Well that's pretty cool. May I ask: what is the 'situation'? Nosy, but mostly kind ovahere

Hope you are well.

T

Well, this was a while ago -- at the time, the situation was that my wife and I were sleeping separately, I had no money to buy food (I had arranged that all of it be deposited in an account that she controlled), and basically, that I had no idea what to do next. Instead, I ate roughly one meal a day for over a month. Not the recommended way to diet, though it was highly effective, in the short term.

Much has changed; she took out a protective order against me as a quick way of getting me moved out of the house, and I now have an apartment and a car (and my income, of course), and we're working on some kind of divorce settlement.

It's okay, some of my best friends are nosy! :-P

Seriously, I wouldn't write here if I had anything significant to hide.

Ah! Now I get it!

Well, I know, and to tell the truth I am not that nosy or gossipy for that matter. I just feel that this is the place to write about this kind of stuff. And I know that males tend to no tell in general, or they'll talk. But about facts. not feelings. But it may not be your case, It's just my experience with, hum, the other 'specie'

Well, should I say, 'that's good'? Is this a move forward for you? To me it seems it is, but behind the curtain of technology, it's how to tell how you feel about that.

I know the protective order is not ideal, but sometimes, we all know, as we were discussing with Star, that responsibility may lay in both camps, even if, from the outside perspective, it looks so unilateral. That, I know.

T

I'm working on overcoming the faults of my species. :-P

Plus the ones I've layered on top. One of which is, pointing out all my faults. ;-)

Really, ask any questions that come up. The reason that the blog is public is so that people can give me whatever insights they might have.

In the long run, getting out of my marriage will probably be good for both of us. Maybe more important is getting out of the mindset that got me into my marriage. Otherwise, it'll happen again, perish the thought.

The protective order was just leverage; she's dropped it without it ever becoming a "final" order. That's fine by me: it keeps it off my permanent record, otherwise I would have fought it in court. As it was, it seemed to make her feel better, without hurting me much, after the initial shocking search for a place to stay. It's not like I was going to go back after that.

See, I knew, well I had a feeling that this protective order was semi 'bull'. Her way of saying 'I can't deal'.

Well, I am dealing with shortcoming of my own species. Which overlap largely into my own issues really. I am talking about the dependency thing, but regardless.

Ok, just a fun quote here I have to insert. I think about it when I am starting to bla, bla about myself and feel it's time to let another person talk. It comes from the father of my ex-boss [who I am not so fond of. He's a doc and pretty full of himself]. He says all the time:

'well, enough talking about me, let's talk about what you think of me'.

So back to you. ya, Getting out of the mindset that got you in a bad relationship is the key to the golden door, isnt it? What I find difficult is, how do you remove the bad, without removing the good. What I mean by that is that we all know that attraction as a little bit to do with our experience. We look for something that we know a little bit about. It is attractive in a way. And if you remove that, then what?

No, don't worry; the only real perspective any of us can add to a discussion is ours. I think it's helpful to talk about your own experience, when it's relevant.

I don't really understand your question, but there's another complication you may not be aware of. I'm what you might call a late bloomer. No, really. Virgin at 40; wife's the first person I slept with, and so on. So, zero experience with breaking up, which actually is part of why we got married, which is truly sad.

So, I don't know what to look for, or not look for, in the next person, really. But, I'm not too worried. I figure, okay, I might remove some bad part of my personality, or outlook, as a result of what I learn from this. Rather than reduce the number of candidates, though, I figure it might open up a whole new set of people I'd be attracted to. People who are better suited to the good parts of me. I hope so, anyway.

Well, I am the opposite, that's not really better ah!

Ya, breaking up experience. Well, I have a lot of experience breaking up myself. Mostly guys breaking up with me. But I do have some breaking up that I initiated too. I can tell you one thing. In both cases, it hurts, as we know. It's just that when someone breaks up with you, there's the rejection thing that you have to deal with as well right? Like 'is it me? What's wrong with me?'

You're saying the fact that you had zero experience with breakups is why you got married in the first place? A bit like, oh, this guy don't see what he's getting into? I'm I understand well here?

About my question: what I mean is, and as I was asking the question I got a partial answer [i think] from 'my brain'... Anyway, what I mean is apparently, as the 'experts' in relationship and/or psychology tell us, we are attracted to people that may remind us, somehow of past interaction that affected us, good or bad, when we were kids.

I know for me there's a bit of my dad in all the guys I seem to like, and a bit of my mom too!

For the partial answer. I think, remodeling your attraction patterns would have to do with focusing on the positive traits of those 'dit' parents, if they have some you can hang on to, or to another parent like figure in your life that had a good impact on you...But this is still to verify.

As per what to look for. Well, 'may we suggest', making a list of attributes you want? Remember my list, on my blog [well maybe you didn't see it...]? How you do that is you think about what attracted you in the first relationship, and what you didn't like, in hindsight, on different levels [social qualities, emotional, financial, intellectual, sexual etc]. And also what you want according to what makes you tick, and your values as well. and then you have something to 'evaluate' if you are keeping yourself on track or just going by pure guts, read, physical attraction.

Ya, I do too think that by improving your [my] own skills, correcting a bit my own flaws, going for my own goals and doing what makes ME tick, I have a better chance at finding a partner that will suit me. I believe it's true!

Well, if I had had any experience with breaking up, I would have been less afraid of the idea, and more willing to stick up for what I wanted, even if it meant breaking up. Partly because I didn't do that, we stayed together until we married.

I guess it's true that we're attracted to bits of our parents. I wouldn't worry too much, though. There are bound to be good bits in any parent (okay, I'm out on a limb there, a bit, but I think it's true). What's difficult is for the children to recognize the good bits in their parents, and isolate them from the bad. For instance, it struck me in your story about your mountain bike accident, that your father was clearly very worried about you, no matter how badly he ended up expressing it.

Ah, ok, I can understand now. Ya, it sure does help when you can feel confident that a break up, even though painful, isn't the end of life.

Ya, my dad cares for me, I do know that! He just doesn't express it very well. Not very well at all Ah!