I need tough (platonic) love, my friends…

[narwhalParticipant]

Just a few thoughts to make. One is that you need to have a lawyer tell you what you’re financial situation is. It sounds like you moved out, so you’re technically separated. I don’t know if that means you still have shared funds in your location. If so, then do not hesitate to spend on what you need.

I think you’re good to get a job, but don’t look for much. The bigger the job, the bigger the child support. I’m not suggesting you don’t take care of your child, but do it on your terms, not hers and the governments.

If you’re an atheist, I wouldn’t go there seeking counseling. Any pastor is more concerned about your faith then your situation per se, and I don’t think it would be in your best interests to ‘fake’ trying to get help. Perhaps you could talk to a pastor about where an atheist can get counseling without a religious bent. That said, there are some Christian counselors who will give non-religious counsel if you ask for it. And I get that you want to network, I just don’t think it will be a good idea to seek it an a Christian context when you have no interest in being a Christian.

Lastly, are you out of the house due to restraining order or something of that nature? If not, are you out of the house because you don’t think you can hold your temper? It is better for you to be in the home, with your kid, then away. You are the primary care giver, and you are more likely to receive custody and child support if you demonstrate that this was your primary role in the marriage. But have a lawyer tell you this.

Ok. Then do it.

[Anonymous 0]

Mr.NeverAgain wrote:

Truth be told I used to be into writing and recording rock music. I still got my old guitars/basses ect, I would just need some brushing up. But the male acceptance that you referred to, makes sense. Respectfully, there is not much of a chance i’ll be riding off on a bike. Used to ride quads and dirt bikes in Grand Rapids, but I want to try and salvage a relationship with my daughter if possible. Female or not, she deserves me full-filling my vows as a father to the best that circumstances will allow. Im just wishing like a hooker on a cold night that Im not throwing myself down a new rabbit hole of despair.

Good on ya, buddy
Stick around

[Mr.NeverAgainParticipant 146]

Yeah, I did not intend to maliciously deceive a church for any gains, just connections. Be reading what you wrote does ring true. I don’t want to fake getting help, I probably really could use it. But you got a helluva point.

She’s known for years how to manipulate my temper and I have failed to resist almost every time. I ran out at about 11:30 pm the night night before christmas eve. I ran a mile and a half through icy rain in pajama bottoms and a bath robe. I had to evade and ambulance that noticed me and tried to turn around. She moved quick and my circumstances are rough.

I KNOW im gonna get my ass whomped for this one, but im trapped in this idea that I should pretty much walk away and start all my own. She ran the finances for years and even with her comfortable income, its a mess. But everything is in her name. I want small quiet and comfortable I think. Is this as idiotic as it sounds?

“I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise." The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

[BlakeGuyParticipant 287]

Reading this through, it sounds like you are on your way to thinking clearly. I will mostly cover the guilt feeling.

I lost my brother a little while ago, and I often think I could have done a lot more to help him had I understood things a little better. Had i remained as close to him as we were as kids. In fact, everyone in my family feels this way. We all have guilt feelings.

I think there is no short path on that guilt feeling. You just have to be strong about it. Accept your thoughts and keep building a positive accurate view on what happened. Sounds like you were the one that tried the hardest to help him. Sounds also like you would have lost him at some point the second you turned your eyes off him.

My suggestion is that you let yourself feel sad about it. Have those times when you chat about it, have those times when you let it affect you. Use his example to make you stronger. Be what he wanted you to be. Feel him watching you and sharing your successes as you avoid his path. Convert the pain into action.

The most important thing that you do over all though is to get your own life. Become someone. Do not let anyone look after you, do not feel dependent on anyone. Do not try and support anyone until you are fully independent. The lone ranger is a good model, so is Ralph Emerson Waldo. I think you would admire him a lot.

Here is a link for some of his quotes, but it is worth your while to read about him particularly his time with Henry David Thoreau.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/ralph_waldo_emerson.html

Let the good times roll

[BikermanParticipant 57]

Hi M52 – Now THAT is what I’m talking about. 🙂

I reckon it’ll be 6 months before I scrape enough money together to get my next ride – which puts us smack into British Summer……I can hardly wait. I certainly notice a difference in my general outlook and health/mentality without a bike – a little like someone has let 20psi out of my tyres – all a bit flat and wobbly when you push it…I certainly believe a bike has a noticeable effect on both my physical and mental health and well-being.

[Anonymous 0]

Mr.NeverAgain wrote:

I KNOW im gonna get my ass whomped for this one, but im trapped in this idea that I should pretty much walk away and start all my own. She ran the finances for years and even with her comfortable income, its a mess. But everything is in her name. I want small quiet and comfortable I think. Is this as idiotic as it sounds?

Yes, it’s idiotic. Get with a lawyer. Not tomorrow. Not today. Do it YESTERDAY.

Look, we’re men here, and we all understand the wish to just walk away and find peace. In part, it has something to do with the male constitution.

Here’s the psychology of men vs. women:

Studies have shown that men are slower to recover from the stress of an argument than women. Once men get stressed by conflict or a sudden danger, men tend to remain distressed for longer and think negative thoughts that keep them in a state of distress. Women, on the other hand, recover from distress quicker: They self-soothe after a distressing incidence.

The experts say that this probably goes back to early society, where men had to be hyper-vigilant for danger while women had to be nurturing.

As for men: At any sign of danger, men get flooded with adrenaline. Stress levels remain high and men brood and try to anticipate ways that danger might attack and how the fight will go. Blood pressure will stay elevated until the man can retaliate.

As for women: When women are lactating, milk flow is affected by how relaxed they feel. So natural selection would favor a female who could quickly soothe herself and calm down after feeling stressed. She can’t feed her children when stressed, so she de-stresses as quickly as possible for the sake of her children.

How does this work out when men and women interact in the modern world? Women will be the ones to raise sensitive issues (nagging) while men tend to be conflict-avoidant and then stonewall when confronted. Men tend to get defensive quicker and carry grudges for longer. Meantime, women are casual about creating conflict and drama because they aren’t as affected by it. Women can nag or argue for a bit and then de-stress quickly and be relatively unaffected by the conflict.

*******************
Okay, so what does that mean? It means you’re not going to defend yourself properly. Your wife knows that she can create a scene, and you’ll back down and give up important rights rather than fight back.

So you need to find yourself a “champion” to do your fighting for you. Get a lawyer, let him (or her) call the shots, and THEN by all means sit back and get peaceful. But you need that “champion” looking after your affairs and making sure your wife doesn’t slip something past you while you’re being peaceful. If your wife makes a claim about your anger issues and you don’t respond, you could end up with a court record that anyone could use for the rest of your life as evidence that you’re an unfit parent. So you need that “champion” (your lawyer) to look after your affairs for you and make sure nothing slips by.

You need a lawyer even when you are just doing a separation from your wife (prior to the divorce). You need a legal designation of what kind of separation you’re undergoing, and possibly a “pendente lite” in order to arrange who gets what finances during the pre-divorce phase. Otherwise, your wife could possibly run up huge debts and then stick you with the bill. See the following link:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/separation-vs-divorce-30251.html

So get a lawyer. And THEN settle back and get peaceful AFTER you have a professional “champion” to watch your back for you. And send any and all separation-related paperwork through your lawyer.

Also, as I advised elsewhere, read “Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone With Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” by Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD and Randi Kreger.

Your wife sounds like a real piece of work. Kind of sounds NPD. A spouse with BPD or NPD is the nightmare scenario, because they’re combative and uncooperative every step of the way. So the book “Splitting” really walks you through every step, giving you lots of detail on how to handle things when the spouse is uncooperative or downright hostile.

[BlakeGuyParticipant 287]

She wanted you to get a flesh light, that is totally f~~~ed up, shows how evil she really is. You are escaping a life of bullets, feel thankful that this is all happening right now.

Let the good times roll

[BadgerParticipant 2277]

Mr.NeverAgain wrote:

Now I stand accused of something that I didn’t do, and it all stems from a girlfriend of hers we knew in Grand rapids about 6 years ago. Long ago and far away, I can’t prove anything, but neither can she.

Welcome, Mr.NeverAgain. I sounds like your wife was cheating and she was accusing you of it to throw you off as what she was doing.

You are not responsible or to blame for your father’s death. Everyone is responsible for their own behavior.

I too am a life-long atheist, but nonetheless, some of the teachings of religions are based on sound psychological advice. The problem is they may attempt make you into a subservient follower. The former Jesuit priest, Anthony de Mello also was a clinical psychologist. Check if a local library has a copy, and if not, go to Amazon.com and get a used copy of his book: Awareness: The Perils and Pitfalls of Reality. You will find a LOT of sound psychological and practical advice in that book. I often quote him despite being an atheist, because he is a hard-nosed, no-B.S., realist about people and human behavior. You can get a Amazon gift card at Walgreen Drugs or some other businesses.

[Silverstone the SecondParticipant]

It sounds like things are very bad. Remember that things could always get worse. Always. I won’t tell you what to do, man. It’s your life, you know it better than anyone else. S~~~, maybe life’s just not worth it anymore. I will say that I’m glad I lived through the bulls~~~. There is happiness at the end of the tunnel, or at least relief from all the bad s~~~ happening. Life can get better, bro.

Feminism is a movement where opinions are presented as facts and emotions are presented as evidence.

[Mr.NeverAgainParticipant 146]

The parts about men vs. women with regards to cool down time has to be true. Even when bringing clearity to my mind, my stomach is all f-d up and I’m struggling to eat and sleep. Im twitchy as a crack head.

“I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise." The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

[TaxGuyParticipant]

Mr.NeverAgain wrote:

The parts about men vs. women with regards to cool down time has to be true. Even when bringing clearity to my mind, my stomach is all f-d up and I’m struggling to eat and sleep. Im twitchy as a crack head.

One thing to learn about narcissists is that it is an energy exchange: they are stealing yours. Ever watch Monsters Inc. with your kids? At the beginning of the movie the monsters steal the kids’ energy for electricity. At the end of the movie they realize that you create more energy by being positive than being negative. In the mean time, Randall is trying to create a machine to suck all of the energy out of them, strapped to a chair. That’s your relationship with her. She’s the monster and you’re the kid. If you have a conversation with someone and you can feel yourself stripped of energy, it went somewhere. She took it. And the more you fight, the more drained you are and the more energized she is. That’s how she beats you. I swear the guy that wrote that movie must have had a real bitch for a wife.

I’ve said this before, but I used to be a fire fighter. And they teach the fire triangle. You need three things to make a fire: fuel, heat, and air. The fuel is anything you’ve ever said to her, because she will bring up s~~~ from the past at any time. She is the heat source, nothing you can do about that. Your attention is the oxygen. So, what do you do? First, give her no more fuel. Shut the f~~~ up! Give her nothing extra to use against you. Second, when she throws the heat at the fuel, give her nothing. Anything you say at that point is oxygen. And it’s exactly what she is looking for.

Order the good wine

[Anonymous 0]

Mr.NeverAgain wrote:

The parts about men vs. women with regards to cool down time has to be true. Even when bringing clearity to my mind, my stomach is all f-d up and I’m struggling to eat and sleep. Im twitchy as a crack head.

Just get that “champion” (the lawyer), and then switch off the “give-a-f~~~” switch. Let the lawyer do the watching and fidgeting and the fighting, and you just focus on some video gaming or a fun hobby. Get out and socialize, like you planned. If your wife gives you s~~~, tell her to talk to your lawyer.

Look in the yellow pages under “lawyer” or “legal services,” and then under “family law.” Don’t fret about the cost of the lawyer. It’s well worth it. Just figure it wound up costing you some money to get into the marriage in the first place (in terms of helping your wife through college, ring, wedding, honeymoon, and all that), and now it’s going to take a little money to get out of the marriage. But that lawyer is one of the best investments you’ll every make. A real lifesaver.

Also, don’t take anything I say personally. You sound like a good dude to me. I’m just giving you some tough love, like you said at the beginning. 🙂

[Mr.NeverAgainParticipant 146]

You got no arguments from me there, sir. I haven’t sent a txt or left a message that didn’t calmly begin and end with please and thank you. To your analogy, im dealing with enough burns to internalize the “no more trouble for myself.” And i am certainly not admitting anything about my anger to anyone other than my parents and you guys. She will get no more admission of guilt from me. Admitting guilt is an attempt at reconciliation, and I would never go back now. I guess I just have to find my guts and prepare for the coming storm, because this will absolutely be a disaster.

“I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise." The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

[Mr.NeverAgainParticipant 146]

Nothing taken personal. im damn glad to be here. It feels like the platoon coming back for you and pulling you out of the vaginal warzone. (no offense to any real life vets)

“I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise." The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

[Anonymous 0]

Mr.NeverAgain wrote:

You got no arguments from me there, sir. I haven’t sent a txt or left a message that didn’t calmly begin and end with please and thank you. To your analogy, im dealing with enough burns to internalize the “no more trouble for myself.” And i am certainly not admitting anything about my anger to anyone other than my parents and you guys. She will get no more admission of guilt from me. Admitting guilt is an attempt at reconciliation, and I would never go back now. I guess I just have to find my guts and prepare for the coming storm, because this will absolutely be a disaster.

It won’t be as bad as you think. The lawyer will take the heat for you. That’s their job, and they do it well. They’ll stand in front of you and protect you. The biggest problem is that if your wife is hostile or contentious or just prone to drag her heels, then the whole proces may take as much as two years. I divorced an NPD ex who dragged her heels on everything. My lawyer had to threaten to sue repeatedly just to get the most basic paperwork out of her. Just non-cooperative. Took about two years. But I just set back and let my lawyer handle it. I just filled out whatever paperwork he sent me, and ceased to give a f~~~ otherwise. If things got stalled for a while, I might give him a nudge and ask him if it was time to get on my ex’s case. But otherwise, I let him handle all the back-and-forth.

It wasn’t that bad. It just put my life on hold for those two years. But I did a lot of video gaming and some partying, and then one day it was all over.

Anyway: First get the lawyer. Then get that book I recommended: “Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone With Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder,” by Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD and Randi Kreger.

Here’s the link for the book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Splitting-Protecting-Borderline-Narcissistic-Personality/dp/1608820254/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Scroll down and read the reviews.

[Anonymous 43]

lawyer, get one

no contact

patience.

this will not be a fair fight, accept that up front.

remain calm while your life is wrecked. the tighter you cling to your present life, the more expensive and painful things will be.

You have the ability to rebuild a better life, she is stuck with what you left behind. let her choke on it.

rejoice at the gift she has given you. she will wallow in the past, you look to the future.

good luck brother.

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

Crap, dude. If this is for real (don’t take it personally, this board gets a lot of trolls and folks are cautious about believing them) then you don’t need tough love, you just need some f~~~ing peace and quiet and time to rest.

Whatever remaining hells you have to go through, commit to facing them as quickly as possible and get through them. Even if you come out with nothing at all on the other end, you’ll still be better off.

[Mr. ManParticipant 2916]

Wow, the guys on this forum have really stepped up to help you with some pretty detailed advice, all of it good.

The only thing I’d like to add is this: There’s life after divorce. A good one. A much better one.

Good luck.

[BikermanParticipant 57]

So if I were to attempt a summary (and no teacher can resist that) then it would be along these lines: (and this is as much to get my own thoughts in order as to help you do the same) 🙂

a) There is stuff you need to do – chief of which is to secure w2hat you can from the split – in terms of assets and not being screwed over. For this you need to adopt a realistic mindset – ie you are splitting and that is the start and end of it, no silly wishes or daydreams about ‘what ifs’.
In this area the advice from TwoSteps looks to me to be your blueprint – get a brief and put him to work for you.

b) Don’t just sit around filled with bitterness, anger, regret or the other poisons which destroy the soul. Look upon this as the start of a new life and set some goals for yourself. Maybe you would like to play an instrument, ride a motorbike, develop a killer ripped physique, study something in depth – the possibilities are endless which is one reason people rarely get around to these things – too much choice. You, however, have the incredible luxury of a blank slate, being able to be completely selfish about your choice, having time to develop your goals in a careful and thought-out manner, and nobody to seek permission, blessings, agreement or consent from who could guilt trip you or make it a downer. Bloody Hell man, you are rich in most of the important ways a man can be rich, and the financial stuff will follow in time for you – as it will for me. Men are pretty good generally at doing OK with very little – and that means we can build and grow our stashes 🙂

c) Don’t over-think your recent history. The divorce should be IT. Before then you will have to tell some of your history and discuss with your brief some stuff which will be painful, but don’t let that develop so that you spend huge amounts of time thinking about the recent past or the malign characters who populate it. You goal is to get out and away with as much as you are allowed to carry with you and then never see the s~~~s again. Sitting thinking about them helps not one little bit and will make you ill, bitter and without clarity or focus. The person you need to spend most time thinking about is YOU and what YOU want to do – in positive terms.

d) Bitterness, anger and negative emotions are to be avoided where possible and self-pity should be squashed when it crawls into view. Your goal, in broad terms, is to grow as an adult man – in emotional, intellectual, material and psychological terms. To be what some brothers have described as a truly independent and autonomous person in control of your own life and, as a result, immensely resilient and strong.

PS
e) A suggestion from me which might sound left-field. I have been following the exploits of a Canadian fellow academic/educator as he goes up against those wishing to shackle free speech. Professor Peterson is his moniker – Jordan Peterson. The guy is a psychologist and speaks much sense on issues of personal growth and goal setting. Given that he is a God-Botherer and that he rates Jung and Freud very highly – two things I regard as grave flaws in a thinking man – you can gather how much he has impressed me to overcome these facts. One of the things he has talked about is a ‘self authoring’ project he developed to help his students. It involves visualising yourself in a few years, and writing about what you would like to have done, achieved, learned etc etc if things go well. Then you repeat the exercise assuming things do not go well and imagine what sort of hole you will be in. Students who have done the module increased their grade-point average by 25% – and I can tell you that this is an astonishing result. I am going to suggest you might want to give it a go……we are talking something that will take a few hours, not weeks. Do you want more info on this or does it not sound right for you?

[bladeParticipant]

Welcome bro . I have had a f~~~ load of trauma . I found phsycologist f~~~ed and robitic with no empathy or fake bulls~~~ empathy . . What i found out of every resource for help was a male councilor middle aged . That was the most helpful i found in face to face . Stick with us bro this site has been the very best help i have found ever . I cannot speak highly enough of this place and members and km for this place .

THE PLANTATION HAS NOW TURNED INTO THE KILLING FIELDS . WOMAN ARE NOW ROLLING CAMBODIAN STYLE .

[Author]

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