Wow Mulan -

Impressive bio.

Perhaps WH needs a good slap in the face to get him back to reality.

You've got a lot going for you!

Mulan,

Just writing to let you know another person is here among your support group.

Sometimes when I feel so alone in my battle to save a M that I have nearly destroyed....and so isolated from all of my friends and family (I live thousands of miles away in a foreign country)....and so frustrated by a similar employment catch 22...

I remember to hold on to my center: personal value does not come from external sources....and is therefore not controlled by them, but truly controlled by me.

Have you read the Tao Te Ching? It is available on the internet, but here are some passages...


Tao Te Ching
Written by Lao-tzu (around 500 b.c.)
From a translation by S. Mitchell


2
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

3
If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.

The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

5
The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she welcomes both saints and sinners.

The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

Hold on to the center.

12
Colors blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavors numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.

Mulan,
I am very sorry you are having such a difficult time and that these things are happening to you. I have always respected your insight and input. I pray that you will be able to come out of this and be well on the other side. I stand in support of you. I wish you strength.
patriot

Cherished...no words for the post you just wrote, it was very, very well written.

Mulan,

Have you ever done a complete 180?

Sometimes women live so many years for their husbands and children (so the husband can achieve in his career), that they lose themselves in that role.

Why not a 180, to regain a sense of yourself and become that strong, happy woman you once were.

Get some rest, and then make some 180 plans. Can you imagine your husband when he gets a load of you, living for you? And now, while he is out of town is the perfect time to go to work on it, make your list, goals, subgoals, etc and see what a 180 for you would like.

He is probably expecting you to act just like you always have when this type of thing has happened. So don't.

Use this as a catalyst. Change it around to suit your 180, use it to your advantage.

Things were changing between you, you said...so keep them changing now. Don't fall back into old patterns so the dynamic can continue as in the past, status quo.

I'd give a 180, starting now, a good college go if I were you.

Yes, yes, yes.

Mulan, I think you know we have often related to each other in the past. I understand how you are feeling. I know it hurts.

I don't have any constructive advice. I so wish I did. I just wanted you to know that you aren't alone.




Oh, but you do, sweet lady.

Mulan,

I have similar feelings. Although WH moved out three years ago, I still live in the same community, and see Jabba with the Black Widow on a depressingly regular basis. Although icky things are starting to happen to him -- that hasn't made it "good" for me.

Like you, I've been hanging on here for one reason: to see my daughter graduate in the same high school she started, in the community she has lived in for a decade.

And as the date approached -- I realized I had NO VISION for after that date. As the date approached -- a date that once seemed impossibly far away -- I realized I was not going to drop dead on June 11, but I didn't have a real plan. Of course, I have a vague plan to move, and am interviewing for jobs -- but no real vision of a life I wanted, something to get me up in the morning.

It's kind of a scary, empty time -- the time you longed for, that once seemed so far away. You've just ended an ordeal, and now a different one begins.

But now is the time to implement the plan you had all along, or plan one if you didn't. With your son's graduation, it's "mission accomplished." A period of emptiness follows.

Now the new life begins.

p.s. Never underestimate the company of a pussycat.

Mulan,

I write, too. Not published, but almost done with a novel. If not for my H and his stupid shenanigans, I might be done with it now. His A has paralyzed me, too.

I know how you feel. I'm feeling it, too. But you can hang, just hang in there.

Send us parts of your novel. I would LOVE to read it.

RL

I just do not understand people who go through life "managing" their relationships with friends and family and spouses by way of lies and deception. Don't they realize that trying to hide something just makes it blow up a hundred times worse than dealing with it as it really is? Ain't they never heard "It's not the crime, it's the coverup?"

I don't get it. I just don't get it.