'YSR said:
'Gadzooks said:
Life can really suck. I'll take a hug......
What's the haps, GB? :(
Combination of a lot of things. Dealing with a ridiculous amount of stress at work, really stressing about the fact that in September Little 'Zooks will be going to school all day in another town which means the time I spend with him is going to decrease a lot, also have some financial issues (who doesn't) and all I'm also realizing that I'm not dealing well with the weird "friends with benefits" relationship I had with the 22 YO. Everything with her fizzled out over a month ago but we managed to maintain our friendship, to the point of really being each other's best friend and talking about everything little that was happening in our lives. Now that friendship is starting fade. I haven't slept in a few days and it's making me evaluate everything in my life and it makes me realize I have a very "unaccomplished" life. It's weird, I keep getting this weird feeling of emptiness.I think my general happy-go-lucky attitude fools people into thinking that everything is great with me, and I think I realize that I've been fooling myself this whole time too. A lot of people have always told me that they've never met anyone who smiles and laughs as much as I do and how I always have a funny joke or remark for any situation. But looking back, I don't really see anything that I was successful at or reasons to be happy about. I did lousy in College and after being on academic probabtion my first 2 years, I didn't go back and then always figured I would finish and get my degree "later" but that has never happened (luckily, I fell into a good job and moved my way up through hard work and have a job that would usually require a Degree). All growing up I always wanted to be married and have a somewhat big family (3 kids, the dog, typical American Dream) but after getting married we went through 3 miscarriages before having our son and then another miscarriage after him which left my ex-wife unable to have anymore children. Then one day I woke up to find out she was having an affair and SHE wanted a divorce. Despite her having the affair, I still tried to make it work, but she didn't want to. That was a dark time that took a while to get out of. My only focus during that time was my son and that probably helped me not focus on what my ex wife did. The divorce also caused some financial issues, but overall I made out ok with everything (I kept the house and all of my retirement, no alimony and I just pay a minor amount of child support since we split custody) the problem is going from a 2 person income to a 1 person income and keeping the house and I took all of our debt. Once I got out of the divorce cloud, things got a little better (thank you alcohol) I figured out how to balance my time as a Dad and single guy who had every other weekend to go out and have fun. But something still felt like it was missing, I'm guessing it was not being in a relationship. Random hook ups are great and everything, but whenever something "good" would happen in life I would catch myself wanting to share it with someone like I used to with my ex. And also realizing that I was getting any younger, so any chance of meeting someone and having more kids was becoming less likely.
Finally last Fall, I came to grips that this would be my life. The single Dad that Little Zooks would come visit with his family at the holidays for a few hours and not the big family lifestyle I had imagined or hoped for. I figured I would just spend my time being a Dad and when I didn't have him, I'd go out and party and satisfy any physical need I had with a one-stand when needed. It was a sucky outlook but it was what it was and I accepted it. Then at Thanksgiving I met the 22 YO and we started a "relationship" that required complete secrecy for many reasons I won't get into (one big one was her out of state boyfriend) I though it wouldn't last long because she could have whoever she wanted and one day she'd wake up and wonder what she was doing with this 36 YO guy with little to offer. It was great, and as long as I didn't fall for her and realized this was just short term it would be fine. The reason I wouldn't fall for her was because I never thought she would fully fall for me. But then she started to fall and talked about how strongly she felt about me even though she knew we couldn't never be more than what we were. The fact that she started falling for me made me fall for her. I honestly think that if she didn't get stronger feelings for me I would've been fine with our "friends with benefits" type relationship. For about 5 months or so, I had never been happier. It was perfect. But then I think I started wanting more and trying to see if there was any chance that there could be more in the future and that pushed her away. She became distant and finally told me that she felt bad that I wanted more and she knew that couldn't happen and she didn't want me to get hurt, so she was backing off. Once we got thru that, we really had a great friendship for a few weeks, we hardly ever actually saw each other, but talked and texted every day openly discussing possible girls that I could go out and the pros and cons of each ones. She and her boyfriend were on the verge of breaking up and out of blue an old boyfriend starting reach out to her and she wasn't sure what she should do and I talked with her for hours about both situations.
In the last week or so, she was getting very distant. We got in a couple arguements and it really seems like our great friendship is ending now as well. I can't stop thinking about her and I feel like a jackass for staring at my phone all day waiting for her to text me.
I guess ultimately, everything with her is like the icing on the cake. It makes me look back at everything else and seems like everything has been one failure after another. College = fail. Marriage = fail. Having to go to my parents for financial help = fail. Work has been ok I guess, but I know I could've done better and had a better job if I finished school. Relationship with 22 YO = fail. I like to think I do a good job as a Dad, but who knows, maybe I'm just fooling myself into believing that too.
I dont' know why I typed all of that. I guess I usually deal with crap by making fun of it or laughing at it, I've never taken a serious approach to it (or anything else for that matter) I guess it feels good to get that all out though. Blah blah blah blah