No ML, I can't. I am sure the Harleys can and do help couples who hate each other. That is not the problem in my marriage. The problem in my marriage is that I hate ME. Very different problem.

When I said I have no goals, that was a lie. I have one goal I am dedicated toward: making sure that I am never happy.

You know how Harley asks people "don't you want to be happily married? I have a system that enables you to feel romantic love for your spouse and to be happily married. Won't you at least try it?" My answer is "no, if you have the key to happiness, please stay as far away from me as you can get". It is not that I doubt their system can work. It is that I fear it might work. And that is the last thing I want.

What do you hate about yourself?

I am lazy, negative, and gutless. Along with weak, foolish, and small. Combined with sappy, gullible and hopeless. Fearful. Totally convinced I am doomed to failure. And such a wimp that I am willing to go down without a fight. I won't even lift a finger to try to change my fate.

What's there not to hate?

Then I would knock it off. IF you hate yourself the solution is to stop behaving in ways you loathe. Just knock it off.

I have found that the basic problem with people who don't change is that they allow their emotions to control them. They are waiting for some magic emotion to come along and attack them against their will. That is not how it works, because FEELINGS FOLLOW ACTIONS. Not the other way around.

That means that all a person needs to change is the ability to make a decision and a PLAN. You can do all of those things today whether you feel like it or not. Change your behavior and your feelings will change. '

You can make a decision today to change.

Are you on any kind of narcotics? An alcoholic?

Nope, no drugs or alcohol. I play too many video games, that is about it as far as vices. What I am addicted to is misery.

Yes, I am waiting for someone to wave a magic wand and save me. That is why I long for ECT. I am hoping if someone sends an electric spark through my brain, I will feel differently.

You say "all" a person needs is the ability to make a decision and plan. I am unable to do either. I have trouble deciding at restaurants and ice cream parlors. If you think I can make important decisions about my life, or plan for the future, you are mistaken. As my father in law says "when the going gets tough, Hold gets stupid". And he isn't wrong.

What do you mean by "unable?" ARe you mentally ill? Do you have a verified mental illness that prevents you from making decisions?

My 2nd to last IC (psychiatrist) said I had a personality disorder. So yes, I think I do.

Oh, I can make good decisions for clients. And for friends. And people here. Anything where my own welfare is not implicated. I just can't make them for myself.

Hold, have you ever considered getting a definitive diagnosis from one of these psychiatrists and then taking medication to correct whatever problem you have?

It sounds to me like you're clinically depressed. There are tons of treatments for this sort of thing. What would be the harm in actually trying one?

Taken all sorts of meds for depression. Nothing ever helped. Which makes sense if I have a personality disorder or addiction to misery.

Reading a book on misery addiction. Maybe it will have some suggestions.

As for personality disorder, there are no pills. The psychiatrist said I needed daily analysis sessions for several years to have any hope of recovery. After decades of failed IC, I don't have sufficient hope for success to be willing to invest that amount of time or money. I'd rather be miserable and only slightly insolvent than miserable and even more deeply mired in debt.

Of course, that is just my fear and negativity talking. If it worked, and I were more successful at my career, I could raise my income more than enough to pay for the therapy. It would be an investment in my future. But I don't want it badly enough. In fact, I don't want it at all. What I want is to remain unhappy.

If what you want is to remain unhappy, you are doing an amazingly good job at it!

I think you might be making some of the rest of us depressed as well just listening to you...

Hold I do not think you are metally ill. I think your self depreciating sence of humour has got the better of you.

You are like a person that checks into hospital and has operations when there is nothing wrong with them. Just in case.

Melody is right. You should just knock it off. You've had all the operations you need.

You now seem to be like a fat person that does not believe there is a skinny person inside. You can not expect to go from a fat person to a skinny person in a day, but it can happen. You only need to look at your wife.

God loves you. You are his precious child, no matter what.

You may enjoy the book "The Brain that Changes Itself -- Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science" by Norman Doidge. Its an easy and fascinating read for anyone interested in learning, mental health, personality, brain damage, etc.

http://www.amazon.ca/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/1423367995

DJ alert: No, no, no. You should be glad and thankful and grateful you aren't as messed up inside your head as I am!

But that is very un-MB for me to tell you how to react. So you go ahead and be every bit as depressed as you want to be when you read my posts. Who knows, maybe you get as much payoff from your misery as I do.

Jack - anything is possible, but you have to be willing to do the work. I am too lazy. Getting married to Mrs. Hold was the last thing I did to address my situation. I engaged in magical thinking. I figured "she will have lots of sex with me, and I will feel better about myself, and my life will turn itself around - with no effort required on my part!" Of course, life does not work that way. I know that now. If I want improvement, I have to do the work. I don't want it enough to do the work. Sad but true.

W8ing - thanks for the suggestion. Maybe after I finish the Misery Addiction book.

Okay, if you don't care about your own happiness, maybe you could pull your head out of your asteroid enough to care about other peoples?

Don't you have kids? Do you really want them being raised by some miserable, sorry excuse for a human being who views himself on the same level as pond scum?

Really, what effect do you think that might have on them?

Do you love your children? Do you want them to be happy? Do you think they deserve to be raised by someone with this outlook on life?

Writer, yes, I am sure it hurts my kids to know what a low opinion I have of myself. S16 has mentioned that to his IC. That his Dad is a great guy who feels like a total failure.

Hopefully in time he will come to realize that his Dad is not such a great guy.

This is just really sad.

As someone who was raised by a chronically negative, depressed, overweight, unambitious mother who constantly criticized everyone around her and did absolutely nothing with her life, I can honestly say I feel sorry for your kids.

I don't hate my mother. I don't think she's an awful person. I pity her. And if that's the relationship you're going for with your own kids, then so be it.

I'm sorry, I just can't read anymore of the self-pity threads. There seems to be so many of them these days. I am so done with all the useless negative energy around this place.

Good luck to you.

I don't criticize people around me. I constantly tell everyone in our house how great they are. When my wife says something self-deprecating, I tell her to stop talking about my wife that way. When she shows me her homework, I always compliment her and tell her she has a big brain, just like her kids.

I tell my kids every day they are the best kids, and that their mother and I are blessed to get to be their parents. I tell my daughter she is smart and brave and tough and strong and humorous and artistic and wonderful. I tell my son he is a great kid with a big heart and that he is inspiring because he uses his many talents for the benefit of others.

The only person in my house I regularly criticize is me.

Sorry to be such a downer. I get in these funks fairly often. In 2005, when we stopped doing MC, I convinced myself there was no hope for our marriage to be happy. And gave myself permission to stop trying at life. Now that it looks like Mrs. Hold might be willing to meet me halfway, I don't have the willpower to revoke that permission and hold myself to higher standards. Guess I need some accountability partners. I suspect there will be much talk of that in the second half of the misery addiction book.

Hold, I think you may have to try harder at failure, because unless I remember wrong, you just got a nice raise at work. Bosses don't give raises to dufuses (sp? maybe dufus-ai?)

Hey, don't underestimate me. When you are as talented as I am, it isn't easy to be this unsuccessful! I have to work hard to prevent this much potential from turning into accomplishment!

Maybe you should consider a career in comedy. There's something definitively Rodney Dangerfield-like about you.