Thanks, all.

Yeah, now that I don't have to look at my source of anger every day, all that's left is the sadness. I just don't have another person on Earth to talk to about it in real life. Not one.

Aphelion, I'm just going to assume you're right, since you usually are. It's just hard to see past the end of my nose right now.

You are getting great advice here. K71. Maybe in addition you could counsel with a divorced/seperated group -- maybe a pastor or a Stephen Minister. Voulenteer sometimes can get your mind off your problems -

but besides that now, ...i got nuthin.

Online is great, books really help- but sometimes you want to talk to a real person. I hear ya.

Krazy,

I feel for ya bro. Yeah, it is lonely. Can you take up any hobbies? What about Church and getting involved in activities there? Do you call your FWW and chit chat? Maybe you are just grieving since you have chosen plan D and its hard to see the new life. I think you will meet someone else down the road when you are healed and life will bounce back. Its tough, but at least you were not the WS.

DUDE

This sure stimulates my remaining neuron.

I sacrificed all my friends, almost all social interactions, even my own FOO in an effort to keep my M going all those years of the VLTA. Eventually I had no one left to talk to except an IC, whom (who?) I was paying to listen to me. Sheesh. What fools we are, huh.

Fools we were, I mean.

Fools no longer!

Now we can live a genuine, truthful and meaningful life.

Look at it this way– the bars are gone. The cage is open. Only a fear of the unknown, a fear of failure, keeps us inside there now.

Walk into your future Krazy. You have no idea what joy awaits you.

I'm so sorry hon.

It will drop below immense...I know you need it to do so now.

I wish we could be of more help.

LOVE this Appy.

Specially the dernin' 2Long bit.

You are not alone. Probably more of us BS's end up where you are now than recovered. I can remember how I went from having not enough hours in a day to get things done, to far to many hours in a day to fill. Weekends were the worst. And everyone's advise, while well meaning, seemed impossible. How can you take up new interests when you aren't even interested in your old interests? Everything else seems utterly unsatisfactory.

I know you've heard it before and it sounds like a cliche, but believe me, it gets better. I don't know what you can do to get to the better part sooner, but it does come.

I wish there was something I could say to ease your pain. There's no way around it - only through. You will get to the other side, I promise.

Again, I'm so sorry you are feeling this way right now.

Thank you again to everyone.

I'm so sorry for your pain Krazy.



All I can say is how sorry I am for your pain, and how I am certain in the knowledge that something much better awaits you.

Ok Krazy,

Here is what you do.

First you take Ap's advice and you stay away from 2Long, that crusty old dude will have you spending all sort of money on astronomy.

Next you take my advice and stay away from golf, who needs the expense and heartache.

Next you take W.C. Fields advice and you "NEVER invest in anything you have to paint or feed."

Now you sit down and realize that you are in fact doing something, and what you are doing right now is healing. Yup, you feel like ****, and frankly you are supposed to. IF you truly loved, if you truly committed your life, if you truly focused your life on this woman, then losing her is going to hurt and hurt bad. It should, don't shy away from it. Let your mind process, let your heart heal, and know that this does take time. But, know this Krazy a man that gave it his all is a man to be proud of. Take pride in what you did.

Now in a few weeks or perhaps a month I want you to take the advice of one of my college football coaches: "Damn son do something wrong right once in your life."

In short, do something don't just stand there. You will need to take this advice and I will embellish it by saying do something that brings you into contact with people.

Krazy, if any of us had a clue how to take the pain away we would...yup and be millionaires as well. But, we really cannot. Oddly, you cannot either, but that doesn't mean you won't heal, that you cannot have a great life, but Krazy it takes years, not days, not weeks, not months...YEARS to get things back and humming again. Give yourself the time and have the patience to do this.

God Bless,

JL

Part of the healing and recovery is going thru the fire of immense pain and coming out the other side. Whether you salvage your M or try to start a new life, the pain is a common factor. I had days ( weeks really) where the pain threw me into a terrible cycle of derpression and it was not bearable.
Having FWH to talk to in RL only helps salvage my M not my personal pain. Thats a path the BS pretty much has to walk kinda independent no matter what their sticth.
You can and will find the strenght to endure this.
Stay here vent and feel all the support that is being directed to you.

What helped me was I made a list of 10 things that if I did them I would be happy no matter what:
1) listen to music
2) Go to a yoga class,
...
you get the idea

When it was unbearable I forced my self to do one of those things and it provided temporary relif until I could find the next bit of strenght to get thru the next wave or pain.
I am also not a journal keeper but I really started to write down my feelings an my pain and it made a HUGE impact, being able to voice all I was really feeling inside. Its kinda neat to be able to look back and see how much progress once can make.

Your seperation is pretty recent so dont be so hard on yourself .
Just get comfort in knowing that there will come a day when the pain is more bearable and you might actually be able to go an entire day without talk of A being the center of it.

Krazy,
I have no sage advice and can only imagine the pain you are going through. As far as activities go, you could try riding motorcycles or going to a nearby lake. My dad has really gotten into riding and there is some bike function/ride/poker run always going on. As far as the lake goes, I have never met nicer people. However, you do have to be careful as just like everywhere else, some of those crowds drink excessively. My uncles meets a ton of people at the gym, but i am not real sure if you are into working out. I have a few friends that enjoy hiking (although I do not). I am sure you will find something to occupy your time!

Krazy,

I hear ya. There are many evenings that I came home to an empty condo and wondered if I should have stayed with WH and just looked the other way when it came to the A. I miss coming home to someone to have dinner with, someone to tell about my day, someone to talk with about DD and now grandchai, someone to discuss future plans with, and on and on. On those evenings, I would log onto the board here and read, just to know that I wasn't the only one going through this.

I tried to keep busy by doing things around the condo, going to the mall, walking the dog, etc. but the bottom line for me is that everything is better when shared, preferably with your life partner.

So I have no answers for you except that time does help to lessen the pain, but you may still be alone and lonely. It just becomes more of a routine. I just don't want it to be this way forever and I'm sure you don't either.

Krazy,

You've been stuck in the anger of grief, and you are now fully immersed in the sadness. When the Z left, I went from all that anger to a deep sense of loss. The family I had been fighting so hard for was truly over, once and for all. Accepting that has been one of my biggest hurdles. I now know, though, that I have been healing all along the way.

I hope you spend a good deal of time with your children. If not, then start--plan things to do, even if it's just a nature walk, or learn to make home made pizza together, make a mess and maybe get a laugh. Get some good ole Vitamin D from the sun. Don't sit in solitude if you can avoid it. Learn something new, like, I dunno, whittling something from a piece of wood...

Things are tough right now, but it IS temporary. Initially, I just put one foot in front of the other, breathed in and out and existed, faking a smile and laugh for my son--which sometimes helped, too. After a little while, I laughed, smiled and even FELT those things inside. Now, I laugh my [censored] off, and make my own happiness when I do something I've come to enjoy, something that gives me a sense of satisfaction, like baking a superb loaf of bread or teaching my son something new. I take joy in small things, like the smell of honeysuckle in the spring, counting the freckles on my DS's nose, or reading a book FOR FUN. I had forgotten that non self-help books existed.

Try like heck to not dwell on the past; that can easily get you bogged down. When you start to think of it, change the subject in your own head, or do something physically challenging, like a gazillion push ups or, in my case, one push up Recognize that happiness is also a choice and then persue it.

It's going to be okay, Krazy. It may not be perfect, it may not be the picture you had painted in your head, but it will all be good again.

Krazy,

You are one of my favorite people on this board and having read (and understood) so many of your sometimes angry, sometimes hilarious posts, to feel this kind of raw sadness from you breaks my heart.

You know that eventually you will have to get out there and do stuff and mingle and figure out how to go on with your life. Until you get to that point, though, I agree with the others that you have to give yourself time and let your heart heal. Give your brain a chance to wrap itself around your new reality. It will come, Krazy, but until then, you have us here to bounce your thoughts around and get ideas on how to move forward.

(((((((((Krazy))))))))))))

We're here for you, buddy!

ps- Aphelion! Who are you and what did you do with that guy who wouldn't let himself be happy? You have said some amazing things to Krazy, and I hope you really are as happy as you seem now!!

Nuthin to offer other than to commiserate...

Mark

Krazy,

I know the feeling. Thing is you are a valuable, wonderful person. If you were not hurting, that would mean you are not a valuable, wonderful person, because that would mean you had lived a lie. It would mean you were not emotionally and spiritually invested in your Wife. Now you cannot be, and because you are a valuable wonderful person you are experiencing the real pain of loss.

I imagine the advice here to get out and do something seems far from what you want to do right now. I imagine it may be because no matter "where" you are, "it" is still there inside your head and heart, so why bother changing the scenery.

Time.

Experience your grief. You have no choice. Face it, embrace it, analyze it, do all those things that you might feel self-indulgent for doing. It is necessary for you to go thru it and it's ok.

Silver does not become pure until it has been smelted in a fiery hot furnace. Don't skip any steps.

Just don't stay in the furnace too long. You will know when it is time to get out and you will have the power to do so.

Peace.


SWW

Hey! What's wrong with pissin' away a few K on a telescope now and then?

One of my W's favorite lines out of "Firefly", when the lead character was sending his crew off his crippled ship 2 fend for themselves, and one said "we don't want you 2 die alone": "Everybody dies alone".

Which is true, but not in the fatalistic way that my W relishes that quote for.

We also live alone. I think when a long term marriage ends like this is when people realize that all the efforts 2 make or even just expect your WS 2 do something for you - 2 take responsibility for our happiness - were for naught because they were misplaced.

And when one realizes that THEY ALONE are responsible for their own happiness, and that marriage is a sharing between 2 emotionally-healthy people, not a swapping of commodities (romantic love, ENs) "or else I'll find them elsewhere" - well that's where real happiness lies. Or contentment. Or maybe just wisdom.

Frank Pittman's "Grow up! How taking responsibility can make you a happy adult" would be a good book 2 read right about now.

That, and a nice view of Saturn through an 8" or larger telescope!

-ol' 2long

Ok, Ok, yours is larger...

Have you decided about OSP yet? And let me know if you want the dates for Table Mountian.