yourself to prevent loss after loss, all in the wake of your own stupid decision: What do you do then? The Zen Master, when asked the meaning of life, laughs and says, "Mistake after mistake."

OK. Self-laceration is a pointless self-indulgence. Regretful ruminations are a sloppy waste of time. "I deserve this" does not translate into "they deserve this." OK. So help me out, here. Where's the foothold? I can't find my way into inspiring heroic myths. Once upon a time I was the Wise Mother and honored and cherished in my family without much fuss about it. So much for that one. What the ****** can I grow into now? Sisyphus? Magdalena? I figure I don't really have the right to sink lethargically into Sodden Heap of Remorse, despite sucking undertows. And I'm done with trying to glamorize the thing -- it is to vomit.

Just Plain Lost

Dear Just Plain Lost,

I suggest that you undertake a program of service to people in jails and prisons. I suggest you seek out those who share with you some fatal flaw of action and who, like you, are enduring harsh consequences.

You did not go to jail for what you did, but you are suffering as though you had been sentenced by a jury. Indeed, though it might be too easily said, you are a kind of prisoner. By bringing comfort to prisoners you may, after a time, learn to bring some comfort to yourself. Perhaps you will learn to forgive yourself, too, for what you have done.

If this sounds like rather an extreme measure, consider the extremity of what you have written -- your biting, wrathful self-condemnation, your lacerating, saw-toothed rancor. Consider the extremity and long duration of your affliction. Rarely have I read a letter whose fury lashed me so -- and I am not even the intended target. You are! So I shudder to think what condition your tender skin is in.

Being punished so, and apparently continuing to punish yourself, you need to turn outward, away from your self, who is also your victim. What power on earth could help you do that? Earthly pleasure, being your sin, is now poison to you. It cannot possibly take you out of yourself but only deeper into your self-hatred. So I'm guessing that only service, humble, austere, difficult service, can awaken you to the joys of life once again.

I see you at San Quentin, or maybe down at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, or Calipatria, or Lancaster, down there in Southern California. (Why do I picture you in Southern California? I do not know, frankly; I do not know where you are!)

How might you arrange this program of service, and what might you have to offer? I understand from our private correspondence that you have certain skills that may be of value to those who are residents of the penal system. These skills and the benefits they offer I would suggest you present to officials of the penal system, or, if to an agency that coordinates such visits. You need not explain what personal benefit you plan to gain. That is your business.

But precisely the kind of karma-reversing issue I had in mind revolves around this question: What if, in your life, at that crucial moment when you made whatever fateful decision it was that cast you into this cauldron, what if there had been someone there to persuade you to hold on, to help you clarify your thoughts, so you could deny yourself whatever delicious but disastrous pleasure lured you out of happy home, and thus avoid the prodigious torment you so strangely, with dark eloquence, describe? What if some such person had been present at the right moment? Might your life not have turned out a little differently?

What good is that? You certainly can't intercede now to prevent what has happened. But you can warn loudly of fire and flood, as perhaps you wish someone had warned you. You can warn not to jump head first into that shallow, rock-bottomed stream. You can teach about the virtues and usefulness of sharing with others whatever disastrous and ill-conceived actions we might contemplate. You can teach about the dangers of acting in isolation without revealing our plans.

We all need, now and then, warnings of catastrophe from someone. Perhaps henceforth you can be that person full of warning, replete with grave caution for others to borrow

Part 2 of Jed Diamond's article...

What Are Mid-Men Looking For When They Leave Their Partners?


In my previous posts I began to explore what mid-life men really want and why men (and many women) leave a partnership just when it seems that they could begin to enjoy the fruits of their labors. In order to understand what men are really searching for, you have to understand the impact of the thinking that began in the 1970s that was reflected in the phrase, “A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Many, including Time Magazine, credit Gloria Steinem with coining the phrase about what a woman needs. It certainly was consistent with the thinking of many Feminist women in the U.S. who were awakening from lives of dependency and recognizing the fact that they were powerful women. In the euphoric emergence of this wonderful feminine spirit some women concluded that men were superfluous and unnecessary. I’ll come back to this point in a minute, because it is crucial in helping us understand the dilemma faced by many men of this era.

First though, we need to give credit where credit is due. On my recent trip to Australia I learned that this famous phrase was coined by Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician, back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney. “My inspiration arose from being involved in the renascent women’s movement at the time,” says Dunn, “and from being a bit if a smart-[censored]. I scribbled the phrase on the backs of two toilet doors, would you believe, one at Sydney University where I was a student, and the other at Soren’s Wine Bar at Woolloomooloo, a seedy suburb in south Sydney.”

The 1970s was a difficult time for us. Like many men I grew up without the presence of a strong, loving, involved Dad. My father became depressed and tried to commit suicide shortly before my 6th birthday. He was hospitalized and I didn’t see him again until I graduated college. My mother raised me. She was a very independent, dominant woman who seemed to get along fine without a man in her life.

Although she was never overtly hostile towards men, she saw most men as vulnerable, weak and untrustworthy (a holdover from her broken marriage and a father who had died when she was young). I’m sure the belief that men are unnecessary, fit the experience of many women of my generation as well as many men.

Poet and writer, Robert Bly recognized the damage that these beliefs were having on young men of the times. In his now famous New Age Magazine interview with Keith Thompson in May, 1982 he talked with sadness and concern about was going on with young men in the world. “I see the phenomenon of what I would call the ‘soft male’ all over the country today. Sometimes when I look out at my audiences, perhaps half the young males are what I’d call soft. . . . Many of these men are unhappy. There’s not much energy in them. They are life-preserving but not exactly life-giving. And why is it you often see these men with strong women who positively radiate energy?”

I think that phrase captures the way I was back then, as were many of my contemporaries. We were, indeed, lacking in dynamic energy. We were life-preserving but not exactly life-giving. I believe we had lost confidence in our ability to be generative, to give something to our families and communities that was valuable and unique. The Viet Nam War had disabled many of us, whether we fought or protested. The death of the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King caused us to wonder whether taking risks for the betterment of the world was worthwhile.

But most of all, I think we wondered whether men were really necessary at all. More and more women entered the workforce and men wondered whether we were needed as bread-winners. Women learned self-defense and we wondered whether we were needed as protectors. Women bought vibrators and learned to pleasure themselves and we wondered whether we were needed for sex. Women used birth-control and decided if they wanted to have children. When they did have them, they often decided to raise the children without the involvement of a man. We wondered whether we were needed as fathers.

Now it’s 2006 and these “soft” men, the superfluous-feeling men of the 1970s and 80s have reached mid-life. We often feel trapped in a family where we increasingly feel that we are not needed. The kids, if we had them, are moving out on their own. The grandchildren ask to speak to grandma when they call. “Grandpa” is a word that seems foreign to them. Our partner seems content to get whatever sexual pleasure she needs from somewhere other than our starving loins. Perhaps she can take in what she needs from the air, like a fern. She’s got her own job which may be more secure than ours and often her own bank account and assets.

Some men don’t leave. They stay and die slowly of boredom or keep themselves drugged on marijuana, booze, and T.V. sports, with a little internet sex thrown in occasionally to prove they can still get it up. Other men confront their feelings of uselessness, hopelessness, and helplessness and begin to make constructive changes in their personal lives and in their relationships. They want more and are willing to work for it.

Then there are the guys who leave. What are they looking for? Well, for starters I think they’re looking for a reason to go on living. They want to find out if there is a place for them in the world of the 21st century. Are we dinosaurs just waiting to fall over and become extinct, or do we have some important purpose here that we have yet to discover. Are we as useless and ludicrous as a fish on a bicycle? Or is there a greatness in men that we have yet to uncover. It’s an exciting time to be alive today. But it is also terrifying. We truly are living in a new world, with new rules, and new dangers.

I believe the number one reason that mid-life men are leaving is to find out whether they have a reason to live. What do you think? How do you feel? Is there something mid-life men have to offer the world?

The New Seasoned Woman
By Gail Sheehy
Published: January 8, 2006

In her books about adult development, including her landmark “Passages,” Contributing Editor Gail Sheehy has inspired women and men to think about the possibilities inherent at every stage of life. In her latest book, “Sex and the Seasoned Woman,” published this month by Random House, Sheehy reports on the emergence of a new phenomenon in female growth. Traveling across the country, Sheehy spoke with women from their 40s to their 90s. What she found may change how we think about ourselves–and the women in our lives. Here is an adaptation from the book.


A Seasoned woman is spicy. She has been marinated in life experience. Like a complex wine, she can be alternately sweet, tart, sparkling, mellow. She can be maternal and playful. Assured, alluring and resourceful. She is less likely than a younger woman to have an agenda–no biological clock ticktocking beside her lover’s bed, no campaign to lead him to the altar, no rescue fantasies. The seasoned woman knows who she is. She could be any one of us, as long as she is committed to living fully and passionately in the second half of life.

“Sex” and “older women” used to be considered an oxymoron, rarely mentioned in the same breath. It was assumed that a woman’s sexual pilot light was extinguished by menopause, and she was content to slip into the desexualized role of on-call grandma and caretaker for whatever members of the family got old and sick first or whined the loudest. Do people really think we all trade the delights of touching and being touched for some hobby utilizing yarn?

What makes a woman seasoned? Time. This year, the oldest Boomer-generation women turn 60; the youngest are 41. This is a new universe of passionate, liberated women–married and single–who are unwilling to settle for the stereotypical roles of middle age and are now realizing they don’t have to. They are open to sex, love, dating, new dreams, exploring spirituality and revitalizing their marriages as never before. They are rediscovering who they are, or who they set out to be before they became wrapped up in the roles of their First Adulthood, when their primary focus was on nurturing children, husbands or careers–or all three. Now millions of them are bursting out into a whole new territory: a Second Adulthood. This is a huge cultural shift, making possible what I call the Pursuit of the Passionate Life.

Carole Smith is not young, not thin, not rich and not gorgeous, but she is one of most sensual and satisfied women I met in the course of my research. “Dating over 50 is great,” she enthuses in one of the many group interviews I’ve held with women 50 or over. “I’m looking for fun and companionship and romance.”

Before she can finish, another woman interrupts: “You don’t go as far as sex?”

“Oh, I have a lot of sex,” Carole says, her voluptuous chest rippling with hearty laughter.

It isn’t the first guess one would make about Carole. She is a 50-year-old manager of a doctor’s office who has been divorced for more than 20 years. Her naturally full body is probably 50 pounds over the national standard. She describes herself as “a big, bubbly, fun-loving Jersey girl.”

When asked how sex has changed for her from 40 to 50, she tosses her hair and grins. “Better,” she says. “I don’t have to worry about getting pregnant. And I haven’t had the same trouble separating the ‘mother me’ from the ‘sexual me’ since I launched my child. If you’re a sensual person, by the time you’re 50, you’ve become much better at it. And it can be just about you and him.”

Carole had a lot of lost time to make up for, having married at the age of 19. Before she was 23, this good Catholic mom was separated and left alone with a 2-year-old boy. The struggle of mothering while working full-time drained her energies. Her desire for men and sex fell dormant.

At 42, she decided to start dating, but how? She bought a new computer and asked her son how to access the Internet. “The first man I met online was pivotal in my life,” she says, but when he asked her for a picture, she backed off. He pressed to meet her in person. She confessed that she was afraid to meet and that she was, well, oversized.

“Hey,” he responded, “I’m a big guy. My ex-wife was big. I like big.” He was a police officer like her first husband, and Carole says she will love that man forever. Unfortunately, she admits, she zeroed in on him as her next husband. Weighted with Carole’s repressed desires of two decades, the relationship collapsed. “Even though it didn’t work out, he got me out of the house,” she says. “The universe sent me exactly what I needed–not a husband, not a soulmate, but knowledge.”

Carole’s big guy is what I like to call the Pilot Light Lover–a transitional figure who appears in many of the stories of seasoned women I have interviewed. The Pilot Light Lover reignites a midlife woman’s capacity for love and sex. He seldom lasts. But he gave Carole the confidence to try online dating, which she found to be a candy jar full of interesting men who became lovers or friends.

She has, by now, developed a truly seasoned woman’s philosophy of life: “I may never get that perfect soulmate, but you know what?” she says, raising her glass of sparkling water and rolling her eyes. “I’m going to have a heck of a time trying.”



Sexual revitalization is only one of three paths to a more passionate life. In my interviews, women routinely describe the “aha! moment” that came sometime in their 40s or 50s, when they realized, “I don’t have a new dream.” This is more than a search for a new hobby. It is truly a new concept of your self in the world–one that will generate exhilaration and commitment to the future.

I bumped into an embodiment of this principle, literally, when I heard a neighbor walking down our street in New York one evening, singing “On the Street Where You Live.” She wasn’t just humming, she was swinging her arms and warbling. Madeline is an attractive journalist and photographer in her late 50s. She appeared to have had quite a glamorous existence, living much of the time abroad with a successful husband.

What I didn’t know was that Madeline had been depressed and in limbo since she extracted herself from a marriage where both sex and emotional intimacy had drastically deteriorated. Valiant attempts to find a spark within the singles scene had only deepened her loneliness. For her, the path out of darkness would not be through sex or romance.

“I’m taking voice lessons,” she told me, as excited as a child. “I keep singing this song over and over! It’s like not being able to eat enough chocolate. I always got great pleasure from singing, whether it was singing my son to sleep or singing in the car.”

But when she sang, her husband and son would admonish her to be quiet so they could listen to “real singers” on the radio. Madeline was always afraid to try out for a chorus, and it was only now, at 58, that she was giving in to her core passion for expressing joy through music. She will never achieve her girlhood dream of singing backup for Stevie Wonder, of course, but that’s not the point. Singing reawakened her hunger for intimacy, physical touch, someone to dance with, and she is dating again.

“It gives me a passionate thrill,” Madeline says about her new dream. “I can only liken it to that feeling of when you’ve just met somebody. I feel like I’ve got a crush on singing.”


A third path to the passionate life is through spiritual exploration. “You don’t have to be divorced to evolve,” Sandy McCall, a silver-haired psychotherapist tells a group of seasoned Texas women who have gathered for an interview with me. Sandy describes herself as “a small-town woman with red-state values, a marriage of almost 40 years, two grandkids and a sex life that is still extremely satisfying, though probably not as often.” The other women nod in recognition.

“I think all women in their 40s or 50s come to a choice,” she continues, “but mine was not a sexual revolution. It came from a desire of the spirit to be set free.” She pauses, then blurts a strong religious metaphor: “Mine was a death and resurrection.”

Sandy started off like millions of women who came of age in the ’60s. Nobody then asked a woman what she wanted to do. It was assumed she would want what her husband wanted. In Sandy’s case, Ron wanted her to support his dream of becoming a doctor. After teaching to put him through med school and raising their four children, Sandy arrived at midlife longing for a new identity.

Going back to school and gaining a psychotherapy degree did not change the pattern now well-etched into her marriage: “I was the dissatisfied one,” Sandy tells our group. “I thought it was my turn. I wanted to be heard.”

She began to explore her suspended religious faith, attending the conservative Christian church in town. Once she began defining her values and her core self outside the realm of her marriage, Sandy’s self-confidence began to build. Ron could not relate to what she called her “faith walk.” Their arguments became bitter, repetitive, exhausting.

Love is never free of the struggle over balance of power. As a couple enters midlife, resentments may surface. One partner may declare an ultimatum: Either things change, or this relationship will be over. The McCalls agreed on a trial separation. Each would pursue separate counseling. At some point, they’d get back together and see if they “meshed.”

Five months later, Sandy and Ron were resigned to divorce. Then she ruptured a disc in her back, and her husband stopped by to bring her dinner. People were telling him the same thing, he said to her: “She needs to know how tough it’s going to be without you.” Sandy’s response came from her core: “Then they must not understand our relationship,” she said, “because I know what it’s like to be without you. I don’t have a clue what it’s like to be with you.”

From that moment on, the disruption in the old balance began to be different, interesting, yeasty. Sandy suggested that they go out on a date and get to know each other again. When they did, they talked about the things newly dating couples talk about–movies, books, what they like, who they are and “would you care for another glass of wine?” When he walked her to the door, he reached for the knob. She laid her hand gently on his. “No. I don’t do that on the first date,” she said.

After two months of dating, they took a weekend trip to Santa Fe. For the first time, he agreed to go to the opera with her; and, for the first time, she relented on going for a balloon ride with him.

Ron could see that the woman he’d once known as his wife was, in reality, becoming reborn. They began to discuss how, as part of their “new contract,” they might rebuild the marriage on a faith foundation that was bigger than the two of them. Finding a basis for a faith they could share has been important in allowing this seasoned couple to move on to a true and lasting love.

Sandy was in her mid-40s when she set off on her midlife passage. She is 59 now and looking forward to more serenity in her 60s.


Once you commit to pursuing the passionate life, any one of these three paths may start you on the journey. A sexual resurgence may be the stimulus for a burst of new hopes and a personal renaissance that is also spiritual. Or the decision to follow a new dream, and the wit and work it takes to build it, can generate the gradual transformation from a two-dimensional young woman into a flourishing seasoned woman. And the seasoned spiritual woman, animated as she is by a purpose beyond the maintenance of self, is a naturally seductive creature. Sex, passion and soul go together.


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What a Seasoned Woman Offers

– “what-the-******, life-is-short” joie de vivre

– Emotional stability

– Financial independence

– The ability to talk about anything

– No ticking biological clock or toddlers underfoot

– Knowledge of what she wants sexually and the appreciation of a good lover


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What a Seasoned Woman Wants


– Romance, fun, flirting, finesse

– Good conversation

– Mutual sexual pleasure with emotional connection

– Not to be tied down

– Men who are not threatened by her accomplishments

– She wants to go dancing!

Journal,

I have been reading many of Jed Diamond's articles they can be found at his site below:

http://www.menalive.com/

To my ear, I hear an underlying whine that is probably unique to the baby boomer generation.

I can't recall my Dad expressing any frustration over the burden of providing for his family, any alienation from the ones he loved.

I remember taking him to see Private Ryan once. I watched his face during the battle scene - it was dispassionate, he remarked how realistic it was. When it came to the end, the row on row of graves, he started to weep and we had to leave.

He lost so many of his friends, so many young men who never got to live out their lives, have children, watch them grow, read the paper after dinner, tease their wives ... he knew all his life how lucky he was.

That is a gift. A gift that came a terrible cost but a gift none the less.

When I think of the priviledged, easy, pampered life my husband has led - free from loss. I know he has no understanding of how lucky he is.

He thinks happiness comes from without. It doesn't it comes from within and ironically most often by giving not getting.

He thinks he has not gotten enough out of life. It is an almost obscene delusion given the abundance of love, affection, opportunity, freedom and prosperity - he has had.

Yikes.. enough... I am perilously close to a rant...

Journal,

It is brillant sunny afternoon, clear blue skies and cold. Blue and I are just back from a walk in the park. I am excited in about 40 mins my brother is arriving....

He is staying for a week and then flying down to Cuba for a two month cycling trip. I will probably join him for a week of it in late February.

The fridge is stocked with all manner of the high fat treats he sneakily eats when away from the watchful eye of my sister-in-law. She is a fabulous cook but very strict with regards to healthy choices.

His only meat at home is fish - that she catches herself. She has a belly boat. You don a wet suit, pull over what looks like a tire that sits at your waist and you kick your way out into the lake with your flippers to cast while bobbing in the waves. She is very cool.

Blue is waiting by the door. He knows his uncle is coming. He waits ready to pounce, jump in the air, and bark out happy greetings...