catfeeder

Cheaters can put your health at risk by cross-contaminating you with someone else's germs. Is that okay with you? If you're seeking an exclusive relationship, make that known to potential lovers up front. Ask them whether they view themselves as relationship-material. Anything less than an a clear 'yes' tells you that they want casual sex, and they're not a good match for you. Take the time to get to know a man and whether he walks his talk, or whether you sense he's deceptive. Head high, and respect your Self.

I agree with the good folks above. You'll never know that you're being checked out unless you do some checking. Read up on soft signals women give out as 'invitations' to men, and start doing them. I also like @rainbowsandroses suggestion to explore meetup.com to find groups, clubs, events and outings available to you in your area. Then get out there and become a man-magnet :).

Yeah, you're mixing the fats and other ooze onto any of the other items that don't carry that stuff. While some dishwashers might be good enough to pull that off without leaving everything feeling sticky, just the psychology of it might be hard for an older person to feel great about. They remember the days when a dishwasher was for dishes, while pots and pans needed more effort and TLC.

I hear, grief sucks. I don't think we forget, but rather we begin to minimize an ex's importance to the overall scheme of our lives. This can't happen as long as we keep applying a lens that maximizes their importance and compares our ability to seek and find small mundane joys against the giant joys we found in the relationship. Comparing our lives during grief with our highs while we were drunk on love will never come out in our favor. I've found it helpful to sneak in tiny little glimmers of joy into my days, and then make it a point to savor those moments at face value. And without reducing them to being so lackluster against the joys I knew before--just different. For instance, the joy I feel in helping my elderly folks and bringing humor to them, or doing something anonymously to 'pay forward' a small gratitude like slipping a great tip into someone's tip box or leaving a luxury product in the kitchen or restroom at work, or contributing to the coffee or the highway toll of the person behind me in a car line. I've found it helpful to 'schedule' my grief in the form of boo-hoo sessions with a tissue box, and I find myself getting bored and moving my focus onto the movie I want to watch, or planning some nice things for others that I'll want to pull off the next day. And I keep my focus there as well as listing future plans I'll want to start working on the next day--and I'll break those down into easier steps TOWARD something. While nobody can tell us how long it takes for our grief to fade, I can attest to this largely being reliant on my participation--as opposed to something that will just happen TO me. If I want to view myself as a sad sap who will never feel happiness again, I can do that. It'll drill me into a deeper hole to climb out of, but it's not against the law. By contrast, I can keep speaking to myself like an inspiring coach, and I can compliment myself on my goal of building resilience, and I can say simple mantras like, "I've got this..." or "I can do it..." Head high, and keep writing if it helps.

This sounds like something you've posted before. When what you are doing isn't working, it makes no sense to keep doing it. A first date, or any date really, is not the time to dump all your stuff on somebody. The two dates who called it a counseling session were likely dead-on. Take that emotional dump to a counselor for feedback and advice on what content is reasonable to raise on a brand new date versus what is better to leave for the future, AFTER you've cultivated enough intimacy with a person to gain their investment in hearing it. People date to find good companions and lovers, not to play therapist with a stranger.

I would stop dealing with the 8 yrs of unrequited love. Period. We never regain any wasted time to re-live over again. If you need professional help to let this go, that would be time and money well spent. Your quality of life is within your own hands, not anyone else's.

Could have something to do with you assigning emotional problems to her just because she's been cautious with how she intends to conduct her sex life. That sounds manipulative to me, so I wouldn't like it, either. She's 21, not 40. Her sexual experience is for her alone to guard as she sees fit.

I agree. Teaching stereotypes and buying into them isn't advantageous to anyone. We all have flaws, we all have weaknesses in certain skills, and our outward appearance doesn't limit our abilities to pursue further development in any aspect of our lives.

Before leaving, you may want to offer husband two options to consider: working through this issue in marriage counseling, or working it out on his own while living without you and the baby. However, one stop-gap measure I'd try for my own peace is, after ex triggers him into an angry bad mood that he takes out on you, I'd have an emergency bag packed for myself and baby. I'd grab that quietly and use it to get out of there safely, without raising a confrontation with him. I'd message him from a safe place with friends or family or a hotel that he can phone me when he's able to speak calmly. From there, you can negotiate when or whether or not you'll want to go back there. In other words, teach husband that his reactions have consequences, and you're no longer willing to be the person who bears the brunt of his unresolved issues. He's either willing to set up an appointment to begin marriage counseling, or you're not going live this way any longer. One other thing you can do, today, is consider reaching out to your local hospital's Human Services department for a referral to a women's counselor, OR, contact one of the domestic violence prevention agencies on the Internet for such a referral. These non-profit groups offer resources not widely know to the public. I'd also consult an attorney or legal aid for legal advice to learn all your options and the best steps you can take for each option. Then you'll be armed with valuable information for making decisions rather than operating on emotions alone.

Obtaining legal advice is not the same thing as filing for divorce. It's gathering important information about marital laws in your location, learning about your options and the best steps to take for each option. From there, when you are ready, you can make decisions based on real information rather than by operating on emotions alone. Sometimes loving someone means letting them go so they can find the kind of mutual love that they deserve. Not every break up needs a villain.

Well, don't forget, there's always your favorite go-to, talking backstage or while painting a stage or setting up a stage at your local theater. I've met wonderful people doing that, and I'm great with a dry brush. 🙂

Great! You've put that out into the universe, and so it will happen--just like that. You know, I've decided that it's time for a million dollars to fall in my lap. Ignoring the fact that I refuse to buy a lottery ticket, I've seen other people with their boats and cars and real estate, so it's time for that to happen to me. Fingers crossed for both of us!

You snooped in her computer. What does that tell you? If I ever felt a need to snoop, that means that I don't trust the person I'm with. So it wouldn't matter what I find or not--I'm already carrying mistrust and burning my own stomach lining. That's not how I would choose to live. He'd be history.

Whether living together or not, most relationships are bound to go through some cycles of conflict. You mention being roommates for 9 years, and that's admirable. Have you experienced clashes before? If so, how did you handle them? At present, it sounds like she's in a cycle of being critical while you're in one of feeling tender. You may have experienced varying degrees of these conflicts over the years without noticing so much because she may have been critical while you were not so tender, or you may have felt tender during times when she wasn't so critical. But now you're in a cycle where the two extremes are clashing together, and ouch. You really feel it. I'd make room for this and consider what I can do to manage my own side of this equation in a good natured way. For instance, with the dishes, I'd raise that I understand she's been unhappy with the way that I do the dishes, and while I'm happy to learn her rationale over time in how she'd prefer that the kitchen stay organized, maybe there's another job that she hates doing that I could take off her hands to compensate. As for the purse, I'd just chalk that off as her being crotchety. My Mom is one for leaving her purse in a shopping cart. She needed to use the restroom and stressed to me that I had to watch her purse carefully. I laughed and raised that she could take the purse with her if she didn't trust my care of it, and she laughed and went onward. Point is, this was more about her anxiety about walking away from her purse than a reflection on me, personally. I get that. It's no big deal--unless I want to make it one. Head high, and congrats on your long term success, overall, with your roommate.

So three strikes and you're out? Curious, if the reason is valid, does that still count against them, even if it is something they couldn't control? Wouldn't that be more like a ball instead of a strike, to keep the baseball metaphor? There really is no need to keep score when you're willing to 'allow' rather than trying to 'control' outcomes. Allowing takes no effort. No need to estimate validity or follow up or attempt to reschedule--or anything at all beyond kindly accepting the cancelation at face value and welcoming the person to let you know when they'd like to set a new time and place. Boom! Done. Off your plate. Controlling is heavy and stressful. Measuring the validity of the excuse, deciding whether you're in or out, then acting accordingly with the expectation that the other will respond appropriately, which is even more stressful because that is outside your control. This stress imposes stress on the other, who might initially conform under pressure on the spot, but then rebel with another delay--because what may have originally been a sincere interest gone awry on one occasion with a legitimate excuse has now become an obligation that they no longer wish to perform. I vote to skip that. We can't force anyone to want what they don't want, but if they DO want to reschedule, just credit them with a willingness to reach out to do so. There is no right answer to making that happen, because the answer lies within THEM, not us. So the only thing we don't allow when we try to control is the real answer to the question.