I know very trite and probably most will think a fool but

Okay severe storems here shortly in No. Il,

am having to get out now. will try post when i get it secured

Ooooo, we have been having those...an 18 year old kid two towns over got hit by lightning yesterday.

Actually I just looked it up to see how he was doing...I guess he is fine...He opened the door to let his dogs in and he got struck...and a huge tree got hit and fell on a house on the same street...scary.

Look,


Simply I apologize again. And if need be I will apologise again and will say some heartfelt prayers for you. Look, sh I am going to confession tomorrow morning and I will offer prayers for you. Is all I can do.

I have been very busy the last few days with trying to get Char to at least consider another alternative - an assisted lviing facility that Does have a staff nurse and staff daycare. Obviously we need to work that our financially and we possibly can but she has turned it down flatly because she cannnot have our cats there. This is so important to her that I do not think any of you recognize that. It Is a dealbreaker. Had her here yesterday took her out to buy her a new summer wardrobe and then grilled for us. Took her for a walk around our area, she even insisted we kiss with we did. She finally agreed to talk to the counselor at this facility, and she actually hit me for telling the counselor that she is manic depressive and that she did start a fire. I guess I am used to that because I know she does not realize who she just hit.

Bottom line she wanted an immediate appt. to got see the admission counselor at this potential place, but earliest is next Tues. so, when we talked today and I told her it was fu.

I have not looked at the site here since the other nite I guess Wed. and when I posted here tonight when I got home from work I had hurried home because of severe storms here and I do love my garden (first in ten years) and wanted to protect the plants from wind and downpour. I have sort of kidded a few here who I have posted to here about my plants, but they are very important to me now.

I did look at my main thread...the hi hi hi. All I can say is thanks lots.

sh i am down now seriously and i did not appreciatate the h.s. humor. I realize that I may be on the wrong site, so with that I could understand.

Feel far worse now than I ever have. I even thought just a few minuites ago about a but trip to the northern part of my home statee. Okay - killing me.

Jesus you people, i know i have been harsh a few times here regardiing stillhere and I so apologize to you (her), and also when i criticised like Melody and a few others.

right now I am down you a few of you kicked me out of this world. just remember, yea that old saying if you have not walked it do not criticize. I have never given up until now. I am not putting the blame on you..just the encouragement for me to get out of here, and it sort of chimes with mt D telling me that dad why are you so forgiving, and my son why are you allowing her to allways call us every ten minutes.

for those of you who do not know, or maybe I have not told you her brother controls her inheritance and since it is a good sum she can last. my situation is that the total of separate living arrangements is that is is prohibitive. he does not 'trust her' because she is manic depressive and will not releae the funds.

okay am done here now. thank you some of you mb vets for making fun of me. thank you. I don't have the expertise like you lousy or you the road nor would I want it. But Damn lousy I did not cheat on My wife for five years or at all, and i no nothing about you the road. Char and I as of yesterday are still married we love each other and we have been together for 43 years now including 2 years of dating. so yea just kick and kick and hopefully it will get one of you to the accomlishment we have.


for validation for those of you humerous people may require it Char agreed yesterday to attempt to post on here but she honstley does not have any knowledge of computers so either I or my son would have to do the posting and help her.

Tired now, and not at all confident in this place.

sh. simply sorry and you are going to have my prayers for you the rest of my life. that is what i am going to confess to my priest tomorrow in my confession.

well not storms so far, but am going to watch a john wayne movie which i got today and ponder.

T

sh,

this is not anything on you but god I looked at the hi hi hi thread of mine and well you men and women must believe and recognicze me as stupid and invaluable. my wife apparently does. amazing thing is that i am both despondent and exhiliratedd that i have planned to return to the northern part of my home state and die there. my 68th birthday is June 21 and that is a good death date. i do not know how to continue now even wit the help of mercifu l god.

Sorry, really...I know you are going through a really hard time right now and am glad that you have God to turn to...You will be in my prayers also, for strength to get through this trying time....

I am sorry about the humor on your thread, some of us just find it a welcome break from the hard reality of our lifes(My WH is off having a great time with his OW, dumped me like trash)...but now that I realize that you do not enjoy it (which I really thought you would a little) I will not post humor on your thread anymore, for that I am truly sorry.

Tom, i know that you are going through a rough time, friend, but dying early is not the solution. You might miss some future good times, ya know! And Char may very well come around soon enough.

I am sorry you are lonely and despondent, Tom. Are you eating and taking care of yourself, friend?

I dont know what to say...I am an idiot, I didnt even read it that way.....

Tom, I have been there, down low where you are right now....Death is NOT the solution, you have children that love you and I know that you would not want to put that on them. I am very sorry you are goin thru this, but take care of yourself....June 21 is my DS birthday, he is going to be nine and that is what kept me from dying....So please if not for anything else right now, think of your children....It will get better.

Have you thought about seeing a doctor about ADs and some counseling, they both helped me tremendously....Think about it, okay? Take care, Tom.

Tom,

My wife told me about your thread. I recently realized that I was seriously depressed, which is something that crept up slowly as a result of dealing with the reality of how badly I had mismanaged my life and marriage and from contemplating the damaged I caused. That depression was making it impossible for me to do the things needed to help my BS recover. I started AD's several days ago, and though I am just now adapting to the meds, it is already working. If you are being serious about having suicidal ideation, I urge you to see a doctor and start on some meds. It is merely an imbalance of brain chemistry and neurotransmitters caused by your situation, and it is very reversible with the newer medicines. The sooner you treat it, the quicker you will be able to reverse it and get back off the meds. LIfe is a gift. You have an obligation to live it and make the best out of it, using whatever tools are available. Good luck, my friend.

ya just woke up from a nap.

It's 2 am here now and I looked at some posts, and just wow. There are some heroic ones and this is just me but i wish the best for irgip and Bt and JustK and especially NLG. I haven't even looked at mine because i don't care anymore. ya know what this may sound stupid but i feel some of you feel that marriage and life are too hard and too hard to handle. Look buds I almost had to go to Viet Nam and Char and I cried together way back in 1968. it didn't happen for christs good sake and spent many years in Nav reserve.


am thinking of yesterday with Char and she wanted to stay the night but she could not and she knew it down deep and I do too. Was so tempted to try to have her here even if it meant trying to keep her here for the night but against the rules.

talked to my wonderful daughter tonight and my tremendous son. she my dau. is almost sweeter than Char and now my son lost his job for which he was earnign money for to continue college. I told T to save their money in view of the economy and not come hre. I have the misfortune that my birth is the 21st and it is always close to fathers day. she agreed and they will come on the 6th of july her Mom's birthday. My son is one of the kindest shrewdest guys in the world, He honestly looks so much like my grandfather that yea sometimes I have smiled.

I can't take the idiocy that she my wife has to live with anymore. Now have to contact Ombudsman because today she was upset and some mentally ill disreputable idiot yelled at my w called her names and she called me and i had to call to get the night counselor there to sit with her for awhile. Char is so good and sweet but so beaten down now that it tears me. A few times yesterday she said why did i have to start that fire. All I could say is to hug and hold her and I couldn't think of anything to say to her except that it happened and that is all.

So lousygolfer when you tell me that my M is screwed up get a personal life and some morals. Even with this neighbor gal I never cheated and much less LG for four years!! and SH I am going to confession tomorrow and am going to say alot of prayers for you and all the others I pray for. Ya know what and yea this is pretty stupid for an online site but and this is like so catholic stay close to Mary. You seem so much like my W and she is the most perfect genuine and unaffected person I have ever known. and Nesre please take your weird AA type recommendations away with you. I have a legitimate sponsor and ya he is human and limited just like me. I did call him earlier and told him I drank. He didn't fire me or anythink like that and I do not need a weird non-AA website like you recommended to me. we are going to a meeting tomorrow and he didn't judge me.

so thanks some of you you made a very stressful and almost seemingly hopless situation worse. thanks lots. good luck in staying M for even as close to as Char and I have been. for those of you who are kind aside from the remarks I appreciate but I still want to rest in the woods. I don't want to see my 68th. god I thought this evening about when i was 8 birthday and my uncle and aunt gave me a card filled with lots of dimes around a balloon and my step dad asked me to go fishing with him and had to get up at 4 am, and I went and enjoyed.. that was a long time ago and i don't have the desire faith or energy anymore to uphold the life my parents gave me. The one person I still feel tugging at my heart and this feels supernatuarl but i do feel is real is Mary my true mother and I feel sad in what I am thinking of.

I think when all is said and done, I would like to be judged on the quality of my M rather than the quantity (in years).

I cannot imagine ever being in a place where I would want to die so young. Just like in golf, I always feel that I have not yet shot my career best round. In life, I always think that my best days are ahead of me, not behind me. Death is an eventuality, but life is a gift. And I love gifts. Don't return the gift. Use it and enjoy it.

I still cannot sleep.

The only thing I can think of now to help me is Mary's rosary. Yeah I know most of you think me stupid and weak. I am going to try that tho. You may think I am nuts but I feel this voice in my heart and my being to say the rosary tonight. In my mind I have often prayed to Mary to honor her and of course along with praying to Christ. I belive He loves his mother being honored. I cannot get rid of this like she is standing beside me watching me type this. It is weird and I am not nuts or hallucinating or high and year I did have two beers tonight but just strange.

Yesterday Char told me that she hasn't slept much the previoous two nights. She said that lack of sleep can make you psychotic and yes I know and we both know. She is afraid to lose sleep. She related when we were younger and in the house and she had a really bad episode when she was hallucinating that she felt people were telling her thru the TV to kill herself. She even felt her father and our son were on there telling her to kill herself. She actually left the house in her nightgown and was picked up on the street a couple of blocks away at like around 4 am in morning by a squad car and brought back home. That happened a couple of times. That was in the village here where we lived for 25 years and where she was a police officer for a year before she hurt her back and had to resign. She was a community service officer and went to several filings regarding domestic disturbance and lost pets, traffic control and a couple of robberies and I think a homicide. She is one really tough but sweet lady. Most of the cops then knew her and that is thank God why they brought her home when they were cruising and saw her on a road. She has told me some of this a couple of times but not in the detail that she did yesterday. I asked her where I was and what I was doing and that I had never felt comfortable in asking her before. She told me that I was sleeping and that I always had the gift of being able to sleep. I do not have that tonight. She said that she didnt want to wake me. I never knew that. I asked her where her Mom was at those times. She told me her Mom was not there and was not the one telling her to kill herself. Our daughter was not there either and she was sleeping. She said the neighbors were there tho telling her to kill herself. She said she even took one of the knives from the kitchen with her to protect herself from those who were trying to get her to kill herself and she said that she must have dropped the knife side of road when she was walking. This was like fifteen years ago when she had a couple of serious psychotic episodes.

It is not like I am learning of this for the first time but not at all in as much detail. She seemed to want to talk. She was treated on those ocasions. These things were the height of her episodes and especially when the police brought her home I got her to her dr. the next day and she was hospitalized as needed so this was not ignored. It is sometimes so hard to know what is happening tho until somene actually acts out. Yea she was distant like a wayward almost but almost like fearful and even tho fearful trying to participate in the family. Yes I did know something was wrong but there is no way you can have an idea of how she was feeling unless you are trained for it.

when she told me I just listened yesterday as she seemed to want to talk. I hugged her and that's when she wanted to kisss and she wanted to kiss alot and damn the neighbors she told me. I'm just haunted tho that I could have done more and that she is still having to go thru this. I have a picture of her still a black and white one of her that she gave to me way back when we were in college and dating and it is one of those audition pictures when she was in New york and auditioning for dance roles in broadway plays. She was age 20 then and. I always laughed and am tonight now as I looked at it at her stage name which is 'Shar Brite'. She could have been I honestly believe an actress. She actually did get an invite to hollywood to do a screen test. she just ended up marrying little old me. I so often wonder if when i looked at her audition picture if she had any idea at her age then of what was facing her. She is the sweetest most sincere beautiful loyal and humble woman and person I have ever known. Yes her brief affair but I now know it was because she felt I had abandoned her and I didn't and that haunts me that I did not try to do more last year.

This is no way MB stuff and that I know. It is just my story and my situation. I am just long venting. I am ashamed of thinking of what I wanted to do to myself. Sometimes others' suffering can get you there.

Now am gettign to bed. Our cats are both up and upset now that I am keeping them up. I wish I could say to Mr. JK that if you think you have it tough not being able to stare at another woman then go live in someone else's shoes and you would be humbled. Like parents who are losing a young child to cancer like friends of mine now are. But now however stupid you you think I may be for this I feel in my heart that Mary is calling me to pray her rosary and yar I know so catholic but I am going to probably not get thru it but it is being offered this morning for my family and friends and for people like igrip and bt and melody and still here and others here and yes even for larry and others. Nite.

Tom,

I hope you wake feeling some better this day. I read through your threads last night. I am so sorry you are here, in fact we are all sorry you are here and we are all sorry we are here. It is one sorry place when you look at it from that perspective. However it is one amazing place when you look at the special nature of the program, its success and its ability to help each of us.

You say......feeling badly. You are so right, this is a hard place to be emotionally. Some of us get past that with humor. Most of us will never meet but we "know" each other well enough to joke and kid to have fun or relieve some very difficult tension. That is all that was happening on your thread. I know it did not seem that way, you are not in the frame of mind for that nor does it seem you have been here long enough to really know that yet.

I hope your frame of mind about this site is better this morning and I really hope your thoughts about yourself are better. I can promise you from the bottom of my heart that nobody here meant you any harm. There are people here who can help you get a handle on your situation, please let them help. (((hugs)))

Tom, I have read through your threads, but I do not feel qualified to give any type of advice. There are parts of your situation that hit close to home for me - I, like your wife, have bipolar disorder. I know that having a bipolar wife can be very hard on a H. I am blessed to have mine still here with me.

I just wanted you to know I am thinking about you and your wife. Two and a half months ago I was at the end of myself and ended up hospitalized for suicidal ideation and plans. I am SO GLAD to still be here. I can't imagine how hard things must be for you, but please remember the people who love you. If you die, their hearts will be broken.

Still H.

Yesterday was a really bad day all the way thur early this morning. I had not had a chance to look at my last post on my HI thread (and here I am creating another one and I have no idea how to combine these) for a couple of days and yes in my state of mind I felt it was mocking. I realize now it was not and it was only My state of mind when I read it. I enjoy humor - esp the teasing kind - as much as anyone, but was not equipped to handle it. When I reread the posts today I appreciated. Jeez Still Here "when he finds us partying on the thread" ... god I could not have thought of anything remotely that clever. God. *s*

One of the things that set me off was C telling me to fu when I had to tell her yesterday that we couldn't to to see the possible assisted living facility due to scheduling and transportation. I don't drive now much because of armd in my right eye now seems worse so wanted to take train and bus. She called me this morning and apologized and she wanted to know the exact time for her pass on next Tuesday and wants to also stop home here and be together for even an hour or so. One of her counselors is taking her to the mall near here on Monday to buy more summer clothes like shorts and tops and I told her I would gladly meet her there is she wanted and help her shop. She told me she talked to her counselor and Wanted me there to help her pick out her clothes because she always appreciated me doing that. And so I will. Not sure what EN that comes under....*s*

By the way I did start the rosary when I went to bed like at 5 am but I cannot even recall getting thru the first decade before I went to sleep. You along with several others here and my own personal family and friends were in my intentions.

Oh boy when I get melonchally like this and I don't get it often but when I do it is tough I tend to think of prior history. I had that picture of her in her red get-away suit right after our wedding reception redone and enlarged and she loves it. She keeps telling me that is when "I was pretty". It is on our hutch here. I look at it frequently and I looked at it quite awhile last night. After I had beers yesterday, this morning I picked up one of my AA books - I have two of them - but the weathered one is the one I got from Hazelden and I looked at the first inside page and the personal note I got from Chris Farley on the day I left there. I told my wife about him and the trigger is that she had watched a Chris Farley movie the other night at the nursing home. He was and still is a friend. When I first was there he had the room next to mine and one morning he came tearing out of his room swearing steaming and as ugly as you can get. Plus he was overweight back then - this was in 1992. As I recall I made my own friends and avoided being even around him and he did have 'groupies' around him. I pretty soon got to know from my counselor that he was in withdrawal from alcohol becasue he arrived there with a high level. I cannot remember how it started but we became friends about half-way thru my stay there. Chis and I talked alot after that and we did things each of us enjoyed. He WAS really overwright and I like to walk and explore and he was willing to do that with me. He loved eating and watching TV and playing cards and talking. Somehow we became friends - me age 50 and Chris at that time like in late 20s. Somehow also neither of us LB'd our friendship. I didn't like fact that he was always mooning people and he really honestly did that. He didn't like the fact that I didn't want to stay and sit in the cafeteria there for a long time while he stuffed himself. One night back there close to when I was going to be released he came into my room at like 2 in the morning and woke me up and asked me to got walk with him. He had gotten permission from the night counselor for a pass out of the hall. That talk with him will forever remain close in my heart. I'll just say that I told Chris that I thought he'd be back at Hazelden soon or he'd be dead. Well I told Char this - I do not think it is inapproprate for me now to say this because when he died I called his parents to express who I am and how I knew him and also unfortunately it is now a matter of public record - but she of course was ecstatic. Both of us talked to him on phone calls for a brief while after I left Hazelden. He ended up in Chicago for a short while and one day came home and Char told me I had a call from Chris. It was one of those things when you have not talked to a friend for awhile that you don't call back right away. He had invited us for dinner and just to get together and talk again. I don't know the exact timing but I think two months later he is dead.

Chris could have been "Bob Dubonsky" or anyone not famous, but he was my friend. I think of him more than any other friend or almost more than any other relative I have lost. The feeling I never called back is still with me today. I hope to God he is in heaven and that eventually I can get there. If he is I plan to kick him in his buttocks finally if he is even trying to 'moon', and then am going to give him a guy hug and tell him have missed him.

Sorry people I still feel emotional now. I could not kill myself. I honestly do not want to feel what death is like. Honestly. When I was in the reserves I was the one ducking my head down. Not that i'm a coward I just don't want to lose what I have. Sometimes honestly my feelings are that I would need to. But they are feelings. To do it to escape I couldn't.

To all of you thank you...I know I have been harsh on some of you here...but this is demanding. To Dances With and luroosi2 thank you also. Yeah is tough and problem is I do know that sometimees I feel sorry for myself. I do know that is selfish.

Tom

Glad to see you are feeling better today, Tom. It would a tragedy if you did something to yourself. You are a valuable human being. Smart and very unique. The world would be a worse place without you.

How nice that Char wants you to come and help her pick out clothes. That says alot about how much you mean to her.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{TOM}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Tom, What a wonderful story about Chris Farley...My son and I enjoy his movies, he was a funny man....What a tragedy that he wont be making anymore, such a funny guy....I am happy to hear you are doing better, really really happy....

And you and Char shopping for her clothes, that it wonderful and must have helped you to feel so much better....

I would never mock another poster, never never never(Okay, there are a few exceptions to that ).....I realize the pain everyone is goin thru on here and I am happy that you see that it was not mocking....I would never want you to think I was mocking you...I just get a little carried away with the humor sometimes, a good laugh helps me a lot. But I now realize that all people are different, and I feel horrible that when you were feeling low that you thought we were mocking you....Never....

Take care Tom.....

Dances,

Thank you first of all for your thoughful expression. It means alot.

Today is Tuesday June 8 and things seem better. For some reason, last weekend seemed so long and so uncertain to me.

I was depressed last weekend and that started because I had to delay Char's visit to the assisted living facility until today, and that she got all over me with the fu's. Well I should hav been stronger. She had that affair with the guy in that nursing home last fall to early this year and that ocurred I know now becasue she felt abandoned and that she was not in a right or healthy state of mind. That XXXX took advantage of that and that just repulses me. I expressed my anger at that many times with her but I realized that I was not as angry at her as much I was with that pile. He tried to get back to that home but her counselor and I finally had him blocked. Not only that, but Char is basic in her Christian beliefs and her parents did have a long and loving marriage, and I believe her when she tells me she loves just little old me because I feel I do so well know her and that she is a very very moral person.

Since then we have built back up and it did start with her. It began with simply her being wanted to be included to a Christmas dinner out that I had invited my son and dau. to and it went from there.

Well, I can only update from this past weekend, and i did go to meet her at the mall yesterday to shop for clothes - mainly shorts and tops because she wanted new and she has lost weight. She is age 64 and is a size 10 (I so know because I was trying to help her find that size)! I.e, she is still beautiful. Anyway she seemed to need me and want me there so I did so. A female counselor from the nursing home drove her to that mall and she and I helped Char select her new clothes. When I had to leave to get back home she asked me what am I going to have for supper and hugged me and smooched me. She was happy as a clam.

Today Dances, I brought her to an assisted living facility very near by where I live and the interview when well, and it is an ideal place. That place has a 24/7 nurse who can administer her daily medication. The best we have found. Her being able to get there tho depends on the financial arrangements we can work out and live with.

If it does not come to pass then at the very least I have helped her to try and that is not going to throw me in a tailspin anymore.

Thanks,

Tom

Hi SH,

Yes we did shop yesterday, and she had a counselor for the nursing home who drove her there and helped her shop.

I did pick out a soft orange decorated top to go with a pair of white shorts and she was a knockout when I saw it on her. SH, one of her biggest needs, and she told me this today when we were together to visit the potential new assisted living facility is that she values my opinion and has in terms of her hair, clothes and clothes shopping, and how she looks. So I pretty much know admiration and concersation, and even O&H. I have always done this - clothes shopped with her, and she has with me. Her standard questions ever since we have done this together when boutiques were popular way back when we were in our 20s are "does my stomach stick out", "do my boobs show", "does my butt show" and "do you think it's too short". I have pretty much ready made answers after all these years but I am honest with her now.

So we had a good day yesterday and today. The assisted living facility really wants her there and it is a good fit, but depends entirely now on the financial.

SH, thank you for even posting to me at this time.

I just wish that there was something I could offer or say to you as much as you have recently helped me. I tend to focus on some of the BH's here, since I am one (abeit over a brief while), and sometimes I get so disouraged at their reactions or lack of and that I only know I would not want to fail to try to win my W back. I think she is back, but yea I do have this nagging feeling, but is is slowly going away. The only think I can offer you is continued prayers. Sometimes I just fall asleep before I get anywhere thru them but oh well.

Chris was a really talented person, and more importantly a deeply carying person who let the demons get hold of him.

Take care of yourself and your son and best wishes and prayers,

Tom

Tom, I hate to come asking you things on your thread, but I wanted to ask (if it isn't too painful) about your wife's memory loss. I believe I mentioned that I have bipolar disorder. Over the last year, I am noticing memory problems more and more. I have researched the drugs I am taking, and one, Lithium, can have this effect. I wondered if your wife's memory loss was medication related. It is none of my business, and you do not have to answer. Doctors speak so much in generalities.

I hope that you and your wife continue to grow closer, that she has a place she can be cared for with compassion and professionalism, and that you can have time filled with peace.