Weekend went well. Friday night I called home to ask about dinner and Mrs. Hold told me that she assumed I wouldn't be home until late had given my portion away to a friend of S12's who asked to stay for dinner. No biggie. Next time I will call earlier if I think I will be home in time. In the end I acquired the last weeping willow tree they had at Lowe's. So it was good I went when I did.

Saturday I went to services with S12 to watch him help lead morning prayers with 3 other kids. They all did a nice job. Afterward we were tasked with reviewing the food put out by the family of that day's Bar Mitzvah boy to see if Mrs. Hold should give their caterer a call. S12 liked everything that was served, and I got the name of the caterer.

Saturday afternoon S12 and I planted the weeping willow, and the kids pulled weeds while I got the new tractor settled into the shed. It is great. Shiny and black and new. Man am I glad I held out for the mower with cruise control. Without cruise control I would have been better off with a manual transmission mower. But with cruise the mower is great. Complete control of speed for close in work and then you can set the cruise to do wide open spaces.

Got Mexican for dinner in honor of Cinco de mayo. Mrs. Hold had 2 frozen margaritas. Very unusual for her. She hardly ever drinks.

After dinner D10 and I went to the home of a member of the synagogue's board to listen to some rabbis play guitar and sing songs in Hebrew. D10 likes music and likes "jewish stuff" so I thought she would enjoy it. And staying up late with Daddy and cooking marshmallows around a fire didn't hurt either!

Sunday Mrs. Hold and S12 went on a class trip to NYC. D10 and I did some yard work and then D10 and I made dinner.

Apparently S12 sat with a friend on the bus to NYC, so Mrs. Hold sat with another Mom who recently got divorced. A bunch of Mom's were asking the divorcee what it was like. And how her life had changed. She said "not much". Mrs. Hold looked at her and said "yes, but you got a nice settlement and have family money so you could buy another house in the same town and take a 9 - 3 job to be home with your kids in the afternoon. I think many women would not have such an easy transition." Mrs. Hold said that all the other women looked thoughtful, trying to decide how they would be living after a divorce. I said "I don't think you could afford to stay here". She said "no, I guess I couldn't." We looked at each other for a few seconds before turning the conversation to what I made for dinner.

So I got to do many things I enjoy over the weekend. And again spent zero time alone with Mrs. Hold. I was struck while sitting with D10 listening to music around a fire that I very much enjoyed being there with her, but I would have been uncomfortable being there with Mrs. Hold. Oh well. Who kows what the future will bring.

P.S. Has anyone seen the pictures?

Glad your weekend went well. Yep, I saw the pictures...those are some boots!!!!!!

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Yes, it was probably the last weekend of the spring when the ground would be wet, so I am glad we fianlly got everything into the ground that is going in this year.

And it is always good to get time alone with each kid. Time passes so quickly. And S12 is beginning to exert his independence. So every event alone with him is precious.


Yeah, they were. After 45 minutes in the parking lot waiting for the walk to begin, and then a mile walking up and down hills (the person who had the walk end on a steep down hill was cruel), my feet hurt. I still don't know how you ladies wear high heels all day at work.

But we raised lots of money and the boots got on tv so it was worth it.

well, I won't speak for all of us, but personally, my work doesn't involve standing around in parking lots (or street corners) for 45 minutes at a time. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Mine's mostly a desk job, so the shoes don't have to be toooo practical.

that's very interesting.
worth exploring.....i think.
i don't think it is an uncommon feeling.

i have had similar feelings....feeling bad after having casual sex.....sex w/ a guy i know i didn't want a relationship with.
casual sex never really worked well for me.
my H was more of a typical guy in that area.he would have casual sex w/ a willing partner.....but, even he has said that after a few times w/ no connection...it lost it's appeal for him.
that's why he stuck it out w/ me. (what a romantic, huh?)

AND i have experienced that feeling w/ my H a few times thru the years.....went thru periods of time where i felt empty after sex (even if it was decent sex) because i really wasn't sure how i felt about him....
but,i have mananged to get the positive feelings back for him.

hey.....how do I get to see those pictures?

Pictures? I sent them to Starfish and seekingjoy. Those are the only MBers I have e-mail for. They emailed them to Kathi and presumably a few others. Does anyone here have your e-mail address?

Mrs. Hold is complaining that she feels she is all alone planning the Bar Mitzvah. S12 said he doesn't want to have to be the center of attention at the party. He is uncomfortable with so many people coming up to congratulate him. D10 said she would be happy to be the center of attention. I asked S12 if he wanted us to hire a body double for the party. He could do the religious part in the morning and then have the body double go to the party at night. He smiled and said "good idea, no, wait, I don't want to go that far, the party is for me after all". So we shall see where the party planning takes us.

There was an article in the Science Times today about weight being genetic. Mrs. Hold said she thinks there is no way D10 will ever be able to be thin. Mrs. Hold pointed to herself and said "with this genetics, she has no chance". I asked how she stayed thin for all the years before we got married. She said "I starved myself". I replied "oh, that explains it". I was thinking: so how you looked was another lie. You knew you could not remain that size without starving yourself, and you did not plan on starving yourself for the rest of your life. Liar liar liar.

Well, now she is married to someone like herself. I was honest when we met. Honest when we first got married. Honest while we were in marriage counselling. But now I avoid revealing the truth. Man this stinks.

Sorry for the downer post. Got in a car accident on the way to work. Was only planning on keeping the car until December. Certainly wasn't planning on investing any money in it. Now we'll have to see. Oh well, at least no one was hurt. It is only money.

i get annoyed w/ all these studies that blaming genetics.
my son was just diagnosed w/ chrones disease and they are saying it is genetic....but, nobody on either side of the family was ever diagnosed w/ it.

i think you and Mrs. H might be giving the genetics theory too much credit.
weight...
I still say a lot of it is learned eating habits.
was Mrs.H an overweight child?
and as far as starving herself to stay stay thin before marriage......that is not terribly unusual......if i want to be THIN i have to watch everything i eat very carefully....o suppose i am more vain than Mrs. H because i HATE feeling fat....but, i know that starvign myself isn't healthy either.

i wonder what her genetics would say about her weight if she ate a healthy moderate calorie diet and got some simple excersize???
I have not been followong a very healthy diet or excersizign much in the last year or so.......I am not as thin or toned as i would prefer but i am not overweight either......and i think that is simply becuse i am not over-eating the wrong food.

The article in the Science Times was pretty clear on about 50 years of scientific studies. 2 or 3 in particular.

In one, they got overweight people to lose weight by keeping them in the hospital and monitoring their intake. The people lost weight. But their metabolism was about half of the metabolism of people who weighed the same but had never been overweight. In order to stay thin, they had to eat half of what a never overweight person of thwe same weight could eat.

In a study of prisoners, they got a bunch of skinny prisoners to gain weight. They had to feed them enormous amounts of food. And at the end the prisoners (who were not exercising) were burning twice as many calories as people of the same weight who had not started out thinner.

They also did studies of kids who were adopted at young ages. Their weight as adults was closely correlated to their biological parents' weight, and not well correlated to the weight of their adopted parents. So kids with a genetic tendency to be heavy ended up heavy even if they grew up in a household of thin people with healthy eating habits.

Many studies show that the body increases and decreases its metabolism in order to return weight to a "set point" that is determined genetically. Which may be a range of 20 pounds. So it isn't that hard to move from the top of the range toward the bottom. But it is hard to move outside the range. That does not mean you can't ever move your weight away from the set point range. It just means that your body is going to fight against it and it requires constant vigilance and willpower to stay elsewhere. It is clearly not worth it to Mrs. Hold to remain vigilant for my sake. At this point, I guess I don't blame her. We'll see whether it becomes worth her while in the future.

I do agree that watching your diet and getting some exercise helps alot. I said that to Mrs. Hold today. I explained that she and D10 do not eat as healthy a diet as they should. She said "I serve a vegetable with dinner every night." I said "yes, but you and D10 eat the bread and the cous cous and the rice. Rice is better than pasta, but you guys need to be eating salad and lean meat and vegetables. Eliminate the starch from our meals."

So I agree with you in general. And I keep suggesting that Mrs. Hold and D10 get more exercise. I have urged them to do it together. I have offered to do it with them. So far all I get back is "no thank you". I guess with D10 I need to take more of a lead. Maybe I can get her to play Dance Dance Revolution with me instead of watching tv at night. I got 2 dance pads on Ebay. We'll see if I can get her to join me. Even with the gym, I still have some belly flab that needs to be burned off!

Took D10 to the endocrinologist this morning. They took blood and will test for certain things that the "standard" blood test doesn't cover. Other than that, it was pretty much more of the same. Eat a healthier diet. Try to get some exercise every day.

They did stress the importance of milk. D10 doesn't like milk. They said soy milk was fine as an alternative, but no milk at all is a bad idea. So we will get some soy milk and see how D10 reacts.

Also, they are going to test her thyroid. Mrs. Hold was borderline low thyroid for a while so maybe D10 has inherited some of that.

Mrs. Hold has been pleasantly supportive about me totaling my car yesterday. She is trying hard to help me avoid a meltdown. I can feel the pull, so she isn't wrong to be concerned.

Hope everyone has a great day.

you totaled your car?
i missed that....sorry to hear that.

This could be part of the problem, but even with that they can give medications to help increase thyroid function.

Sorry to hear about your car, glad to hear everyone was okay.

And of course Mrs H is being supportive of the accident she wants a new car...

Nia and TR, thanks for the support.


Yes, it is kinda like we wish they Do find something wrong as long as the something wrong can be fixed reasonably easily.


Yes, she quickly got online and started looking for new cars. The ones she wants are way more than we can afford. I explained that we need to wait until December when her car is paid off, then we can trade in her car for a new car for her. Otherwise, we don't have enough of a down payment and she will get an even less expensive car. She pouted, but only for a short while, and then she went back to being supportive.

Don't know what I am going to do about a car for the next 6 months. That is too long for us to share a single car. Ah well, we'll think of something.

But the good news is that the kids have figured out what to do with the old wagon now that it is worthless. Donate it to a demolition derby driver and go watch him smash it to smithereens!

Maybe you could find a nice charity run to train for with your daughter. If you google "Couch to 5k" there is a nice program out there to get someone into running. Then you two could train together and hopefully she will keep up the exercise. A better approach to dealing with a kid that has weight problem is to get them active rather than to stalk their food intake (not that that is unimportant)but it could avoid the possible eating disorder that might follow from having the food police around.

BTW, I didn't mean to imply you are "the food police" just that focusing on food consumption sometimes has problematic outcomes for girls.

Kallista:

Very good points.

Yes, Mrs. Hold and I are very concerned about the messages we are sending. About food. About body image. About lifestyle. My cousin used to be anorexic and now she is a psychologist who counsels women with eating disorders. So we are well aware of the dangers here.

We try to focus on activity as much as diet. We encouraged her to find a sport. That is why we were so pleased when she enjoyed synchronized swimming. But that is only twice a week, 6 months a year. We need something year round like jogging or marathon DDR sessions.

Thanks for the tip on Couch to 5k.

I just posted this to someone who asked something like: we aren't having any sex, how can I get things to change?

--------------------
How do you get things to change? You stop trying to change her. Start trying to change yourself.

I am staying for much the same reason you say you are. Not because I love my wife and can't imagine living without her. But because the financial hit and the hit to my kids would be too devastating.

You need to realize that you are chooisng to stay. And that you have good reasons to stay. And that if you are choosing to stay, then you can't blame her for the lack of sex. You are just as much a cause as she is. If you really wanted sex that badly, you could leave. Stop focusing on the lack of sex and start focusing on the money and your kids and how much you gain by staying.

Fill your days and nights with fun activities. Some of them not involving your wife. Have a great time. Show her that you can have a great time despite the lack of sex. Or the lack of her being there with you. See if she doesn't get curious why you stopped chasing her for sex. Or why you stopped kissing her feet in the hope of getting some sex.

Most likely she is very comfortable with the way things are. Make her less comfortable. Not by attacking her of directly withholding what she wants from you. But by changing how you behave. How you spend your time. Spend lots of time with the kids, without her.

Maybe, if you are lucky, some day she will ask what is going on. And then you can tell her you are taking her advice. Making sex less inmportant in your life. And filling it with other satisfying activities. If she complains that she isn't getting as much of your time as she wants, well, then it is time to start negotiating for what you want.

Good luck. This stinks. I have never been able to do what I wrote above. But I am convinced that it is the path to happiness for those of us who, for whatever reason, won't choose to leave.
---------------------------

Wish I could take my own advice.

I'm going to play devil's advocate Hold.

I just don't see this as being do-able Hold. It isn't that a person doesn't want sex that bad it's that for a variety of different reasons that person would choose to stay.

The biggest reason I see is guilt. You'd feel guilty if you left the mother of your children. You'd feel guilty that you upset their lives and their happines for the sake of your own. The trouble is is that guilt keeps you from thinking outside the box. It's too hard to look past that initial shock and disruption to see the good that could come somewhere down the road. Sure there are financial implications but even then everyone would learn to adapt. It's a risk, most certainly, but maybe, just maybe it's a risk worth taking.

And then there's the crux of a person's true ability to stay and focus and put things in perspective like you say. We all know it isn't really something obtainable. Hold you insult yourself because you can't do this plan of staying and keeping things healthy ... well I'd say the majority of the population couldn't do it.

Sure the kids lives could be worse than if you stayed but ... it could be that their lives could be better ... especially in the long run. We have to take into account everything involved when it comes to parents D'ing or not D'ing. What types of behaviors are these children learning by their parents staying together.

Hold, we've had this discussion before. We've mentioned that the children once grown and in a R themselves would question why a person choose to stay in an unhealthy R. They may be grateful but I suspect also a bit disappointed that their parent didn't do more for their own happiness.

I know I am. Again here's my real world example:

At one point I felt indebted to my father because he stuck it out until we were grown. I saw the horrible R he had. My siblings and I always questioned why he didn't go find himself a better life. IMHO, knowing what I now know, if he did that then our family life would have ended up a lot better off.

Instead I find myself having grown up with two parents who weren't a team. They'd go through the motions but I never got to experience what a loving family really, REALLY looked like. Oh I got to see what a loving, caring father looked like but I didn't get any look at what a loving H looked like. I never got to see what a healthy Taker looked like. I only got to see what an over-giver and a martyr looked like.

Then at the end, after was all said and done, I got to hear how he left that M only because of infidelity. He never got to see this plan of sacrifice to fruition. He couldn't do it. It's too much for anyone to be able to do. To give up such a large part of himself because he feared the unknown of what a broken home would do.

To this day I struggle with the guilt of asking for my needs to be met. I'm getting better but it's taken me 4 years of being here to get there. And I'm still not there yet.

I could go on about my personal history. I will end by saying things would have been better for everyone if my father would have left a lot, lot sooner than he did.

If I were to execute this plan I would find myself a single man at nearly the age of 60. Uhmmm, yeah I'm not going to spend my mid-life years waiting for the end to get my needs filled.

It's a noble plan Hold. It really is. I just don't think a guy with a strong need for SF, admiration and affection is going to be able to sustain it.

What are the odds that a person would get 'lucky' like you say if they were to stick it out? My guess is about a 3000 to 1.

Mr Alias - I don't know how I feel about your response. I can't tell if I agree or disagree simply because I see the value in your words, but I have seen personal anecdotes to the contrary. I can't tell you how many times I have heard my mother or an aunt or an uncle talk about how their folks should have D'd long before they did. How bad the R was and how unhappy my GF was with my GM.

My W used to say it all the time w/re to her parents. That D was the best thing for them and that they should have done it long before they did. Perhaps she's right about that, but that was the prevailing lesson she took from them; if you're unhappy, you D and get a better life with someone else. It just doesn't occur to her to stay and work on it, because her parents never did.

I believe that it was the sitch's of 2 gens ago that set the stage for how common D had become one gen ago. Since I am 3'rd gen from it, I HATE the permissive atmosphere re D. Their perceptions of bad Rs and bad Ms led them to seek D with far less concern than they should have had IMO.

It's funny when we can trace our experiences of today back one or two generations.

Sorry hold - I'm sure that I didn't help your decision in any way.

Seabird,

I first should have qualified my reasoning for D'ing by saying that a person should do all they feel is humanly possible to do before the take the big plunge.

I really didn't qualify it because it was in response to Hold who has tried a myriad of things to change the dynamics of his M except perhaps doing things he'd be less than enthusiastic in doing (Like being an extremely aggressive lawyer just on the premise of making more money for her and the lifestyle she chooses). Hold and Mrs. Hold really have some very large differences in some of their values and behaviors.

In my father's case he stuck around way too long putting up with the unhappiness and abuse from my mother. Granted she was mentally ill but that's no reason to stick around being abused and taken for granted.

I have some of the same feelings you have surrounding the quickness in which many people to just up and leave. They never fix their issues and only take them with them into their next R.

Was Hold's response aimed toward your situation?

I agree that things might be better if I leave sooner rather than later. I agree that things might have been better if your father had left sooner. I disagree that you can ever know that they WOULD have been better.

Maybe you and your sister would have grown up into the caring and responsible people that you are, AND you would have gotten a better example of a spouse insisting that their own needs be met. Or maybe, if the divorce had happened years earlier, you and your sister would have hit a bump that threw you off course.

I would say that on the whole, though you may wish things had been slightly different in certain ways, that your father did a great job of parenting you. So he basically got what he was aiming for in making his choice to stay. Perhaps he would also have gotten it if he had left sooner. But no one will ever know.

Instead of blaming him for being a martyr. You might consider admiring his sacrifice on your behalf. I spent decades blaming my shortcomings on how my father treated me. I know how tempting it is to say to one's self "if only my father had done x, then it would be much easier for me to behave in a certain manner today". Maybe. Maybe not. You'll never know.

If you know deep in your bones that he loved you, then you got all that you were entitled to. I finally accepted that I did. And it has made a huge difference in how I relate to my parents.