The Long Road Out

I'm generally improving.  Recovering.  Finding moments of solace. Not today.  Today at around 3:30 I crashed into the land of: why am I here? I have no purpose For what reason do I exist.  This is scary bad.  I don't like being here.  There's nowhere to hide. I feel like buying coke so I can have energy and start moving away from this glacial pit. No one would notice if I died.  I would not impact anyone's life.   Same as I continue to live.  I have no impact.  No one listens to me or cares about me.  I am forgotten. I am the unseen man in the third aisle of the natural food store.  My shirt is slightly untucked, and I didn't shave or shower this morning.  I get a 10% "wisdom discount" because I'm a senior citizen!   That's one of the few nice things anyone does for me.  Thank you New Moon!!! On top of it all, I'm bored with depression, though at least being purposeless feels like a new form of the deep forlorn. ...

This was fun to create.  That’s a benefit of personal writing—to laugh at the pain and sadness. To see how truly miserable we sometimes are and yet each day still arrives.  Sometimes when I’m very low, to name call or simply state your truth into the emptiness.   Here goes: I lived with a weak, fearful, selfish child for many many years who hated me for my successes but was bored to rudeness with me at the same time.  More fun name calling: because I couldn’t applaud her every waking moment  is it ok to just acknowledge that my best friend and life partner was often a roaring bitch?  She caused pain, fucked around, and still, to this day I assume, has never experienced love. I’m turning 70 in a few months  I feel ok about that—kind of a non-event  at the moment   But I didn’t expect to be living alone now and I’m disappointed by my ex for her adhd approach to caring for others.  I’m certain she’s hurt herself and others I’ve never met si...

What do you do? Who do you like? How do you feel? No idea. So I just have memories—of your boredom and frustration with me. Of your anger when challenged or when attention was paid to someone else. Of your constant hustle and bustle to do stuff. Frankly you seemed really disappointed nearly all the time. Covetous and jealous? I don't know. Was that you? I spent my entire life with you for a very long time but you were so often simply not available. Maybe you've learned how to stay the course a bit now? Conjecture. I'm sure you'll fill me in when you get a chance. Not holding my breath after decades of secrecy and willful non-sharing. Prime trait of narcissists obviously. Wait. I'm violent and angry and not worthy of your time of day! I forgot that for a short second!

It's really been too long since we've been able to shit on Puerto Rico, right? Like, remember, if you're a Boomer, when we used to tell Polish jokes in Elementary School? Fun, huh? This is the country that had 3000 deaths for every US death in WWII. Whose officer corps was gunned down en masse in the woods outside of Warsaw. Who had the most honored expat fighter pilots in England. Those dumb Poles. Can't even screw in a lightbulb. Hitler won with 30% of the vote and look at all the funny racist things he got people to do! Trump has 47%! We'll be even funnier than Weimar Germany! (Of course, they had Leni Riefenstahl, and we only have Steve Bannon, so our media will suck.) And we'll get to say fun things like America is for Americans. Just like the KKK in Indiana and other states in the 1930's. Do you know why Notre Dame's referred to as the "Fighting Irish?" Look it up so you can be in on the retro humor opportunities....

I keep reaching out to my ex.  Knowing full well that she'd implode if she had to acknowledge or accept a single iota of the pain and abuse she's heaped on her closest friends and family. It would be a lot, I imagine.  To go from sainthood to culpability, and then to confront the fact that everyone else had behaved amazingly well considering the panicked hatred you generate. I couldn't completely justify a life of goodbyes like that.  But then I don't have to.  I did not hate my parents.  I did not mistreat them.  I valued and enjoyed my friends, My mistake was that I enjoyed being your partner more.  And, thereby, I destroyed myself.  I fell into the deep morass of true depression.  Of explosive PTSD.  Of mental health and behaviorial disorders that don't just go away with a jaunty jog up Castle Peak to take some selfies.  Wow, fourth gear!  I'm precious!   I have lived with depression.  The real deal....

I'm all for Kamala.  She has the distinct advantage of being literate.  And I prefer strong people (it takes some strength to listen to ignorant sloppy pigs call you a Marxist because you support women).  Not whiny babies like Trump.  Mwah mwah mwah…don't poop your pants.   But…let's not pretend the gravy train for the rich is going to be altered one nanobit.  Wealth accumulation, that eternal American party, will continue exactly as it has since it accelerated during the Reagan chow down.   Kamala won't touch retained earnings.  Why bother?  Changing tax policy requires 60%, and both sides know that Elizabeth Warren and perhaps Bernie are the only two people anywhere near the Senate who would consider even raising the issue.  98 to 2.   Kamala is the product of a democratic party that is more afraid of Elizabeth than they are of Donald.  She's the product of selfish liberals who can also justify the death o...

She checked out by 2012 so people could wonder why I even care…many feel she was evil and unworthy of me. And cruel. I agree, and I still loved her. The reason I keep journaling about her is because new circumstances arise every day that dissolve the few remaining happy memories I have. This is a woman who has ghosted me for 12% of the time we were married. Lacking any positive feedback from her for so long, I doubt she can differentiate me from Trump. All I recall is the shock of her constant drumbeat that I was an aggressive drunk bad sexual partner. Good morning honey! You look beautiful as always! Today's trigger to revisionist history was a coffee session with some tennis friends who asked what early COVID was like in Truckee.  I recounted my very happy memories of paired climbs up in the sunny snow of the closed XC center at Tahoe Donner followed by dry mountain bike rides down Sober Deer along Alder Creek.  I recall laughing and enjoying that amazing April til e...

My wife may have hated me for our entire relationship and I simply accepted a one-sided love constellation. She had trouble maintaining friendships with men. And women. She did ok with pets as I recall. Assuming this isn't the case and she either tolerated or liked me periodically, her crass dismissal whenever she had affairs was belligerent and also sufficiently self-justifying to be worth a chuckle. Years of activities, support, high fives, hugs, adventures, discussions, nakedness (physical, not emotional). Meaningless. I'd face a wall of hate the minute she had another penis or vagina in sight. You're always angry (she'd scream). You broke a plate (while she was filming us on her phone). You're a cocaine addict ( while she was talking to all my friends—never to my face). When I think of her disloyalty, it feels like I'm being assassinated. By my best friend. Stabbed in the back so many times I stopped defending myself. Gaslig...

I'm referring to my ex of course. Trying to recall something she's good at. Not music. Too ADHD. Not managing a household. Too much math. Not sex. Ouch! She's a walking malpractice suit, coaching undertrained professionals on giving traumatized patients LSD. Sharing her non-existent passion. She'd do better coloring hair. Being an athlete? She's chronically injured. Can't keep a job so don't look to her for support. Her dad left her mom underwater when he died…so much for financial training. She thinks Antony is a financial expert! The guy appears to have lost money in a year when BTC went up 55% and the S&P went up 25%. You never make that kind of mistake up. What else? Writer? Ask Libby. I'm full out of ideas on how my ex could contribute to your life. She negated mine so I failed to solve this riddle.

It's Saturday afternoon. I'm alone and tired. The usual. Beautiful fall afternoon in the mountains. Good time to further ruminate on the perfidy of my ex-wife. Witnessing indifference to the pain Of others, up close and over so many years. Whew. That will fuck you up. You can understand how easy it is to be pol pot or a mass murderer when you see how thoughtlessly someone like my ex blames others and doles out punishment. While yawning. She hurt me a lot. It's what I deserved. I'm dangerous. I broke a plate. I did coke. I didn't go down on her because it's hard to perform oral sex when you know the recipient thinks you're a jerk. Not worth talking to, like the rest of us who disappoint her. And probably the wrong gender anyway. God she's a mess.

I don't know if I'd still qualify for my PTSD diagnosis. My therapist doesn't work that way. I know many of the traditional symptoms linger, sometimes triggering sadness or self-recrimination. With ex-friends like my ex-wife, and depression, who can afford a single enemy? It's all subsumed by the massive black hole that once was the space for my life partnership. Black holes collapse on themselves, just as I have. Light, sound, optimism and hope, body weight—poof. Anxiety defies cosmology. In the infinite dark it cries out for adoration, just as my ex-wife always did. Again, similarly, it offers nothing in return. Because I'm currently a vessel for clinical anxiety, I cannot read. I cannot stream TV. I could never date. Sex and intimacy terrify me because those require gentle close attention. I can't afford to fail or disappoint again after 28 years of withheld affection, rudeness, disdain, and gaslighting.  Another legacy of trauma is anger, but my an...

Nor does she care…but that's a separate issue. I have never had a heart to heart with my wife. She's not good at those things. I'm terrible at them with her. So I don't know what makes her tick and because she hates me, she won't share. Sharing means she cares. That's repulsive to her. That's what I always observed. So it's important to her that I be publicly known as an angry drunk cocaine addict crossdresser. She's invested 100% of her energy for our marriage in propagating and advocating for this caricature. Here's the funny thing. I'm on Zoloft. Hefty dose. I don't drink or do drugs because the 30 minute buzz results in black hell for a week. People on Zoloft forget about sex. I certainly have. It never comes up. I just battle every day with keeping my head above the waterline of depression. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Our shitty sex life had nothing to do with you. You are not a factor. I don't think k of se...

The Narcissists' Prayer summarizes the gaslighting experience better than anything else I've ever come across.  The women in my support group for survivors of abusive marriages agree.               That didn't happen             And if it did, it wasn't that bad.             And if it was, that's not a big deal.             And if it is, that's not my fault.             And if it was, I didn't mean it.             And if I did, you deserved it.   This encompasses every single argument Mina and I ever had.  It's why we never resolved anything, ever.  We were stuck on "he said she said" 24/7.  We never agreed on a c...

I'm getting good at noticing my emotions, health, needs, and more. Lot's of therapy and mental health investment. That being said I can't say I have a clear picture of the vivid anger that's resurfaced the last four days directed yet again at my worthless mean ex wife. Her caustic and careless behavior deserves censure and punishment, though that won't happen. She'll just self edit herself into continued irrelevancy, unable to learn, change, or grow beyond her childhood contracts. I send disdain and animosity toward this thing that was the most important relationship of my entire life. The Ill-wishes ascend. Like my fucked up country that overs little except war and pain, I resent any success my ex might have in her small life, wherever she crawled off to. And I hope this spike in disgust and anger ends soon for me, so I can return to my new journey toward a rich, deep self-respect I've never experienced before. And experience I've seen i...

I had a great love and a life partner. She's been gone forever and thinks I'm trash. So be it. Gaza is more important than me. Today she was forced to communicate with lowly me. She forwarded an invoice. No message. Just the invoice. For $114. This is a huge adult step forward for my ex, who grew up in a damaged environment where difficult, mundane, and insane conversations were treated equally. My ex still can't tell those three apart, either. She can't tell a joke, flubs irony every time, and doesn't know when she should be ashamed.  Side note:  irony isn’t wonderful.  There are many approaches to life that are potentially more rewarding for everyone and the planet.  But the LACK of irony—that indicates mania. That is an empty hollow well, dry, waiting to absorb carcasses. There is no sound when a soul hits the bottom.    Anyway, my ex-wife could not deliver a punchline. I could and I covered for her every day.   But that's ok. Tho...

After 30 years, my ex stopped communicating with me three years ago. This happened multiple times in the past but she really means it this time. For real! It's working. I don't know where she lives, what she does (there may be some mountain biking) or any of her social network. She was my life partner. Due to this termination of communication, my divorce has now cost me over $300,000 in legal bills. It's expensive to resolve stuff when one person is defaults as always to her kneejerk childhood behavioral patterns. My growing, raw, PTSD anger at my ex did not cost me 300k. Her ghosting did. That and a few “collaborative” matrimonial lawyers (the FTC does not allow the use of the word natural when manufactured chemicals are present. No law firm should ever be allowed to mow-market “collaboration.”) Today I heard from my exfor the first time in six months unsolicited. A bill for $114 forwarded via enail, with no message. She's making progress as an adult. That's ...

 Given the generalities and selective memories necessary to function in the adult world, old narratives are dangerous and should be questioned.  I was ski team captain, class president, chair of the junior prom committee, a mediocre student but a class leader with a very cute girlfriend  My parents were cool   My ex had no friends, had sex behind bars with strangers, smoke cigarettes and had no interests because her cruel parents forbade her from being in theater.  Ha. She was already a fraud and a loser long before I took over supporting her and enabling her sociopathy.   I apologize for bringing her into my family and community. Look at the harm and damage she does.  A sick sad jealous kid. Trying to get over on her friends. Almost 60 now. 

 So much anger towards myself and towards the erasing behaviors of my ex and past friends.  Self critical talk is back.  Diana is back for a bit. Maybe that feels like I didn’t stand up for myself again? Temporary setback on the “this isn’t working for me.  Perhaps I’ve lost the trail of breadcrumbs back to happiness? This is hard for me and I have so little vitality. It doesn’t feel “normal” to have to defend myself. And how do I protect myself from the speeding train of a very hostile divorce, an ex with a violent history and the emotional maturity of a spoiled four year old, and a bipolar brother?  I am alone with few allies.  Remember David that the “best baby in the world” contact is dead.  Mom agrees as best as I can tell. The days of pleasing others at any expense are gone. The days of apologizing and pandering for love are gone.  My high school friends and my ex do not work for me. I have no desire to deal with the former but I still defau...

Today, I'm using this journal to keep myself off the bottom of the pool.  It just turned out to be the worst of a three day streak that feels like returning to last summer and fall and winter.  That's bad.  I don't want to go back there ever again, and I feel angry and frustrated about this slide, temporary as it may be.   I have no tools that beat back depression.  I don't believe there are any.  No quick fixes as I wrote earlier.  Fuck the myth of self help and self actualization.  Fuck the narcissists who believe their own experience should be mine.   They are stupid.  And sad.    Fuck all the wasted courses my ex-wife took on my dime.  She did nothing with them, and as far as I can tell, tried to bring the exact opposite home to destroy my mental health and ruin our life together.  She took NVC classes until the instructors stopped telling her she was exceptional (hey, it worked for law schoo...

I blocked messages from my five-member group of high school friends four months ago. So far it's turned out to be one of the most powerful steps I've taken toward finding self-love after depression and PTSD damage. In my defense, this is a particularly cloddish group of men. If you say "I'm in immense pain" they'll say "did you see the clever NYT editorial justifying the death of 10,000 more Palestinians today?" Boring. Anyway, here's what I wrote to my last remaining contact in this harmful group. You and I are way too decent people to be ignored. Plus we've both had so many more rich experiences and connections…i don't do vacations. I live places and start businesses and feel the pain of others. I read books, not articles. I'm not more afraid of Elizabeth Warren than I am of Trump. I personally know what depression is. John's in the self-help 101 school. Despite his difficult parents! 100% cerebral, and not an...

Haven't moved all day. This is day 3 of this recurrence. Trauma scars your DNA and damages your brain. Of course it will surface when it needs to. It's an injury as real as an amputation or lobotomy. When there are no crutches, you don't move. Endorphins are for wimps who don't know better. The "I was sad and I ran up Castle Peak and now I'm better and I was fast and I have a nice outfit" crew. OMG. Blinded by their own reflection. Searching for their 10th blog reader. If you haven't spent half a day unable to get up to clean the kitty litter as your one goal, you are simply not qualified to comment. I'll be glad when I get back to my healing trajectory, even if that simply means the kitty litter was successfully cleaned—and very little more. Today I tried to start strong. I drove to the local farmers market—but when I got there I started crying, and couldn't get out of the car. I came home. I've slept through three business meetin...

Back to the trenches these last three days. When I stand I'm dizzy and then I lay down again and sleep. One new "depression mantra" today—"I don't want to break anything else I own." It's like I worry I can't sustain another loss, even a plastic storage container, without giving up entirely. I want to carefully preserve the possessions and my cat. My remaining empire. Will Mina or someone else take even this? My room? My blanket? I hope not but I can't and will never fight. Here's something I do want to lose forever: Mediocre Democrats. These are tired old guys who are more afraid of Elizabeth Warren than Donald Trump. More afraid of Snowden than Murdoch or Musk. Able to justify the murder of tens of thousands because they read an article in Foreign Affairs. The men who answer questions about Kamala by saying "when I had lunch with her she was very smart." Who think a drone strike is surgical a...

The whole legal process definitely exacerbates the process of seeing the person who was your best friend and life partner as a witless malicious tool. I understand why she never maintained a job or got hired by friends. One shortterm employer told me "your ex-wife is ill." My brother is bipolar and hospitalized. Two people who have lost the ability to give. Two people who cannot say thanks. My brother said "I love you" to me from his institution recently. That's once more than I ever heard it from my ex. She hates herself more than Glenn does, is how therapists describe this behavior, and yes, that seems valid. I wish my ex bad tidings. Only fair given her life skills. Day in and day out, if there are two choices, my ex goes for the stupid hurtful unresponsive and childish one. Never the one that makes her life better. Pam Joe Doron. Can any of you help? I'm dealing with a petulant 5 year old. The kid you avoided at the playground. The nasty ...

I expect thanks from the sociopath I lived with for 30 years. It won't come. That gives me free rein to acknowledge here that my ex failed at everything. But, because of me, she didn't end up in a gutter or orostituted to a gang or something. I'm also free to wish her continued failure. To direct my disrespect for her soul back at her in the hopes that it robs her of her charade. Parisian dye does not cover a Machiavellian heart. I send hatred designed to destroy your immune system, take away your false arrogance, and endorse the failure of your endocrine system. Oh—and I'll send the beneficiary forms tomorrow, you whore. Same as they've ever been. If you had the brain to listen. You are dangerous and you hurt people. You need to be stopped. Not by me—you'll go down on your own. I doubt anyone else will care for you so I'm less worried that you'll fuck over another decent human being.

1. We had a double shower. For the last three years before she left for Caroline we never showered together. My guess is she had more tattoos and was hiding them. She dressed in her closet! What was that about! 2. What went on in her brain during sex. She seemed bored, but mad when we didn't have sex. She had no curiosity about anything new and she yawned a lot. She never had orgasms. 3. Why did she insult me so much when I suggested more clear initiation? I believe it was because she needed proof she was irresistible. Foreplay meant she wasn't? (I think she wanted more foreplay too but was always impatient for insertion.) I thought she was beautiful. But god she was so cold and mean in bed. 4. Can you be an acceptable sexual partner when fun pleasure and humor are central to the experience? Not with me. Sex with my ex was daily war. Weekly tallying of victories and defeats. The knowledge that the actual acts of sex we're meaningless in the face of fear, d...

 I usually manage to keep my ex out of my dreams.  She can't do anything but harm to my sleep, and she has no right to claim any further space than she stole already.   Still she got in there tonight.  The Ring of Fire approach to keeping bad people away failed. This was a new version...stupid, strict, pretty violent. She spent a lot of time saying things like "you have thirty days to get your shit out of my house," Funny since she was always absent having affairs.  And she left all her shit at home while she was gone. Thinking I'd take her back which I always did.  Every time.   Who's stupid now, dude?  True sociopathic trash, that one.  You enabled her illness, believing you were helping her. She was a predator, not a wounded fawn.  A coyote.   She was certain I was an asshole, as always.  That was familiar. And she was certain that it was because of her attractiveness that she was fucking someone else.  That's pretty fa...

 This is a time of searching...for peace and self-care and self-love. I cancelled the "best baby in the world" contract I received as a young boy.  None of us ask for these contracts but I assume others struggle to live up to them too. Falling short of the childhood requirements to receive the love we desire, I imagine we're all connected in universal suffering. That's beautiful...so why endless war?  Why mass murder? Why politics of hate? I don't feel connected to anyone now.  And while I've cancelled the old contract, my DNA tells me to live by its warrants.   I continue to feel shame and fear for not pleasing others, especially after three decades of brutal mistreatment. This is the pain of the war-torn.  I believe I will never be loved, just as I have not been these last 30 years.  I believe I am my only hope for finding something I cherish that will not hurt me over and over again, every day.  Every night.  That won't rip me out of bed n...

Sad again today.  That's too bad.  It makes sense that I'd feel sad now...the fall, the oncoming cold, the darkness, my own journey out of hell. But I prefer the days when I sense a millimeter of progress.  The days where I lunge forward with hope.  The days were I sense that living alone is a potential opportunity, unexplored but available, like a large room in a house that I didn't know was there. Sadness repeats  all the same elements since 2012.  Sadness that I understated Mina's ability to hurt people.  I believed I was strong enough and sufficiently free of needs to get destroyed as others have.  Try getting PTSD and see how strong you are in the face of sociopathy. Like me, probably about 15 minutes.   Sadness that my best friend dumped me three times, and pulled the rug out from under our marriage every time she couldn't get the attention she needed or what she wanted.  (Which was never.  Never in her life.  Never will ...

I've improved generally from the floor of depression and the inescapable anxiety of PTS. But I'm sad now. And more self criticism. More looking in the mirror and saying "what a fucking mess." Hopefully just a pause in the rebuilding from scratch process. Missing my old friend in between the reality that she's ill and not available anyway for needy people or the traumatized. I'll keep working on my therapy and supporting that lovely 5 year old boy who I love so much even though it's long past time for him to rest and find peace.

I'm sorry that I disappointed you nearly every day. I never wanted to do that. I'm sorry that I still don't think my Fetlife fantasy and your open marriage polyamorous Caroline fantasy are even remotely comparable on the spousal abuse list. I'm sorry that I still believe you are the only person I've experienced a disaster like this with—3 times!—while you've run this same pattern as your default behavior a dozen times or more. I'm sorry I tried to be small, to avoid conflict, because you brought it down like an invasion of locusts anyway, rather than standing up for my needs, no matter how much ridicule that would have caused me. I'm sorry for myself that I lost my favorite playmate. That's why I stayed with you. It certainly wasn't because everyone was saying "you have the nicest wife!" People including your mom were saying that about me. Many people. Never you. I assume you hated my ability to connect with others be...

Hard to imagine that you will not die alone, my best friend. The part of me that knew I couldn't count on you to hike to the headwaters of the Hudson—or trust you with any other important information or responsibilities—is the part that knew you fully. Perhaps I didn't want to see it. But I watched you go AWOL in 2012 and became a full member of the "betrayed by M" club. That club will include everyone who's known you and everyone who's loved you. We welcome new members if they're still able to walk or remember their name after being dismissed and ghosted with such indifference for their pain. Our pain. My pain. Revisit your memories on your next run. Maybe you'll notice the fear and anger finally. Ha. No you won't. You are not capable of distinguishing or caring. You might notice that you'd already been ignoring the friend you'd left behind. That selfish certainty—you know that cerebral experience—that's the familiar one. Th...

It's been three years since my ex's masturbation class with Caroline, and she's still so full of blame that she hasn't responded to me by text. She owes me a response to over 1200 of them now. Hopefully this arms her to see the person who treated her better than anyone on the planet as a stalker. It certainly helps me see her as an emotionally immature sociopath. Here's number 1201 (I'm guessing on the real total): Once again: it appears that our agreement is stopped because you want to renegotiate when you pick up whatever it is you want from 67 RSD? Is there anything you can resolve by just asking me? We will never ever finish your divorce if you don't get control of your side. I don't know you any more and I don't understand why you'd allow such silliness. What risk do you think you're protecting yourself from when you allow $0 transactions to derail whatever it is you think you need from me. I am a wonderful person dealing...

No this isn't John Lennon. It's just a note about therapy sessions I've had recently and my increased perception that I'd been married to a child. Emotionally speaking. A woman with undeveloped immature emotional understanding of herself, and a "tin ear" towards everyone else. As with all things, of course, I have no basis to know for sure. My ex has been gone for so long I don't remember her face any more. She turned her back on me for so long I don't remember her front! And I was not astute or skilled or perhaps interested enough to develop the therapeutic knowledge necessary to make sense of her behaviors and her impact on my wellbeing back when I knew her. From a distance, she seems foul, sociopathic, and narcissistic. I made peace with that for many years, and the result is mental health trauma so deep I can't get her presence out of my own PTS brain. I would so love to leave my freeloading child wife at a highway rest area. And s...

 I spent my entire life trying to please women.  I hardwired myself at an early age to believe that if I wasn’t being praised I would never receive the love I wanted.   This plan generally worked. Until now.  I  can’t get praise—from the one woman who matters to me.  Instead I’m ghosted, dismissed, ignored, and criticized.  So what does someone like me do?  I get in a group of 16 women and try to be the one (nice) guy on a pickleball team. I reach out to women friends in trouble—addiction, failed marriages, poverty etc—and buy them plane tickets surrounded by thoughtful solace.  To my credit I also spend a ton of money on therapy and treatments to try to break my pleasing habit. To set boundaries.  The results of this work have, indeed, changed me. I know what I want and need, and can describe that to others, better than I ever have. I’m still working on it. I have many helpful tools. And seeing my own needs makes it so much easier to un...

Those facts did not stop her nitwit lawyers from running up near 100k in legal bills doing forensic work. I guess they'd never run into a moneyed spouse who didn't have secret bank accounts. I think my ex was pissed off too. She was counting on padding our community balance sheet. There were no hidden sheckls. No Caymen Island accounts. No second homes purchased for prostitutes. Bummer. Just the checking and investment accounts she knew about since she returned from her previous affair. (The Fidelity account was opened as a transfer account for my dad's estate.  Mina was absent fucking someone else during that period, but I brought her up to speed and gave her all the information once she returned, having been dumped by some other surprised loser.) Plus, adding to the dimwit thing, the forensic process disclosed that she had transferred over 200k out of our joint accounts into a secret bank account without marital disclosure! She found the crook! There she is, s...

Did my marriage shatter? Perhaps. Though not now. And in stages. I broke in 2012. Then I had the endless torment of a dissatisfied and frustrated wife. I believe she wanted celebrity, or at least a spotlight, and I provided neither. And so I receded, out of what was meaningful to her, and mostly away from what I loved about myself. The year my wife left me—for a polyamorous open marriage plan (I was not invited to the sexathon) my word of the year was "small." I had stopped hoping to please anyone, least of all myself. I just wanted to avoid being ignored, and criticized, and subjected to ridicule. I tried to hide my successes and to keep my own counsel. I sought out strangers at parties because they were so much more empathetic than my false friends. Now I have achieved my goal. I live alone and avoid returning infrequent phone calls from friends. I am small. I do not matter very much. My circle is small and getting smaller. I don't need much....

Ceci and MM (Diana's cat...I'm cat sitting for the month) are outside watching the sun set.  I am here alone.  I am eating leftover chicken soup I made on Monday.  It's very good...it warms me.  Corn and noodles and a really nice celery/carrot/onion base.  Just the right amount of pepper and Italian seasoning.  And fresh organic whole chicken. I have a glass of red wine.  A rare treat I guess, though when you're depressed, wine can often be the worst possible enemy.  Half a glass equals four hours on the couch the day after.  But the flavor is nice...some sort of red blend.  I often choose those on the menu, if I go out. It's so quiet as the sun sets.  Reflective time.  Review time for my life that seems so strange and alien to what I expected for my future and who I was in my past.  I'm surprised by the loudness of my sadness at this moment.  Thanks to the therapy and the anti-depressants, often now my sadness is acc...

Actually it's my divorce, but measured by the amount of approval, love, and thanks I receive, there's no difference. True, I get no attention now from my ex. I literally don't recall if that's better or worse than when we slept in the same bed for 28 years. The attention I got always felt like criticism, and the backstabbing chatter felt like childish rudeness. Neither my marriage nor my divorce generated affection at the level I wanted. They never worked for me. My ex never showed up for me then, and so her total absence now feels similarly unsatisfactory. I'd be so much clearer about my needs and boundaries now, and so little of her behavior would be acceptable to me. Too bad. I liked her, but what a selfish asshole! I breath in receiving now. I never received a thing in the past. I gave and gave and gave and got insulted every day. My little non-violent parasite. She is a well that never offers water.

I paid my dues for a long time.   I was a good citizen, for sure. I didn't screw anyone over, ever.   I've always served others first, and never took the first or the last bite until I was certain others were happy with their portion. When disputes arose, I resolved them by being generous to the other party.  It was cheaper in the end, and always worked, until I met my wife.  Generosity backfired in that significant relationship.  I gave more than I could afford, and it wasn't what my wife needed most...so we failed.  Bad on me...I'm a lot more skilled at relationship management than my wife was, from what I observed.  I could and should have listened better and learned more along the way. I deserve whatever good things come my way down the road. It's weird to ask for money back, even though I've paid in the max every year for over 35 years.  So retirement benefits feel like an unusual gift.  Who should I thank for this slight extra (taxable!...

Here's a data dump of the snowball of my own development after depression and PTSD.   I continue to search for approval of women, but no longer "at whatever the cost to me."   So, I seek out groups of women pickleball players or the attention of women at social events.   These activities are the habits of my family constellation contract with my mom…I will be the best baby in the world if you love me.   Worked for awhile but it screwed up my life in the end, thanks to my brick wall run-in with an absentee spouse.    I'm amazed I lived this long, but I've now paid for it with the decline of my mental health and the suffering of the last three years, and 2012, particularly.   I am learning "this does not work for me," and what that statement really means.  I can feel the power of kind truth and the clear vision of self-knowledge peeking out from behind my bad childhood habits.  My addiction to pleasing.   I...