So what were your thoughts?

You can't stay on the ROAD TO SUCCESS?

You want to tell us about your SETBACKS???

You thought you might just THROW THIS OUT and see what happens..GOING TO A BAR???

Queenie,

Stay out of the bars. There is nothing there. Nothing. Music, schmusic. ESPECIALLY after a meeting, when you are most vulnerable, after realizing a low, after digging deep to find your next step.

You have posted so much about how low you are since your WIN in court. Don't rely on others to fill you up; you MUST work toward loving yourself. TEMPTING yourself by going to bars is going to backfire BIG TIME. Don't wallow in self pity.

You can do this, Queenie.

Sure, I would like to have a man to bite into, um, er, I mean, talk to, but that will not stop me from doing what is best for me and choosing just any old body, so as to not be alone. I want MORE, better things. I'd also rather be alone than with someone who does not want me or see my value.

I came home and realized that part of me is being a martyr for being willing to stay in this M. You know look at me, look how good and loving I can be for this flipping loser of a man who doesn't give a rip that he is destroying a family.

But that's the self pity person. Truly I buy into the addiction part and understand that he is just in his addiction and the sad truth is we don't know if he will come out or not.

So the day to day task of building a new life becomes more important. I personally would have rather gone to AppleBee's, I just wanted to go out and laugh, the walls were closing in on me. Then truly I am not trying to be difficult, but what can I do that's fun at night that's safe and yet lets me feel alive by having fun?

I get the no bars. I'm in agreement that it really can be dangerous. I'm am SO NOT looking for a man in there. They drink, I don't want someone who drinks. I want my H. But I want to feel alive inside and laugh and feel like I can have fun. My friend who has walked through this with me IRL, her divorce is in the final stages and maybe what didn't occur to me was our life is changing as friends and I am losing her b/c she if free to do that single life, but I'm not.

I do not want to live in self pity. I really don't. I am working so hard to find a way to get out of my funk, pick up the darn pieces and move forward in building a new life for me. A life that I don't want to build, but really have no choice. A life that is completely different than the dream I had.

Please don't abandon me Mimi, I am working so hard at trying to navigate through this and learn to take care of myself. But I DO NOT WANT TO and I am fighting internally just as hard as I can between my successes and my tendency to destroy.

Yes, when things are going good, my natural instinct is to destroy. I'm my own addict/alcholic and I am dealing with my own addiction along side learning to let go and leave WH to G-d.

And learn that I am A FLIPPING WORTHY PERSON.

Which I don't buy for one second and I'm working so hard to just act as if and believe that one day I will truly buy into it.

I DON'T SEE what you or G-d sees in ME. I am walking in FAITH that one day I will, but it's a flipping hard walk and one that just simply gets tiring to me. But I keep on going and I keep on fighting to survive.

{{{{{{{{MIMI and SL}}}}}}}}}

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Don't ALLOW yourself all the backpeddling, the martyr hat, all that jazz.

You give yourself an inch and the negativity will take a mile. No OH WHOA IS ME-ING. Your life is no more difficult than many, and for some, it's easier.

Look on the bright side.

Seriously, you had a great win; a lot of financial burden is lifted. It may not be all that you want, but it's all that you NEED.

Your girlfriend would probably love it if you invited her over for a spot of supper or to go to a movie, or local theatre or museum, or roller skating. I dunno, just put your thinking cap on. You don't have to go to a bar to keep a friend. That's your insecurity talking. REAL friends don't ABANDON. Real friends tell it like it is and stick around for the aftermath of their frankness. Yes, lives can diverge and converge with friends, depending on your personal situations, but that won't STOP the relationship unless YOU want it or allow it to.

I have girlfriends that are in various stages in their lives. I don't see them all the time, but I see them enough, and email and call. I go to their houses for dinner or to just talk, or they come to mine.

I SEE YOU DOING THIS...and that WORRIES me for you...

The FIRST STEP is to ACKNOWLEDGE and ACCEPT, right? So this is GOOD STUFF...

Of course, I'm not going to ABANDON you. Don't worry about that...

Don't have much time to post right now...

BUT I'M HERE FOR YOU, Queenie...

Ok, I'll work on being more creative. It's a bit more challening in the sticks late at night. But who knows what I can come up with.

Actually I am truly cool with the amount of money, it is exactly what I asked for, I missed understood what I was asking for. I just haven't seen it yet. Don't know how that works.

This abandonment thing is a little more deep than I realized. I usually pushed people away before they got too close and got the chance. I gave H the chance and he became WH and abandon. But, I'm looking at why I did what I did and learn from it and grow.

That's all I can do is learn about me. But it's just a little scary. It makes me a bit more vulnerable than I want to, but I'm just putting one step in from of the other and will work on the no back peddling.

Thanks.

Good stuff, but a little challenging. Now would be a good time to pick back up my writing and work through this stuff. I'm also heading over to my sponsors house and she and I are going to the women's meeting together.

I have avoided that meeting for a long time.

No more avoiding, just keep praying, walking with G-d and trusting what is happening.

{{{{{{{MIMI}}}}}}}}}

To whom? To yourself? That's the best place to be with yourself. My best enlightenment has come at accepting who I am, mistakes, lumps and bumps and all. It's an ongoing process, but it's working wonders for me.

Queenie, you cannot stop people from abandoning you, but you must stop abandoning yourself in favor of others.

Well today is as good as any to start working on this one. For sure

How am I abandoning myself in favor of others?

If you lend an active WAYWARD too much space in your life, in your thoughts, then you abandon a bit of yourself in favor of them.

ah, good point..

I will limit myself to only 22 hours a day.

silly lady.

I'm currently allowing my brain space to be taken up by reading up on memory loss and PTSD. I have a lot of empty spots in my mind that have developed since all this madness started.

What are you reading? I am looking for some lighthearted reading right now that is just mindless but taking up time. Any thoughts?

Light hearted reading.....

my book club has read - - a depressing book about a man who joined the circus, a book about a child whose father was the commandant at Auschwitz, a book about a man who married a prostitute.....and now we are reading a mystery that I won't shell out $20 for and can't find anywhere less.....

At the last meeting, some of us rebelled and announced that we had to have a mystery or something lighter. We had read too much despair and depression.

I did read a Jimmy Buffet book. Not great literature but not depressing, "A Salty Piece of Land". I've read Kinky Friedman's book about running for governor of Texas. and I'm reading Roy Blount, Jr.'s book about New Orleans.

I've yet to find the right book for this summer.

NPR has a librarian who does a feature periodically and has recommendations.

Oh, if you haven't read the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books by Alexander McCall Smith, you should. I love them. The titles are great, too: "The Kalahari Typing School For Men", "Morality Tale For Beautiful Women", "The Good Husband of Zebra Drive" and the such like. They are set in Botswana and are just wonderful. A little mystery. A little morality tale. Simply told. Get to your library and check them all out. They are easy reading.

Hey Cinders, you gave me the best idea. I have Earlene Fowler mystery books that involve quilts. I can read one of those.

Thanks.

I have to keep moving forward, but a little mind escape that's natural, not a bar, can't hurt me, right?

I just finished reading "help Im living with a man boy" by betty McLennan.

Its not bad, kinda of helpful for understanding some stuff.

Understanding some stuff, like what?

Mind escape reading is good for you, sometimes.

Mostly about emotional immaturity in some men, and how they use their childhoods as an excuse for their current actions.
there's a section in on infidelity. She doesnt particulary support reconcilliation, and believes everyone needs to have alone time and seperate hobbies in a marriage, but otherwise its ok.