Mothers......

So since it is Mother's Day I will post what my mother has meant to me.

My mother has been gone for about 13 years now.  It has been a huge hole in my heart with gone. 

Thru my life I have learned from her how to be friendly, loving, caring, service oriented, honest, hard working, and true to yourself. 

Somewhere along the way I have forgotten those things in my life. Not all of them but pieces of them.

Especially being true to my self. That has been a hard one to gain back. Sometimes I think ok, I am there I am finally me, but then something happens, and I find myself back to being like I was before. Not being myself, but being what someone else wants me to be. 

I was talking to a friend tonight about this same topic. He said that in a marriage or relationship people tend to forget who they are and become what the other person wants them to be. That you can't do that. You learn to compromise with each other, but still be able to be who you are. I for one, love that concept.

I know that my mom did a lot of compromising with my dad, but she was also able to be true to herself and who she was as a person. I don't think that I can ever be like my mom, but I hope that I come close to the person that she was. Because she was a very warm hearted, loving, and happy person no matter what was going on in her life.

So this goes out to all the mothers out there! Be true to yourself while you are compromising with your husband or partner. Don't lose who you are, just to make the man happy! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Dating......

Dating Sucks....I don't know which is worse, to date as a teenager or to date when you are in your 40's. I don't think guys are any different from when they were teenagers. They still act the same. Only thing different is that they should know better when they are an adult.

First they are still after the same thing. SEX. Hasn't changed. They are still horny as ever. Second they like to play games just as much as the teenage boy does just get to get what they want. SEX! They still think with their second head. 

I just want to meet a guy that wants me. Not just the sex, but also the person that I am. They are interested in what I say. They want to go out and do things. Enjoy adventures together. I am not totally against the sex. I am human. I enjoy it, but there is more to a relationship than just sex.

I just want a relationship that I can enjoy the rest of my life with. Not to much to ask for!

Animosity.....

Animosity....Bitter hostility or open enmity; active hatred. A hostile feeling or act. What a strong word.

A friend that I have met a couple of weeks ago, who is fast becoming a very good friend, was talking to me yesterday about my feelings, my thoughts on my divorce, how I was handling everything. I realize that I am not handling things very well. 

He said this word to me a couple of times and it has stuck with me. He told me that I need to let go of the animosity before I could go on with life. That he didn't want to see that animosity grow to affect my life in a bad way. After we talked I thought a lot about what he was saying. So I looked up the meaning. Not that I didn't know what it meant, but I wanted to see what words they used to tell you what the definition was. Well those are very hateful and strong words to use for the definition of word. Makes you think doesn't it. It does me.

I don't want my life to be filled with ANIMOSITY! That would be a horrible way to live your life. To be filled with so much hate and bitter feelings. How do you think your life would be? I would suspect that you would be feeling pretty lonely. Sick. Angry. Negative in everything you are doing! Probably not progressing in your life. Going now where. 

Do I want a life like that? NO! How do you conquer this ANIMOSITY in your life? Well I think that me personally have two ways of animosity to overcome. One is my feelings toward Gerald. Two, my self animosity. Hard things to overcome. 

First. My feelings toward Gerald. Feeling of hatred, of hurt, of being cheated on, of being mentally abused in some ways, and the distrust that I have for him. WOW! Very strong feelings. Ten plus years of strong feelings. Was there once a time that we were happy? Yes! when we were first married. When we had our kids. Those are joyous times in our lives. Looking at those times, they were happy times. But they were times that we were happy to have an event happen in our lives, but not happy that we are together or with each other, except when we got married. That is sound to go thru life like that. My feelings of Gerald when we first got together was of friendship, love, and happiness. Somewhere that all changed. Somewhere we lost those feelings to just being there, to animosity. How do I switch to feelings of forgiveness? How do I let all those feelings of hatred go? I am not sure how, but I do know that I need to let it go. I need to get back those feelings of forgiveness towards him. I may not love him, but I need to be able to be friendly towards him. To stop and think is it worth wasting my energy on the feelings of hatred towards him. Is he worth those feelings? He is not worth those feelings. He is not worth my energy that it takes to hate him. So from this time forward my energy is going to go into letting things roll off my back when it comes to him. Not trying to get revenge for something. Be positive towards him. How is this going to work? That will take a lot of energy! LOL! But good energy. Strong energy for me to have a better life.

Second. Myself...that animosity towards myself. Where did it come from? Where did the thinking negative about myself, putting myself down, thinking that I am a failure at life come from? Well, inadvertently from my marriage. Many years of being second best to my husband. Many years of being not quite good enough in bed that he had to turn to porn to get his satisfaction. Many years of me not being strong enough to stand up for myself. To voice my opinion and being able to stick to it. Many years of being quiet. Letting things get as far as they did. What do I get from it all....self doubt, low self esteem, feelings of worthlessness. How do I change that around. Well my friend, Michael, told me that I need to take those things and ask myself "Does everyone think that I am like that?" That is not as easy as it sounds. But I was thinking about that. Is that only what Gerald thinks or is it what everyone thinks about me. I think that I am not that bad of a person. That I do have a purpose in this life. That I am capable of doing things and of having an opinion. And I can voice that opinion and someone will listen to it. That I am not worthless. That I am not that bad looking of a person. Part of my plan of getting my soul back is not being negative. It is hard and I know that I have said this before. But I really need to start making a conscious effort into putting the positive and keeping it there in my life. I need to get on with my life. I need to get the divorce done. No more holding it up.  I am going to the gym everyday. It is amazing how exercising helps with your energy and your self esteem. I am surrounding myself with positive people in my life. No more negative. I know that this will not always be, but I will have to make it that way. I will have to do a lot of stopping and thinking do I want this in my life? How will this affect my life? How can I turn this into a positive in my life?

Back to square one.....

So Friday I went back to the counselor because I am feeling so overwhelmed with everything.

I feel like I am back at the beginning of all this emotional stuff. I feel like I have taken more steps backwards then I have forward.

I sometimes feel like I just want to bury me head in the sand and never come up for air. I know those are scary thoughts, and I would never do anything like that. But that is how I feel. If I didn't have my kids and job I don't know where I would be.

My counselor says that I need to stay grounded. Be careful of going down the slippery slope. I occasionally drift over to that slippery slope. That is a hard thing for me to stay away from sometimes. That slippery slope is sometimes more appealing than my real life. Especially right now. I would like to just hide from my real life for awhile. That sounds so much more appealing than dealing with real life. 

The counselor and I talked about a lot. One of the first things we talked about was the church.

My feelings on the church. I love the gospel. Do I follow it all the time, NO! I am not perfect. I have my trials with following the gospel. But that is why we have the atonement. So that we can repent when we make mistakes. I use to tell people that you don't go to church for the socializing. You go to be closer to Jesus Christ. Well....Now I see where those people are coming from. It is hard to go to church and not feel comfortable. Or feel like you have no support from anyone in the ward. Especially the Bishop. I don't think that Christ meant for the church to be like that. I really believe that he would want all of us to be comfortable and welcomed into his place of worship. It has not felt like that since I have been on my own. I don't feel like I have the support of the Bishop or the ward. So I am really thinking that you do need that socializing in church. That you need to feel welcomed, like you have a support system in your life, besides being able to pray to you heavenly father. 

I realize that people are not perfect. They are far from it. But I thought that we are suppose to try our best to be Christ like. I don't even see the members in our ward trying. That is what is so hard and very sad. Don't get me wrong. I am not looking for handouts. I am not looking for sympathy from anyone. I am looking for someone to just be Christ like with me. To ask how I am doing? To say "hey we miss you at church?" To help me feel like I need to go back to church. Right now I feel like I am being judge for what I have done. I feel like my ward has sided with Gerald and forgot about me. That is a very empty feeling.

The divorce. I think that I mentioned that I put a hold on the divorce. Well my counselor asked me if I did that because it stopped Gerald form buying the house? Am I having all these emotions because the divorce is almost final? That I am feeling like I am a failure again in marriage? And kind of have to agree with him. I think that it is all that. So on Monday I will call my lawyer up and tell him to put the papers thru. Is it doing me any good to put a hold on them? NO! I need to just get them done. And start on a new life. Hopefully it will be a less stressful life. LOL!

“The real challenge that we face in our communications with others is to condition our hearts to have Christlike feelings for all of Heavenly Father’s children. When we develop this concern for the condition of others, we then will communicate with them as the Savior would. We will then warm the hearts of those who may be suffering in silence.”

Lying......

Lying...False statements, untruthfulness. I hate when people lie. I am not saying that I am perfect. I am by far perfect. But I don't intentionally lie. I am amazed at the things that are said about me....Especially from the one that is suppose to be madly in love with. That says that he will always love me. It really hurts that someone that I have known since 17 years old, would lie about me. That trust that he will always have my back is gone. I have gone for the last 9 months trying not to drag his name thru the mud, and in return I am known as the one who is going thru a mid life crisis. How is this fair? When is he going to admit that he is at fault for this marriage falling apart also? He may never admit that. So I will have to just except that I am the neighborhood wild woman. I guess that isn't such a bad thing, but I know that in the end he will be held accountable for his actions.
 Am I mad about it. I am more disappointed in him. For someone that wanted to make this a friendly split, he has made it into a mean split. I didn't want that. I wanted to be able to be friends with him again at some point. Now it will be just being nice in front of the kids. Which really makes things awkward. I will forgive him eventually, but I will never trust him to be honest with me. That is sad. It is sad that twenty-one years of marriage has become this. No friendship. No trust.
This is a perfect quote of exactly how I feel.
"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” 
-  Friedrich Nietzsche

This is a quote for him.

“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” 
― Virginia Woolf

So my life saga continues. I am going back tomorrow to the counselor. I feel like I am getting overwhelmed with events that are going on right now. I feel that I need that insight from another person. So again, I am back to try to improve the person that I am, the person that I want to become. If that puts me into the category of midlife crisis, then so be it. I will take being in my midlife crisis with my head held high.

Anger......

Anger...Does it consume us? Does it control our thoughts and actions? Does it make us unhealthy? Will it make us be bitter to everyone around us? Does it control our lives? 

   Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel                                                            has deliberately done you wrong. 

   Anger can be a good thing. It can give you a way to express negative feelings, for example, or                                              motivate you to find solutions to problems.

   But excessive anger can cause problems. Increased blood pressure and other physical                                      changes associated with anger make it difficult to think straight and harm your                                                           physical and mental health.

Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology

I decided that I would pick this topic today because I seem to have a lot of anger. It is directed at one person. Is that healthy? Is that a good thing? Or is it going to catch up to me and ruin my life?

In one of the paragraphs above it says that it can be a good thing. A way to express negative feelings and motivate you to find solutions to the problem.

Have I found a solution? Or have I made things more difficult by bringing other problems into it?

Have I been covering up my anger by doing things that maybe I shouldn't be doing? Am I burying all my feelings so that I don't have to deal with them by doing things that I know is not smart to do?

I have been working so hard at trying to be very positive in everything that I do. I didn't realize how much anger I have been burying until one thing happened and it is turning me into a very angry person with the one person that has caused it. But if I don't control or figure it out. That anger is going to overflow to everything else in my life. And maybe it has in some ways already.

Because as I lay here typing about anger, I am realizing that it is slowly taking over my life. I don't go to church because of anger towards people in my ward. I get irritated really fast at stupid people at work. I am quick at making harsh judgements, when I should be taking a step back and really looking at the situation.

Am I making decision based on the anger I feel? I would have to say yes! I feel like every time something happens with me trying to get this divorce I am taking a step back instead of taking that step forward. Do I still think that I am doing the right thing? Yes. That is the only thing that I am positive about. My life as far as being separated from Gerald has been much approved. Do I need more work on myself esteem, my anger towards Gerald? Yes! I don't know if I can forgive him, but I do know that I need to turn my anger into something else towards him. Maybe empathy? But I don't know if that is the right answer either.

My answer is I don't know...I do know that I need to turn this anger into something else before it consumes me and I am ruined because of it. A very dear friend told me that the only person that I am helping because of my anger is the devil. Do I want to help such a person. NO! Not my intent.

So my goal is to somehow turn this anger into something else. What, I don't know! But I do know that I need to figure it out. One day at a time!

Obstacles and Strengths....

So I saw these two quotes today at my counselor's office. The first one is by Michael Jordan.

"Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go thru it, or work around it."

The second is by Rikki Rogers.

"Strength doesn't come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn't."

I have definitely had a lot of obstacles in my life for the past year, and unfortunately they are not done. It seems like I think that everything is going ok, then I get slapped in the face on how stupid I am. Not necessarily stupid, but maybe naive. Or I am easily fooled. Why do I seem to always go back to that I can't do anything right, that I am stupid, I don't know what I am talking about person. I thought that I was passed that. That I had gained a better self esteem of myself. But I still let Gerald affect me that way in some dealings with him.

I am going to have to start doing what the quotes says about obstacles. Just figure out away to not let it affect me. To be able to stand up to him and not back down. That will become my new strength. I will be able to overcome this too, and it will be another strength that I have gained. Another build to my self esteem. Another notch in my belt so to speak. Another one of lives lessons that I will learn.  

I guess that I really needed to see these quotes today! It is funny how when you need something to inspire you or to help you with a problem. You usually get an answer somehow, someway.