Lately, I am really trying to sort through my many, varied feelings. Why so many feelings and how do you get them in control? I posted some of these feelings on another thread but did not get much feedback....

DATING: This whole dating thing and needing someone is really bothering me. Starting to become an obsession of sort. Why is the need so great for some people to have a spouse and for some people the need is not so great?????????? Did God makes us to have this need or does our surroundings and society tell us we need to be paired off? I am feeling like I have spent my whole life wanting a good marriage and never being able to attain it. I worked endlessly on my past M and it did make a difference but look where it ended. Now I find myself still wanting a good M and I do not like living alone. The single life is so one-dimensional. Will I spend the rest of my life longing for something I feel MAY never happen? I am ok when I am out at work and doing busy things but the minute I spend more than an hour in my apartment, I am feeling so alone and feel as though I am a loser or inadequate because I cannot be happily married
or be significant to someone.

Now the obsessive part-----I have wanted a marriage ever since I can remember and do not see myself ever changing. I could not think of anything else while I was M and now I am struggling with the same thing. These feelings make me edgy and they don't go away easily. Watching TV or movies just adds fuel to the fire....Being around "happy" couples is like getting punched in the stomache.

This too will pass, I HOPE>

TW

It's not a NEED. It's a desire. It's something you want. You don't understand why you want it so bad. When it's there, you feel complete. When it's not you miss it. Love is not quite an addiction. I miss being in love. I don't need the kind of love my x proferred.

I see happy couples and feel melancholy these days. But, I tell myself that if I'm careful, my day will come. I get impatient though... my day will come. I hope I've taken the time to prepare myself so that I recognize that day when it finally arrives... or when I finally arrive there.

.

<small>[ May 22, 2003, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: Lyxa ]</small>

Excellent topic. I feel similar. I can tell you that when I was single I loved it!! I didn't have my first serious relationship until I was 25. And I loved that more than being single. Essentially now that I have been in a relationship I really want it (despite the bonuses of being siongle).. I think I just got to a point and an age to where that's what I want is to be ina good relationship. DEFINITELY IGNORANCE IS BLISS!! Had I never had that relationship I'd likely be happy as ever still today. A partial labotomy (although sad too to not remember the experiences I did)would make life a lot easier.

Lyxa and Jack---I am assuming you are both guys.
Do you want to one day commit your life to a women and have a marriage that is healthy and full of things that couples do togehter? (just curious) I keep reading all these posts and some matchmaking profiles about guys who want all these things that I feel I want but I do not know any single guys in my everyday life who want a committed, married, sharing kind of a life. Most men seem to feel chained to a spouse or complain that their spouses rains on their parade all the time. They tire of what they have and can't keep the appreciation thing going. WHERE are all these guys who want to marry and do all these special things with their women?

Maybe I am hangin with the wrong crowd? Enlighten me.

TW

Lyxa--you are right----it is a desire cause I do not NEED a spouse to live or breath, or survive etc.

But it occassionally feels like a need. Are we complete when we are in love and loved in return?
TW

tossedwave - I am a guy and what you say about wanting to have a fulfilling commited relationship really speaks to me. Maybe its because my relationship is currently being shaken to the core. My WS has withdrawn emotionally and I have no clue if the marriage can survive.

If it doesn't survive, I have had many of the same feelings as you have. Will there be other women out there in the world for me that want a healthy commited relationship? Are all women just in it for themselves and at the first sign of trouble start an affair?

My hope is that my current marriage be saved and be healthly and fulfilling for both of us. Who knows if that is possible after so much mutual hurt, pain and lying. If it doesn't work, I will heal and will always have the desire for another relationship with an emotionally stable woman who can open up and be honest about her feelings and really build a healthly relationship. There are guys who out here who feel like you do.
---------------------------------------------
Me BS 51
WS 47
married 24 years
D-Day #1 1980
D-Day #2 1981
D-Day #3 1987
D-Day #4 April 2003

<small>[ May 24, 2003, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: Joquin1 ]</small>

Joquin----I read about guys that want what I want but I do not see them day to day....only ones like that I know are married.

Wow--you have been thru one crazy time in your married life. I, too, lasted many years with an unhealthy spouse who as I look back, had all kinds of women in his life regularly. Before we were married, he regularly visited prostitutes while in the service, then as a drinker, he was always sorrounded by women at parties, then 9 yrs after we were married, he started an EA with a coworker, Then the BIG A started 4/2001 which he finally found someone who makes him "feel" good. Wow is he in for a rude awakening but I wonder if people like our spouses ever wake up??????

What makes you stay in the midst of the repeated infidelities? Do you have children?

Have you been reading and learning Plan A/B? Do you see any real hope with your WS? Hope she comes to learn what she is doing.

TW

For some of us I don't think it's the boundaries of a relationship we are looking for but the "feeling" we get when we are in a relationship. That comfortable togetherness that someone in the world thinks were great even though we don't some days. The lows just don't feel so low because we have expanded our awareness to anothers level. Most things feel validated when it's shared. That seems to make it real. Even though we know better than that.
We were brought up to think magically.
You also have a real boobie to grope whenever you pass through the kitchen.~Which is much better then none. lol!