I DEFINITELY got an unsolicited ILU this morning! Man, it felt like a drink of water after running 10 miles.

W slept nude last night...no explanation. I didn't ask - just observed. Good night kiss was accepted but she made it clear she wanted to go straight to sleep (not that I was looking for anything else - but she wasn't interested in talking before going to sleep). This is also unusual, as she usually watches TV while I read at bedtime. (BTW - I really don't like having a TV in the bedroom).

Plan A is still going well, and I'm getting feedback (although not verbal). I've avoided lots of LBs over the past few days and taken advantage of lots of opportunities to make deposits in the love bank.

I think the hardest thing I face now is alone time (like my long commute) when I start playing what-ifs through my head. The bad thing is that I sometimes have to make a conscious effort to change my mood. The good thing is that I think I am unconsciously preparing myself to cope with the worst-case scenarios. Last night on the way home I played out the transition from Plan A to Plan B. It was scary, but I think that if it comes to Plan B I'll be prepared - and she won't be. I still don't have a timeline in mind for when I change to Plan B, but I do know what the deciding factor will be. W still has expressed no remorse for the A (she doesn't even consider it an A). That will need to change before I can trust anything else.

It's amazing how such little things can hold such meaning and have such an impact. Wife LB'd big time today when she refused a hug. We've had a pretty good weekend so far and for her to do that really threw me into a tail spin.

Me: (walking toward her as she's walking into the kitchen) I'm going to drop the movie off and get another one for tonight, is there anything you need me to pick up?
W: No
Me: (arms spread for a hug as we meet)
W: (walks around me)
Me: Can I have a hug?
W: I just want to get my laundry put away, and I'm tired. (walks into the kitchen)

This s**t continues and I'll be in Plan B before I know it.

2,

Still NC? Those kind of reactions make me wonder.

Also, if she is THINKING about OM at that time or just recently, she'll be somewhere in fantasyland and your hugging her will knock her out of it, making her a little uncomfortable and probably a bit irritated. Make sense?


Keep doing it and keep watching. If your meeting her ENs get MORE difficult due to her resistance, it would make me really question what she's been doing. But don't freak out yet. Stay with the plan.


Oh yeah...don't appear needy (not that asking for a hug is needy), but she might see you as needy in her state of mind.

Thanks Michele - I think you might be right about fantasyland. I'm sticking with the plan...sometimes I have to just talk myself down. Posting here helps

Listen to Michele. This type of thing is often a sign of continued contact. The unpredictability of her reactions is imo the biggest indicator. If she's fine one week/day/hour/minute and not the next that is a big red flag. The highs of the A combined with the associated guilt create mood swings, to say the least. If you are seeing this and can't figure out wtf is going on, I'd bet heavily on them being caused by renewed contact. How certain are you that NC is being maintained?

Short of hiring a PI, I have no way of verifying NC. Since W still won't admit that I have a valid reason to feel hurt by this relationship, I have to assume that NC is not being maintained. I continue to snoop, and have found no evidence of contact...but OTOH the relationship was primarily over the phone in the first place. There's nothing to say that W isn't calling him from work, and that's something I can never verify. She's not using her cell phone, the home phone or the computer, and when she has said she'd be somewhere out of the norm, she's been where she said she'd be. I can't afford a PI, but I do have a lot of "private eyes" helping me watch both of them.

So yeah, you guys are probably right about it being guilt related mood swings and NC is probably not being maintained. Sometimes in the midst of Plan A you just get so tired of having to act like you were the one who 'broke' the relationship. I'm glad the weekend is over so my Plan A gets scaled back a bit.

A PI can cost you about $100 for a background check or about $2k for a deposit and snooping.

I don't know if you can get a loan for that from somewhere, but you could always do the snooping yourself by taking leave or getting a GPS tracker.

I'd also be on the lookout for another cell phone.

Her behavior is definately that of a WW and I have a hard time believing that someone she communicated so intensely with just drops off like that out of nowhere.

Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.

Focus on your DD5 and take good care of yourself.

On a side note:

How do you know DD5 is really yours? Have you had this confirmed? Does she look like you?

See, I have twin boys. One looks nothing at all like me, but we both have the same genetic blood condition, so I know he's mine. The other one looks just like me and I call him "mini-me".

DD looks just like me as well.

I just want to make sure you're not in denial about your DD and just don't want to know the truth.

Sorry for the tough question.

DD5 is definitely mine - she looks exactly like me (poor kid). PI is out of the question...I just have better things to spend or borrow for.

If W thinks she can indefinitely keep reaping the benefits of Plan A without making any effort, she's seriously mistaken.



Those are the rules of my life right now. I'm not making any decisions about when to start Plan B until we get some feedback from the MC (tomorrow is our 3rd session, so uptake should be about over.) MC should be coming up with some kind of plan soon - we'll see how W responds to it and then decide what the timeline's going to be. So far she has shown little effort and no remorse for the A (which at this point seems to have been an EA only...I may never know). That needs to change.

Updates - I'm not in a real good place today

- MC was strained on Tuesday. W seems to be participating less. I did get some good information about how I handle conflict with W and took the lesson. W feels that when I upset her, I focus on how it makes me feel to have upset her, and not on how she feels. MC asked if this made sense to me. I said "no, but if I know that's how to handle it, I can do that." To me, if someone upsets me, I want to know that it affects them and they are willing to make amends. W gave me the "I too have thirsted" speech (from White Men Can't Jump - Rosie Perez). MC asked us what we learned in this session...I said I had learned that other people don't necessarily think about things the way I do. W said "I defer". Also, MC recommended that I talk to her or someone else about my anger. I said that it sounded like Anger Management, and that there's a stigma attached to that that implies that I can't control my temper or I express anger in dangerous and hurtful ways. My problem is that I DON'T express anger because I fear the results. MC also asked how communication this past week had been - W said "polite". (F-ing polite?! I'm Plan A-ing my tail off and spending hours listening to all her stories about work and doing everything I can to express my love and all I get is "polite" !? She's the one who won't talk about our marriage outside of MC!)
In any event, MC said that next week she wasn't available until 8:00 instead of 7:00. W was totally inflexible about the change...didn't want to be getting home after 9:00. She's never been concerned about getting DD to bed before a specific time in the past, and there's no reason I can think of why the sitter can't put DD to bed. Anyway, W said she wouldn't be coming til the following Tuesday. I said that it sounded like an opportunity for me to come talk about my anger as was recommended. Maybe it was a ploy by the MC to see me alone, maybe not. But next week I'll go alone and I think there will be a lot more relevant information that I can impart that I don't feel comfortable with when we're there together.

- W is doing the weird work schedule stuff again. Wednesday she said she needed to leave early in the AM so I had to drop DD at day care. I said fine as long as you can pick up. She did. Yesterday DD came to work with me for Bring your child to work day. We had a blast. W didn't get home until after 8:30 and forgot her cell phone. I of course took the opportunity to check recent calls - nothing in there I don't recognize. Of course she can do whatever she wants on her work phone and I have no way to check.

- I ran into OM this morning at the deli. He saw me, looked away and said nothing.

We have no plans for this weekend. I'm feeling really distant today and close to withdrawing again. To be honest, I feel I'm getting closer and closer to just throwing in the towel and filing for D. More and more of my self-talk is about what life would be like after D and less about working through reconciliation. I don't know if that means that I want it less, or if I'm just tired and discouraged. I have a quote from the I Ching on my wall here at work: "If the little fox, after nearly completing the crossing, gets his tail in the water, there is nothing that would further. Perseverance brings good fortune."

I'm trying. But I could use some encouragement, and maybe a hug.

((((((2)))))))

MC will only help if the A has ended. The more I hear about her behavior, the more I suspect that it has not. It's still all about her.

Did she ever send an NC letter to OM? (Don't really need to ask that, I'm figuring no)

Do you have ANYBODY you could get to follow her?

IMO I would just assume that the A is still ongoing, but has gone a little deeper. You cannot verify that it is over, so you might as well assume that it's not. Your plan should remain as is.

You're starting to waver because she's LBing you big time and your love bank is getting lower by the minute. You're gonna have to protect that love pretty soon otherwise you aren't going to care anymore. So how long exactly would you say that you've been doing plan A? A month? Can you stick it out another?
The more you can do without going completely out of your mind, the better, but watch yourself. Monitor those feelings. If the feelings of getting a D linger for awhile, you may not be able to wait...you'll want to go to plan B.

Now I know you, at times, feel like just D, but plan B really is the pre D step that you don't want to skip. It gives you that peace of moving on, while still keeping an open door. It allows you to step back away from her LBs and horrific behavior. Your love bank stays in tact and doesn't get drained. It allows you personal recovery whether or not your M recovers or not. And it is the last heroic effort that you can make to save your M. You'll have done everything you could and you can look yourself in the mirror and know that.

Don't wait too long. Monitor your emotions. And go easy on yourself. If you can't muster alot of EN meeting then just be pleasant and not LB. That works too. I'm sorry things aren't better.

((Michele)) Thanks for showing up when I needed you

You figure right...no NC letter. W doesn't feel like she did anything wrong and sees no need. She verbally agreed to NC "if that's what it will take", and when I suggested a letter she said "that's just stupid". Yep...my feelings are pretty much unjustified so for her to acknowledge that they are valid is "just stupid." I left it alone because I didn't want to push. Figure I'll bring it up in MC if we get that far. W also thinks the whole idea of an EA is invalid. She compared it to me watching "Dumb and Dumber" with my childhood friend. "That's a need that I could just never meet for you, and I don't think it's a problem that someone else does." She compared it to the long conversations she has with her sister and a female friend from her previous job. "Are those affairs too?" She just doesn't seem to get that a friendship with a man, that I only know on a business basis, that she has kept totally hidden from me, despite the fact that for a while she was on the phone with him 30 minutes a day, is inappropriate behavior and hurtful to me. But she says she kept it from me because she "didn't want to have World War III". (can we all hear the foghorns in the distance?).

I've been Plan A-ing for just about a month - 3/25, the day I confronted her. Can I stick it out another month? Maybe. Maybe not. I went to kiss her goodbye this morning and she froze up like a statue...didn't even acknowledge that I was sticking my face out for a kiss. I was still reeling from the rejection when I saw OM at the deli. Many more days like this, and no...it'll be on to Plan B.

Plan B is going to be a problem for me though. We are in financial deep caca. There is no way in the world we can afford another residence and keep the one we're in. No way that one of us could keep the house without financial help from the other. Plan B or Plan D both require that the house be sold and the credit card debt be divvied up. Frankly, to go through what we would need to go through to get to Plan B, I doubt either one of us would be much interested in reconciling at that point anyway - A or no A. To reconcile after a Plan B would be to start over again 100%. Not that that would be a bad thing, but I'm pretty sure that her reaction would be "if I'm going to start over, I'm going to start over without you." To be honest, I think my gut feeling is about the same.

I think that what I'm going to do is start looking for work down south again. If I find something, I'll move down there and say - "you're welcome to join me if you'd like. Or not. If not, we'll work out some way for DD to spend equal time with each of us during the year." That way, the house would need to get sold no matter what happens. If she came with me, she'd be away from OM. Before D-Day she said she'd be willing to move to Texas with me if I found something...I don't know if that was just a way to separate or if she really meant it. In the meantime, I'll Plan A as long as I can. Today, my heart's just not in it. Need to back off tonight and see what tomorrow brings.

On a positive note - quality time with DD was maxed out yesterday. It was so much fun bringing her to work with me, and she really enjoyed it. At one point she said "I miss mommy." I said, "let's call her" and she said "no thanks."

She talked about her day at work the whole way home - all 100 minutes of the ride. When we got home from work, we played on her swingset, ate PB&J and milk outside and bottled up my latest batch of home brewed beer. She'd hand me empty bottles to fill and put them back in the case when they were capped. When I put her into bed she said "I love you Daddy....today was the best day ever."

Damn I love that kid.

Hi 2L2F,

I've not posted to you before, but our situations are similar in many ways...aren't they all??


Our financial situation has been in a downward spiral for many years while I was "busy" doing my military thing and WW was at home "in charge" of the finances...won't even go into the whole blind trust thing...stupid, stupid, stupid!

Anyway, I see a parallel, because I'm sure my WW is seeking to escape from the reality of so many things, including the mess she's made of our finances.

What I've tried to model over the last couple of years as we have been digging out of debt is a teamwork spirit and no "blame". My intent is to show her that you can "fix" the problems you've created in life, and that running away from them is, at best, a temporary solution.

As stated in the 31 Reasons to Stop the Affair, "baggage is never lost in transit.."

Just a thought...

The "other" L2F

L2F,

Thanks for the post - in my case it was me that made a mess of the finances. I've told her that when it comes to managing our debt I feel like I failed. A lot of it has to do with her losing her job and being unemployed for so long so I'm sure she feels a lot of guilt for that too. I've kept all the payments up to date, but I had to borrow heavily to do it and now we have more going out than coming in. We're working on it...but it creates an obstacle if we decide to separate/divorce. Come to think of it, if she seemed as interested in teamwork fixing our marriage as she does with the finances, I'd probably not be where I am now.

Today is just a bad day. Maybe tomorrow will be different - maybe even this evening will be different. I'm thinking I'm ready to quit and turn in my chips, but I need to hold fast. The Just B Still thread helps....

Weekend wasn't too bad. "Polite", I'd call it (to borrow an expression). I withdrew a bit and took a vacation from Plan A. Got lots of work done in the garden...good honest work. Getting down on your knees and getting dirt under your nails is good. I fertilized my garden with my soul . Also spent some quality time with my dog...also good for the soul. I think I can go back to Plan A-ing now...for a while.

I arbitrarily decided to Plan A until June 1st. If nothing changes by then, I'll start applying for jobs in Texas on June 2nd. That could take a while to make happen, so hopefully by summer's end I'll be on the road to recovery - either with or without W.

It's been a weird week so far. W has been changing moods like the wind. I went to see the counsellor Tuesday night by myself - she needed to move our session back an hour and W didn't want to have a sitter put DD to bed. So rather than skipping the session, we (the 3 of us) decided that I'd go by myself this week. It was a good idea - I was definitely in a place where I needed to talk and W just wasn't hearing it. I told the MC about my plan to keep Plan A-ing until 6/1. She thinks I should try to hold out longer...W's motivations aren't really clear yet. She thinks I should wait until we get further into finding out what W wants - she's still withdrawn. I shared with her my thought that W is only involved in counselling as a stepping stone to divorce...she said we don't know what motivates her yet. She gave me some strategies for communicating my unhappiness to W without making judgements (e.g. don't use the word 'you'...only talk about how 'I' feel). When the session was over I looked at my watch and realized we'd been talking for nearly 2 hours. Guess she didn't have another session after me...

Anyway, I like this MC...she's familiar with the Harleys and follows many of the principles. When I was alone with her, she felt like an ally, but when we're there together she is objective. That's encouraging. Whether or not my marriage can be saved, this MC will surely help me to being a better me. Whether my marriage survives depends on whether or not W starts cooperating and putting in some effort.

Not much to update today. It was a quiet weekend, not much opportunity to Plan A. W was friendly, but distant. Apparently, I'm not the only one pondering a cross country move. MC will be interesting tomorrow.

Anniversary is Saturday. I have no idea what to get - if I spend lots of money, she'll be mad because we're struggling financially. Somehow though, a card and some flowers seems awfully trite and understated. With Mother's Day the following day, I'm in a dither. We're going to dinner Friday night. At least it's an opportunity for a few hours of undivided attention.

The roller coaster just keeps a rolling...up and down and further up and further down with each turn. I feel myself heading further into a depression.

On a positive note - I'm now down 4 pants sizes. Bought some new jeans this weekend - smaller than I've worn in about 12 years. I also went out and bought an acoustic guitar...I'm committed to learning to play it. I've got a lot of songs cooking in my head, and I need to put voice to them. Sometimes I wish I could disappear to a cabin in the mountains for about a month until I'm ready to deal with people again.

MC also asked how communication this past week had been - W said "polite". (F-ing polite?! I'm Plan A-ing my tail off and spending hours listening to all her stories about work and doing everything I can to express my love and all I get is "polite" !? She's the one who won't talk about our marriage outside of MC!)

It doesn't pay to expect anything at this stage. Like taking the first pill in a two week course of antibiotics and wondering why you didn't bet better yet.

Recovery is a long process. Attitudes and feelings seldom change in a few weeks. Often it takes a few years.

That's something you should think about. Most of us what change NOW. Few of us ever get it on the time table we would like. I say you should think about it........ because you need to figure out if you can wait years. Do you have it in you to last that long?

In any event, MC said that next week she wasn't available until 8:00 instead of 7:00. W was totally inflexible about the change...didn't want to be getting home after 9:00. She's never been concerned about getting DD to bed before a specific time in the past, and there's no reason I can think of why the sitter can't put DD to bed.

Another thing to consider is that your W is what she is and YOU CAN'T CHANGE THAT.
You really can't. She is different from you, and you can't make her into something she is not.
I have the same problem with my W....... if you want to call it a problem. The French have a saying.......... "Viv La Difference." Roughly translated it means "Celebrate the difference."

Some of the difference is what made her the women you love. Some of it is the difference between men and women. Some of it may be that she doesn't get it yet.

The bottom line is that you can't change her. You can help her want to change, and you can be an example, and you can give her reasons to stick around and try, but you can't change her.

You can decide if you want to stick around and try - knowing what you know. If you do what to stick around and try.......... it's going to take a while.


Anyway, W said she wouldn't be coming til the following Tuesday. I said that it sounded like an opportunity for me to come talk about my anger as was recommended. Maybe it was a ploy by the MC to see me alone, maybe not. But next week I'll go alone and I think there will be a lot more relevant information that I can impart that I don't feel comfortable with when we're there together.

This is a chance for you to learn about YOU. No matter now bad our wayward spouse is, there are always things we can improve on too. If problems in the marriage are 1% our fault, and 99% their fault.... we can still work on our 1%. If you make improvements in you, then you get to keep them no matter what your W does. What a great gift.

We have no plans for this weekend. I'm feeling really distant today and close to withdrawing again. To be honest, I feel I'm getting closer and closer to just throwing in the towel and filing for D. More and more of my self-talk is about what life would be like after D and less about working through reconciliation. I don't know if that means that I want it less, or if I'm just tired and discouraged.

If you want to file for D, you can. It's that simple. You can. We won't stop you. Your W can't stop you, and the law permits it. You have choices, and you are free to exercise them.

Remember though, that you can try for a year or two, and if your W never comes around, you will still have that option. It is always good to make your plan a formal one. Determine how long you are willing to try, and write it down. Then run your plan for that long.

People have normal up and down cycles. You will feel good about things some days, and bad on others. This will happen even if she is responding well, and the down part of the cycle will be worse if she is not responding well. You need a plan to keep from bailing out on the down part of the cycle. She is still responding mostly from emotion. You need to get away from emotion here, and operate from logic.

I am not trying to minimize your feelings. They are valid for what is going on. You really can file for D if you want, it's your choice. However, if you want to have the best chance of success, there are things you can do to increase your chances. Having a time line is part of that overall plan.

Weekend wasn't too bad. "Polite", I'd call it (to borrow an expression). I withdrew a bit and took a vacation from Plan A. Got lots of work done in the garden...good honest work. Getting down on your knees and getting dirt under your nails is good. I fertilized my garden with my soul . Also spent some quality time with my dog...also good for the soul. I think I can go back to Plan A-ing now...for a while.

Gardening does that for me too. You do need to find things to get you back to center. That is another part of self improvement. I am glad you have something that helps.


I arbitrarily decided to Plan A until June 1st. If nothing changes by then, I'll start applying for jobs in Texas on June 2nd. That could take a while to make happen, so hopefully by summer's end I'll be on the road to recovery - either with or without W.

Recovery happens in stages. I didn't see this before I suggested you have a time line. This is a good start. Chances are that your W won't wake up one morning and say "I have been a fool, but now I am on board 100%.

More likely she will come around very slowly, here a little, there a little. We do well not to take stock of our situation daily, because we can seldom see progress from day to day. We do better to take stock every few weeks.


Anyway, I like this MC...she's familiar with the Harleys and follows many of the principles. When I was alone with her, she felt like an ally, but when we're there together she is objective. That's encouraging. Whether or not my marriage can be saved, this MC will surely help me to being a better me.

It encourages me to see you make these comments. You need to be a better you no matter what your W does.


Whether my marriage survives depends on whether or not W starts cooperating and putting in some effort. [/b]

This is true in the long term, however the final result may very well depend on how long you can wait for her to get on board. Most WW's come around in time.

Not much to update today. It was a quiet weekend, not much opportunity to Plan A. W was friendly, but distant. Apparently, I'm not the only one pondering a cross country move. MC will be interesting tomorrow.

How are you?
You don't sound depressed, but you don't sound really happy either.


Anniversary is Saturday. I have no idea what to get - if I spend lots of money, she'll be mad because we're struggling financially. Somehow though, a card and some flowers seems awfully trite and understated. With Mother's Day the following day, I'm in a dither. We're going to dinner Friday night. At least it's an opportunity for a few hours of undivided attention.

There are basically two kinds of gifts. The thoughtful, and the expensive.
If you can afford a 6 month around the world cruise, and a vacation home in her favorite place, you don't need to spend much time in thought, but if you can't, then think on it some. <grin>

I don't' have much money either, these are some things I have used for my W.

The right card will help. Flowers are always nice.
Perhaps her Favorite:
Candy bar.
Magazine
Snack Food
book (not about marriage)
Tub of ice cream
Drink
Certificate for Massage
Tickets for a play or concert
Have her car cleaned and washed
Put family photos together into an album
A nice family portrait (be careful with this one - think on it)
Hand lotion

The bottom line is that you should find a Small Indulgence of some kind.
Every women has things that she loves, but doesn't dare spend the money to buy – maybe it's a certain brand of shampoo, the good chocolate or a favorite magazine. Figure out what your wife has been denying herself, and then get it for her.

The roller coaster just keeps a rolling...up and down and further up and further down with each turn. I feel myself heading further into a depression.

Better get out to the garden RIGHT NOW. !!

Or you can come here and vent.


On a positive note - I'm now down 4 pants sizes. Bought some new jeans this weekend - smaller than I've worn in about 12 years. I also went out and bought an acoustic guitar...I'm committed to learning to play it. I've got a lot of songs cooking in my head, and I need to put voice to them. Sometimes I wish I could disappear to a cabin in the mountains for about a month until I'm ready to deal with people again.

I know a good place with a cabin, maybe I can go with you.

Ha, Ha.
Don't we wish.

Think about your plan, and your time line. Most of us are tougher than we think, and I would guess you are too. No matter how this goes, when it is over, you need to know you did the very best you could, and gave it all you had to give. You don't want to have any regrets.

Right?

SS

SS...thanks so much for those great comments! Even the ones I didn't want to hear (but needed to.)

Truth is, I kind of got hit with another brick and at this point I'm not sure what I feel safe posting about. So, yeah - I'm depressed again. Trying not to be - maybe that's why I sound somewhere in the middle. I've never been a "no pain, no gain" kind of guy - I've always been of the "it hurts when I do this, Doc. Then stop doing that." school of thought .

My head, and all the logic within me sees the truth in everything you said. My heart doesn't want to hear it...it wants to stop hurting.

I AM committed to making myself a better 'me'. But I'm also impatient, and sick of hurting. Looking back on the timeline I gave myself, I think I may have been underestimating how realistic a timeline it is, and overestimating how long I can take it. I doubt I'll stick to it...but at least I don't have to think about it until the time comes to either follow it, or decide to prolong it.

What I am in desperate need of now is encouragement, and your post is refreshing. My closest friends are all telling me to bail out. I don't want to bail out, so I stop talking to them. Then I'm left with what's between my ears and I start thinking I should bail out. But I don't want to bail out, so I get depressed.

I'm NOT ready to give up. I AM anxious to get to the next chapter though. We used to have a saying in the Navy - there are 3 ways to do everything: the hard way, the easy way and the Navy way. I haven't found the Navy way yet. But I'm still lookin.

Thanks for the post SS...I needed it.

Oh...and unfortunately, all of the gardening work is done now - at least until the weeds start coming up

What I am in desperate need of now is encouragement, and your post is refreshing. My closest friends are all telling me to bail out. I don't want to bail out, so I stop talking to them. Then I'm left with what's between my ears and I start thinking I should bail out. But I don't want to bail out, so I get depressed.


Your friends want you to be finished with the pain. They are not the experts. I am not an expert either, but the Harley's are, and this stuff works. I know it works. It should help that you know your friends care. I hope it does.

It's natural to get depressed. This is probably the most difficult thing you will ever do. Don't minimize it.

It's a time that many of us start wondering. What is life all about? Does it have a purpose, or is it a random series of events, and then we die?

If it does have a purpose, how do things that are happening to me fit in? What should I do about it?



I'm NOT ready to give up. I AM anxious to get to the next chapter though. We used to have a saying in the Navy - there are 3 ways to do everything: the hard way, the easy way and the Navy way. I haven't found the Navy way yet. But I'm still lookin.


For sure you don't want the hard way......... there is no easy way, and the Navy way scares me sometimes. <grin>


Tonight when you get home from work, look at the garden. If the garden is caught up, take your shovel, and dig a hole 6 ft wide, 6 ft long, and 6 ft deep. When you are finished, take a shower, and go to bed.

When you get home from work tomorrow, fill up the hole, take a shower and go to bed.

Repeat every two days until you feel better. <big grin>


I should quit, but I won't leave you there. Lets talk a little more.

Sometimes we hear people say things like "Your happiness depends upon you, not upon someone else."

There will come a day when you know this to be true, but first we need to get you through the worse of the hurt, and pain. It really does hurt. The pain is real. This is not all in your head. There are reasons you feel the way you do.

If you think though, you know that even if you walked away now, the pain would persist for quite some time. There would also be the pain of wondering what would have happened if you had tried.

Some might say that this is the chance for you to show your W what you are made of.......... and it is.
However, even more important, it is the chance for you to FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF what you are made of. I think you are good for it. I really think you are. Here you are, trying to make it work. Most people would have bailed out before now.

Your best chance would probably be to call the Harley's for counseling. If you can, I highly recommend it.

If you just need to talk though, we can help with that. Email me: ss at outdooroutlet.com if you want to talk and don't feel safe on the forum. (Take out the spaces and put in the proper symbol in place of the word at)

SS