How do I heal when we have kids?

[Supersarahp]

So the kids were with C last night. I finished work at 5pm and was out a little late because of wrapping up a complaint. I was thinking "better get home" like I usually do and then I realised there was no rush . Seriously for the first time in nearly 8 years (13 if you count taking C into consideration) I haven't had to worry about anyone else except myself. It felt good. I had a little meander round the shops. I bought something nice for dinner from M &S. Went home - called the kids to say goodnight - went to slimming club . For the first time being in an empty house did not give me am empty feeling in my heart. It actually felt really nice. Of course I wouldn't want it every day but I am starting to see the upside of him having the kids a night a week.

 

 

My mum stayed over on Monday night and we watched a movie. We were chatting and she told me : "I keep having this dream where you are living in a big house and you are with a man who you really love "

 

She said that C and I weren't suited and she always felt I was too intelligent for him and he knew it and didn't like it (mother bias)

 

I told my mum your theory about C and Janine. She said it had crosses her mind before. She said "he definitely likes her - I could tell that" She said she felt it was on his side - not sure about from Janine's side. My mum is so perceptive. Well I am gonna keep talk of C to a minimum when talking to Janine . Shouldn't be too hard - she likes talking about herself anyway !

 

I'm nervous about seeing the solicitor tomorrow. I don't feel the same level of anger towards C as I did a couple of days ago. Mind you imagining his smirking face brings it back somewhat!!!

[nookbridge]

I'm so happy that you're doing great Sarah! You just feel so content... or at least it seems that way! Keep it up! Speaking with lawyers is not about anger, it's about exercising your right to power. It's nothing personal, it's business! I just overcame a legal case with my roommate that became physically violent after things didn't go her way. They cost money these guys, but when you get a good one, you sit back in your chair, relax, and know that you won't be screwed over. And you laugh a little inside at being the sh*t out of your ex with having to say one word. It's empowering!

[Nattersmatter]

There you go. ( Told ya)

 

 

 

...which links in nicely with clairvoyancy. I think it's no coincidence that 'believers' have usually emerged out the other side of mid-life- or other-crisis (thus are usually around middle aged onwards), and I think due to the sense of loss of control that one feels when one is going through a particularly traumatic time, we try to compensate for this sense of helplessness by becoming hyper-aware and -sensitive. We then notice elusive sets of data that we're normally insensitive to or unconcerned with.

 

I believe different people pick up different forms of signals. These can be first-hand, the data-calculator (his/her dreams or 'zone-outs' as allow a state of 'abnormalness' of openness of exchange channel between the unconscious and conscious), or second-hand, via a person reading what someone other than him/herself 'knows' (being sensitive to people's whole vibe, postures, breathing, tone of voice, and particularly facial microexpressions, as well as what they say when/how and what they fail to say.. which is what I've always been able to naturally do, trauma or no).

 

I don't think these premonitions come from somewhere outside of the subject his/herself, however. I think it's simply things their minds, unbeknownst to them, have managed to calculate with the extra data (the really tiny stuff that in isolation there aren't words to describe), from where predicting is possible - outcomes of which, feature certain corresponding elements and byproductive elements. Second-hand readers (your clairvoyants) pick up on these zillions of signs that neither you nor s/he are aware you're displaying, work out from those what it is YOU know, test out whether they're correct in their readings by seeing how you react to certain emotive words and phrases, and make the same split-second extrapolations as far as the conclusion (or possibly far further than you've calculated to).

 

By the same token, ask yourself how I 'just knew' it was Janine, bearing in mind I suspected her well before I told you I did. The data came from YOU, in ways you were unaware of and, prior to my Eureka moment, ways I had been unaware I was literally noting and collecting together in some 'holding area' of my mind. (I'm the same with seemingly useless trivia - awares or unawares, I collect it like there's no tomorrow.) When you then provided the BIG clues - he and her strangely not minding having to go out 'alone' (without you there) that night with Jonathan and Sarah, and the fact of her finally throwing her own partner out just 2 weeks after C - these just confirmed what I already too-strongly suspected.

 

SAYING that, there were two, connected, truly "woah" experiences I had 6 years back (featuring concrete events and evidence), which couldn't be explained away by the above logic no matter how hard I or people I knew - including two Police detectives, I might add - tried. At that I lost my cynicism and scientific arrogance, and had a long hard think about what could be going on. Suffice it to say, the jury is still out.

 

Back to the data you feel compelled to provide without even knowing why: Compare:

 

What you said:

"I knocked on the door and she said "come in gosh isn't it cold"

She told me to take a seat. There was a pack of normal playing cards ...etc."

 

What you could/should have said (in keeping with the main style of recounting):

"I knocked on the door, she let me in, and told me to take a seat. There was a pack of normal playing cards...etc."

 

or

"I knocked on the door, she let me in, commented on the weather and then told me to take a seat...."

 

The bit about 'come in, gosh isn't it cold?' is - one would think - entirely - ENTIRELY - superfluous to requirements. So why include it? Particularly when it's the ONLY preamble dialogue to feature. And why, then, omit your own response? (Obviously you WOULD have replied for fear of coming accross antisocial or insane... so where IS it?) What she said and why and what you replied and why you've hidden it, contains a clue, that's why. A clue that one part of you would rather not provide but which another part is insistent over (hence sneaking it into the account under your own conscious radar and in a way that begs the question, And what did YOU say?). What the clue might reveal is another question... which I can work out and already have but am keeping to myself (unless you beg me, LOL).

 

Put it this way: IMO, people who wish to pass on blame or credit to someone else and who (or because) are experiencing self-doubt and self-confidence tend to be those who visit clairvoyants. It's this: Tell me what you can sense I already know and what all that knowledge indicates will be the outcome(s).

 

 

 

 

Mother bias? Am I your mother as well, am I? Nay...*Sometimes* mothers allow bias, sometimes they don't, and here's an example of where she hasn't.

 

 

 

Yes, she is. But here was an example of bias (or lack of self-confidence in her perceptivity). She is now free to diss C because [a] she's confident you are done with him and the concrete proof as makes you done with him has already come in. You may NOT be done with Janine. If she thought you were done with Janine she would have felt confident enough to attribute Janine her rightful blame. Until then, you COULD at any point in the future be annoyed with your mum for having poisoned your mind against someone who was totally innocent. Your mum can't afford to have yours and her boat rocked. So she's protecting her own relationship with you through protecting Janine. Me, I don't give a sh*t; I know that either Janine is the OW or merely believes she is and that whatever went on between them (IF it's now in the past) still holds potential.

 

 

 

(LOL.) Abnormally selfish people - those who don't even care WHO they hurt and betray - tend to do that. Obviously there are situations where that's permissable (here - you - with demonstrations of tacit full agreement on my part - for example) but during normal friend-to-friend interaction is not one of them.

 

 

 

LOL. How much money has he knowingly and deliberately stolen from you again? (LOL, anything to oblige.)

 

Here - try this one: when was it that HE had to have gone through the motions of finding, interviewing and appointing one solicitor out of X many that - point of where you then began phoning around - had you discovering he already had one? You only (in this context) need a solicitor for one thing: to divorce your spouse. Most spouses will say, 'As from Xday I'm going to be appointing a solicitor so I suggest you do the same'. In fact, they normally precede that with, 'I want a divorce'.

 

He did neither.

 

WHY did he do neither? No-brainer answer: He wanted a huge head start on you.

 

WHY did he want a head start? Answer: duuh?

 

Got the rage back yet have you? ;-)

 

xoxo

[Nattersmatter]

And you laugh a little inside at [beating] the sh*t out of your ex [without] having to say one word. It's empowering!

 

Thanks for that little leakage, Nookster. I'll take that over to your thread and file it with "b*tch". ;-) LOL

 

xoxo

[Supersarahp]

Ok well this is how the conversation went (to the best of my recollection)

 

I knocked on the door and she said:

 

"come in, gosh isn't it cold? take a seat?"

 

ME: "thanks" (I sat down) "yes it is freezing"

 

her: "yes its freezing at the moment - you let all the cold air in with you"

 

ME: "oh sorry"

 

her: "no, that's ok. Choose 25 cards from the pack in front of you"

 

ME: "should I look at them?"

 

her: "do it whichever way you want to. Take a piece of paper and a pen too so you can write down what I tell you"

 

So I picked the cards and handed them to her. Then she started telling me all the stuff.

 

 

As regards what you already know - hmm I am not sure?

 

Possibly that I know I should never take him back ever??? That's the only thing I can think of really. Let me know! Don't make me beg - please please please please please! LOL

[Supersarahp]

oh PS - What happened to you 6 years ago that couldn't be explained? (I love these sort of things)

[Nattersmatter]

her: "yes its freezing at the moment - you let all the cold air in with you"

 

ME: "oh sorry"

 

And there it is! - Your number.

 

How are you supposed to prevent the cold air coming in with you? Who's fault was it? Hers for opening her door? Or yours for giving her cause to open her door? Answer: No-one's fault. ...but not according to you who APOLOGISES. Conclusion: sucker for guilt (even when there's no cause for guilt and remorse), a TOO nice person...and what do too-nice people attract? Answer: parasites (2...). And who is it most usually seeks the help of a clairvoyant (unbeknownst to them, to what they know but can't form into definite concepts and words/phrases read out of them)? Answer: someone who feels helpless and desperate to know everything there is to know in order to help get themselves out of that dangerous predicament (...+ 2...). Notice the accent, the diction, the deportment, body language/gestures, the style of dress as indicates lifestyle, status and stage, the confidence of speech manner and eyecontact (volume, speed, enunciations, blinking, frequency of looking away),....etcetera... (+ 6...) From there, it's not hard to build a picture in order to know (...= 10) in what possible ways that picture could somehow have become a threatening, misery-making situation. Ta-daaa!

 

It's a natural talent for psychoanalysis, only the clairvoyant doesn't realise and puts it down to her being mystical and magical.

 

Here's another:

 

"ME: "should I look at them?"

 

Translation: Tell me what to doooo (help!). I need someone to take charge of meee. I'm a good girl and very cooperative.

 

You COULD have said, for example:

"...And look at them" (and waited for the 'Yes, do' or 'No, don't do that')

"...And THEN what?"

or

"Mm-hmm?..."

or.. nothing whatsoever.

 

As regards what you already know - hmm I am not sure?

 

Possibly that I know I should never take him back ever??? That's the only thing I can think of really. Let me know! Don't make me beg - please please please please please! LOL

 

LOL. No, it wasn't that directly to do with C. I meant, you've already SEEN I can read you, despite you might not have put it into that same clairvoyancy context, so you wanted (subconsciously) to prevent me from having what you deemed was a revealing chunk of data with regards to my picking up on the fact that she had READ you rather than 'just knew things'. Because you weren't to KNOW I'd come back with, She read you. You might have feared I'd use that data to come to the conclusion that the woman was giving you some bog-standard scripts that she gives *everyone*. And this would obviously mean you getting deprived, after the fact, of something you found highly comforting (predictions of the future that are normal enough/not scary at all).

 

You feared wrong, though. No, those predictions WEREN'T totally baseless guesses. They're simply things you yourself have already background predicted (most correctly, some incorrectly probably or just slightly off), but couldn't 'locate', 'identify', 'grasp' and articulate. With this the case, I wouldn't be surprised if a number of them come true.

 

xoxo

 

PS: Are you knees sore? It's not a proper begging unless your knees are sore. ;-)

[Nattersmatter]

oh PS - What happened to you 6 years ago that couldn't be explained? (I love these sort of things)

 

Aw, jeez. I guess I should... (I threatened to on Amandacast's thread but never did).

 

Are we sitting comfortably, children?, LOL.... Then I'll begin:

 

My father (whom I was exceedingly close to and, later, genuine best buds with... told each other everything...me the 'son' he'd always wanted), knew and completely understood the importance I placed on my wedding band as a symbol of an unbreakable vow, that I'm a type. He was the same, and the same about his own and my mum's wedding rings.. but I didn't know that before this event...

 

On holiday, visiting them in Spain (where they lived), earlier on in our marriage, ...on the beach, my ring came off my finger due to the coldness of the sea water causing finger-shrinkage. I noticed, coming out, and went into panic (which I don't normally do - I get called Mrs Spock - nuff said).

 

Myself, dad, and then-husband-now-ex (sort-of/half-arsedly joining in using only his toes ("sssss!")), spent a good 30 minutes looking on the water's edge and in the shallows. But the waves were too forceful that day so we concluded it had to have been swept out, never to be seen again. I was bereft, though, ...I don't know why, really... maybe a premonition of what it meant??...and insisted on continuing to look, anyway, ignoring the 'Leave its'. Dad willingly joined in again (he got it completely, as I say).

 

We were due to all supper out together that evening, straight from the beach (me, hub, dad, mum and my uncle who also lives there). So in order to reassure me, my father reminded me that there was a jewellers on the way to our intended restaurant, meaning hub could buy me a replacement. (I seriously doubt he would have had dad not suggested it like that.) But come the walk to the restaurant - time 7.50pm, Spanish retail closing time 8pm, table booked for 8pm - hub, mum and uncle tried to talk (nag) me out of the diversion, saying it could wait until the next day or the next (whadevah), what was the big deal, they were hung-ryyyyy, whinge-whinge, etc. Dad turned to me, said, 'Aw, screw 'em - let's just you and me pop in'. Hub, walking with mum and uncle, noticed dad leading me into the shop and scampered after us into the shop (he was always worried about unimpressing my no-nonsense, high-standarded father).

 

Not only did that jeweller have the exact - THE LITERALLY EXACT same ring - and just the one - AT the correct size - despite a higher carat than the original - but, curiously/unusually, it had a nametag (written in biro on a tiny White card label): "Irony". (Remember this is a Spanish shop. What was it doing having a ring with a nametag featuring an English word?). Blimeys! and What were the chances!, all round...

 

On return to UK I found out I had fallen pregnant during the start of that holiday.... but I lost her and had to have a prostaglandins stillbirth at almost 4 months gone (diagnosed by the Harris Institute as very rare form of Downs and a 'fluke'). Not a happy event. Yet (don't ask how) I fell pregnant again ONLY WEEKS LATER... and out popped my son 9 mths on.

 

Fast forward to 6 years ago (son aged 6-nearly-7), having found out (with zero tangible evidence other than behavioural changes/body language/etc, as per) that my hub had been cheating. Having too often helped others through this trauma, including successful reconciliation, I was willing to give husband a second chance and saw it as an opportunity ("physician heal thyself") to strengthen the marriage and improve communication (kidding myself - he was issue-ridden and passive-aggressive to the max). I wasn't surprised, not really.. I'd been telling him, Houston, we have a problem, for YEARS by then (not that he'd listen and admit it).

 

We (I) identified what we each found dissatisfactory about the relationship and agreed that I would work on X, Y and Z whilst he worked on A, B and C. I did. He didn't. I then found out 5 months later why: he'd started up his affair again.

 

-Two weeks following having found out he was committing adultery, our house had been burgled. They only had 4 minutes (monitored alarm). Only a few of husband's things were taken, like a cashbox.-

 

Like you, I had 'left' him years before - emotionally (albeit not sexually) (lol, never sexually)... had enough of banging my head against a brick wall.. despite I DID believe that the issue having been made gorily manifest, finally, he could no longer deny-deny-deny that we had problems... but I didn't want my son to lose his normal family life. (There weren't really arguments - I was by then all, 'Face - bovvered?' and 'Tell it to the hand' whenever he did his usually thrice-weekly acting out, and had turned my concentration more to my son (and shielding him from realising we had problems), work, hobbies and social life, etc.). So with this second revelation, I was set to divorce him. He literally begged me on his knees, tear trickling down his face (just the one, I noted) to give him another chance... but like your situation, I could (not least from that unconvincing begging) tell it was all hot-air and an acting job (my radar is highly sensitive to all BS). So I chucked him out...aided by the fact of him having a go at me for something utterly stupid and a total accident (me not knowing his elbow was resting on the car window ledge thus having started to close the window), right in front of son on his birthday of all days(!)... but told him it was me enforcing a 6 month separation, citing the deadline.

 

I held on for son's sake only. But husband's actings out and cloak-and-dagger charades were getting so ridiculous and wearying (he'd obviously cheated in part for unfair leverage attempt purposes) that I was gagging to file a divorce petition to get rid of him and all his crap. I didn't need a consultation to know where I legally stood because I knew it all already. But despite on the one hand I knew the marriage was,...well, NOT a marriage, and - being the type he was - that husband's idea of fixing was to run away and hide inside a secondary relationship (in the hope of forever having his cake and eating it), yet refusing my proposals for any solution (e.g. the offer of an open marriage )...basically not cooperating a jot, either way,.. I was still struggling mightily with the thought of denying my son his normal childhood. As far as I was concerned, it was my bed for having married the ugger without having test-driven him more thoroughly, and I had to lie in it, make the best of it for son's sake. Again - I had taken a vow and despite husband had destroyed that original contract, I'd also made a tacit vow to my son by virtue of the fact of having brought him into the world and my marriage.

 

But the urge wouldn't go away - despite I didn't let it interfere with my willingness to salvage the marriage -...and with every attempt on husband's part to try to pull the wool like I was even remotely stupid and gullible and HADN'T already worked out his first affair from virtually thin air, it got stronger and stronger. So - for the first time in my life - I felt in terrible conflict and unable to make a decision... Rock and hard place.

 

Son was at this point 7 yrs old. My father had passed away when he was just 2 (son, not father, LOL). I'd nursed him 24/7 at his house in Spain in the 2 weeks leading to his death (terminal cancer) and - very honest, candid conversations between us the norm - told him that if - big if - he found he could somehow get in contact from the next life/level/whatever, he definitely should... 'you never know, eh?' - and to bear in mind that nothing freaks me out. He promised he would give it his best shot.

 

Back to me in conflict 5 years later... One night, about midnight, son asleep upstairs (huge house - well out of earshot), me exasperated.. totally at a loss (which I'm never usually - got an answer for everything, me), I threw up my hands to the ceiling and yelled, 'Dad...? What shall I do? Divorce or not divorce? Give me a sign, puh-LEASE, for GAWD'S sake!'. This sort of thing was rare for me, what with me being so scientific and skeptical, usually. Anyway... then I felt silly and promptly forgot all about it.

 

Two days later and we got burgled again. This time they used their 4 minutes to dash straight upstairs (time before, they'd stayed downstairs - husband's study, mainly). They took my jewellery box. Just my jewellery box, nothing else... despite the full 4 minute window. And this time, forget breaking a rear window, they'd just clean kicked in the big and heavy front door in plain view of the main road (god knows how! - it was too heavy and secure to kick, yet the forensic officer couldn't find evidence of a battering ram, etc.).

 

Inside my jewellery box was my wedding band ("Irony"). I'd lost too much weight, what with all the stress, to wear it, and had put it in the box about a week prior. Not only that, but mine and son's virtually brand new passports(!) were in there. My wedding band was non-descript enough to safely hock. There were also lots of other gold and silver items - some antique (like my maternal great grandmother's wristwatch) - that were likewise easy to hock.

 

Three days later and I get a call from my father-in-law (cited on both passports, he and MIL, as next of kin). He told me he'd just been phoned by a woman living only 5 minutes down the road from me (in the direction of the motorway...back to London, I shouldn't wonder). She had gone into her garden that morning and found my jewellery box. Intact. Right way up (placed on the grass). Lid properly closed. ...Passports still in there. All valuable jewellery still in there... As well as all in its proper places/compartments. Only one item and one item alone, missing. Guess which?

 

Yep! "IRONY" - MY WEDDING RING!!!

 

PS: Irony in Spanish, I've been told by more than one English-speaking Spaniard, is closer in meaning to . (Gnnnn!!)

 

Please note that the burglar(s) could not have chucked it over a wall when speeding along the main road en route to the motorway...e.g. if they'd seen a police car and assumed it was after them. They would have had to have gone out of their way as incurred a good 5 min delay... turned left and driven down a thin, bumpy access road, got out of the car, gone through her back garden gate and placed the box on her lawn, (risked being easily spotted), and then done an 11-point turn to get out again.

 

The Police said they were, quote, utterly and completely at a loss. Why on EARTH go to the trouble of a burglary, get clean away with not only a large jewellery box (that was valuable in itself), that contained LOADS of easy to hock, valuable items, AND two extremely street-valuable passports, yet take only one item and (nicely) leave all of the remainder, carefully placed like that??? IT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. WHICHEVER WAY YOU LOOK AT IT, STILL - IT DOESN'T MAKE *ANY* SENSE.

 

The Police were flummoxed, I was flummoxed, friends of mine - other police personnel, three psychologists, one psychoanalyst, a nuclear engineer....Tom Cobbly And All... were flummoxed and could NOT work out any rational explanation what...so....ever.

 

There's only ONE way it makes sense...

 

....So then I remembered who had known how seriously I took the symbolism of that band of gold and that I had voiced a desperate appeal to him only nights beforehand.... which also was the first time I'd ever asked for his help with anything.

 

Next thing I know, I'm telling son on return from his weekend custody visit with his father, how my jewellery box had been found, and he pipes up, out of the Blue, with, 'ACTUALLY, mummy... I need to tell you... I think you SHOULD to divorce daddy, now. In fact, I want you to. Daddy's a much better daddy since he hasn't lived here with us..and you're lots happier...and I think daddy's still cheating'. (Little beggar had been eavesdropping on our conversations at the time, hadn't he! - which he admitted in full there and then.)

 

So that was it. I wasted not one minute in ringing my solicitor (personal friend of my late father's whom I'd already long filled in over the situation) and said, 'It's Go-Go-Go!'. (His own father then sadly passed away a month later so he handed my case to an utter diamond of a woman, ex-big-gun solicitor whom had worked with him, who was un-foolable and whom as a personal policy has always refused point-blank to represent the guilty, including and especially adulterers... She was ACE...and, btw, says my ex-husband is STILL Number 1 on her rhymes-with-Banker chart, and she'd never met anyone as passive-aggressive and Machievellian as him in her entire life or career, LOL. But I did warn her back when she took me on, PMSL.)

 

Anyway. There you go. I still can't fathom it 'unless'... so - All theoretical suggestions welcome ("Cuuurm ian-too thuh liiight, chiy-el-dreyen...Awll arr wey-el-cuuuurm" - name the spooky 80s film! LOL).

 

I've got another one like that, as well - likewise involving my late father and what is again readable as a gigantic SHPOOKAYYY communique from him, AGAIN in response to an appeal by me (cos it had worked the first time so, why not?) - which happened only 3 months later. It's equally as flummoxing. Want to hear it (tomorrow)?

 

xoxo

 

PS Sarah: do you think we should give everyone another Woah by telling them what you and I discovered names-wise?

[nookbridge]

Joder, what a STORY! Crikey, now it all makes sense from the ex you talked about on my forum. So, did your son now about your now husband, because so far as I got the chronology in my head, he would've appeared before your son came to you with the info? Was he trying to guide to him because he liked him more? And he KEPT cheating on you? FFS, apart from the still birth, physically painful, you have an insanely high threshold of emotional pain. Do you think going through that experience you learned that communication can't ever come back - you talk because you're connected or not to your partner? You can't really for yourself to talk, there has to be an internal motivation, driven by the love you have for the other person, to do so?

 

Yes, in Spanish, irony has a different connotation than in English. It's a construct of the mind that applies some sort of fate to something that is actually real. I don't know if I did it justice with that explanation. Anyways, makes sense really, as Latin people are never really known for taking much accountability for actions, mind you.

 

What part of Spain was your family's vacation home? Galicia? For the water to be THAT cold to knock a ring off, it can only be Atlantic waters.

[Nattersmatter]

(You mean your thread)

 

Yep - it's a mind-bender, alright.

 

No, between wasband and now-husband was my ex, Simon (Slyman). He was my re-enactment job. Had to be - wasband was and is a clam and emotional lightweight. So I 're-did' my marriage (or certainly the entire dynamic of same personalities) in record time, condensed, to gain definitive proof over where I'd been wrong, where I hadn't except by wasband's standards, where I definitely wasn't thus shouldn't change. I came away with self-vindications confirmed. Ex was also extremely useful - thanks to his 'I can't dooo this relationship/Now I can't live without yooou, take me baack' on-off nonsense (which wasband had done purely in psychological format) - for training me ready for doing long-distance with my now-husband (ze Frenshman) before he emigrated to be wiz me.

 

And, no, I got with Simon AFTER I'd lodged the divorce petition (3 mths later). I'm no lilypad-leaper. And I get on with grieving 24/7 so get it done in record time, every time, with whatever's left processed 'on the job'. But I'm an excellent compartmentaliser so I never let any residual baggage-in-waiting interfere with the current relationship.

 

I do have an insane threshold for emotional pain, you're quite correct (and that wasn't the first babster I lost, not by a long chalk). But that's practise for ya. My first ever trauma was losing my friend aged 6 (on holiday, speedboat engine blew up, she was burnt to a crisp). I've never expected life to be non-stop fun, I'm aware it's a rollercoaster.

 

Yes, very astute of you: you have to be of the same feather for communication channels to be effective. If not, although you might, for physical chemistry's sake, bust a gut to make communication possible, somehow - you cannot keep that level of effort up and still have energy enough to get on with other things.

 

Yep, you did it perfect justice. Thanks for that!

 

No, they lived in Alicante region/the Med. But it wasn't a very hot summer that year following a cold spring (hence still-cold sea).

 

xoxo

[Supersarahp]

Wow - your father sounds awesome - what an amazing story.

 

Losing a baby at 4 months must have been horrendous - I couldn't imagine it.

 

Sure tell people the names! That's cool with me.

 

I have a few strange stories of my own. For me I guess I have always felt an affinity with my paternal grandmother. I was named after her - she died when my dad was twelve. I have a picture of myself ages ten standing next to her gravestone - which has my name on it of course! Well anyway I do feel her presence in my life sometimes. My stories don't really have anything tangible like your wedding ring so could be pure go incidence - all in the mind etc but I like to think differently.

 

The first one was when I have birth to my first son. Lauren was 17 months so we had arranged to call my mum to come over when I needed to go into hospital. It was 3.30am when I woke up with a pain - not wanting to disturb everyone immediately I waited but by 4 am things ha swiftly progressed - I woke C and we were deciding what to do when my waters broke and I felt like the baby was gonna come. So we rang my parents and to their credit they got to us by 4.30am. By then I was about ready to push and in intense pain. My dad was very concerned (he had never seen a woman so far in labour - having been in the era of wait in the corridor dads). I was reassuring him that the pain was normal. Well C and I set off and my dad went home (he was just dropping mum at ours - she doesn't drive either). So we got to hospital at 5.05am and I had been tryi g desperately not to push. C had to get a parking ticket and get my bag and stuff and I was waiting by the hospital door and didn't have the strength to open the door as the pain was so intense . I remember holding onto a lamppost and repeating over and over "please help me grandma - please don't let me have the baby here outside. Please help me to hold on please grandma be with me". Well once C had everything sorted we went in and Joe was born at 5.17am.

 

So when I got home I was talking to my dad. He said "I was so so worried about you after I dropped mum off. I went home to bed but I was really restless . I drifted off to sleep. I saw my mother in my mind and she said to me "don't worry, Sarah has had a baby boy and they are both fine". He said he then sat bolt upright and looked at the time and it was 5.17am. He told me this before I told him when Joe was born.

 

Ok could all be I our heads - but it spooked me out.

 

Tell your other story!

[Supersarahp]

Ps how did you meet your new husband?

 

 

Pps - I hope some of what the woman told me comes true - I quite like the idea of an Italian man!!!

[Supersarahp]

So I saw the solicitor - she was really good. She put my mind at ease about the kids. I don't qualify for legal aid though

 

She said I could get a divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. She said the full divorce would cost me £800.

 

She recommended mediation.

 

That was all really.

[Nattersmatter]

Wow - your father sounds awesome - what an amazing story.

 

He was utterly, genuinely awesome, and my favourite person in the world, yes, thank-you. And now-husband is the only, repeat ONLY man who has equalled or, if I'm brutally honest, even surpassed him in many ways - hence this once giant commitmentphobe gave her WHOLE heart to him and vice versa. I basically got my beloved dad back but with bells (and *tighty-whiteys) on. [*I love that phrase, does it show? LOL]

 

Losing a baby at 4 months must have been horrendous - I couldn't imagine it.

 

You get used to life's sh*t if you suffer enough of it, and it majorly toughens you up. As my dad would say, 'No experience is bad experience' and 'The worst that can happen to you in life is you die...and that's the easy bit'. I've been pregnant - every time despite full contraception (hence now on two separate but compatible forms) - more times than most have had hot dinners, most lost via natural early miscarriage, but, anyway... That was nothing compared to this:

 

...Because nothing compares to having had no choice, years prior, but to illegally 'back-door' terminate (prostaglandins/etc. injection straight through the abdomen into the womb) at 4.5 months, and courtesy of sh*t nursing staff's narrow-minded judgmentalism-based revenge in the form of deliberate neglect despite being ignorant of the extenuating facts/circumstances (incl. fiancee having just disappeared off the face of the earth, literally never to be seen again), and holding it (her), having, thanks to being drugged/dazed/confused to the hilt on Pethadine, scooped it (her) out of a special commode with your hands ...until staff (doh!) realise they can hear a strange animal wailing noise coming from the otherwise totally unused/deserted-bar-one (me) downstairs ward, and rush in too late with the on-duty consultant to whip it away whilst 'knocking you out' cold. (I should have sued the pants off them!...but then I chose to look and touch, didn't I...and I obviously knew that was the thing to do for whatever reason.)

 

You [and yes, I do realise I'm using 2nd Person, ahem] think it'd look inhuman but it doesn't. It looks fully-formed but just skinny and tiny, a miniature full-term baby..like a 'live' doll...(unless my mind was playing tricks??)....and it burns into your memory indelibly....especially the tiny but perfect hands. So THAT was the one that nearly did my head in for a good while, not least due to massive mother's guilt... hence I felt the subsequent loss of the Downs kid was just desserts/my lesson. Once you've seen it, the idea from then onwards of aborting under any circumstance after the heart's formed and begun beating becomes im-poss-i-ble! But... nothing can upset you after that... not to that extent. Not. A. Thing.

 

Once I got over it, it 'came out' as this poem which just 'wrote itself' in totalis as I was falling asleep one night. Apologies if this makes you cry, as has been the case whenever rarely I let anyone read it, but, hey, you could do with the catharcism and help with turning your tap on, I expect. (PS: sorry - did I say I'd never been between a rock and hard place before? Scrap that - I 'forgot' about this one other giant preceding case) :

 

(Copyright 1998 © by "Nattersmatter", Full Rights Reserved, scary solicitor, rich b*tch, blah-blah, don't even try it unless you're financially suicidal)

 

Inside Out

~~~~~~~

 

Five tiny fingers was all it took

Barriers crumbled, shoulders shook

Alone, abandoned in a clinical room

To witness the shame that was my womb

 

Waves of agony, nerve ends singed

From liquid poison, mainlined in

Death infusing through my tummy

Pethidine-projecting, “Save me, Mummy!”

 

A life of need or none at all?

Weeks spent bouncing off the walls

Every reason as sound as a bell

Every reason a path to hell

 

Footprints crammed the bedside wall

Anything to lessen the tiger’s maul

That beast below that would not halt

The devil above: “It is your fault”

 

Hope and future inside me died

Yet held on tight, ignored my cries

Afraid to free its fist and fate:

Never to love (but never to hate)…

 

Searing ceased so suddenly, I started

Noticed the receptacle, placed hard-hearted

Oozing relief passed through my legs

Dazed curiosity drew me to the dregs...

 

Five tiny fingers, never to wave

As fraught farewells were all I gave

And “sorry-I’m-so-sorry!”, pointless cried

At what could have been, now denied

 

‘Pashes’ to Ashes...Lust to Dust...

Tangible product of forsaken trust

And, even now, “God, why did I look?!”

For five tiny fingers was all it took.

 

 

(Huge downer...Sorreeeee.)

 

And that's how I ended up stupidly agreeing to marry the git that was and still is my ex-sh*theadband.

 

You never "get over" *anything*, however. You learn to adapt and live with it and cease minding having to walk your path with X number of heavy weights trailing from your ankles (because your legs get stronger and stronger which compensates). But I'm exceptionally glad and grateful that that whole chain of events happened and that I took my punishments willingly on the chin because, without that chain, I wouldn't have hit this current link (terminus, I hope?) with now-husband Monsieur Genuinely Wonderful and my very out-of-the-ordinary son. It's all meant to happen... whether you're shaped at birth then shaped some more as you live to fit the holes you feel compelled to climb through (as opposed to others) or whether the holes that fit your shape and which compel you to choose them to climb through are deliberately put in front of you.

 

Sure tell people the names! That's cool with me..

 

Okay!

 

PM - me and Sarah - she's thanking me (...again - gotta stop that, LOL) and I'm saying, It's my pleasure and ESPECIALLY since this one is too damn similar to my own past case, and, quote, PS; My ex-husband's name is Chris (Christopher ******). You can google it and see him in the list of the Landed Gentry ("Ai'm a Ladyyy" LOL). PLEASE don't tell me the C stands for Chris or I will truly freak?!

 

I'm joking (or so I think) because... What are the odds.

 

Without waiting for a reply, I then PS again, included within which is: My wasband said the exact same thing to me. First he wanted half custody (I laughed in his face). So then it was, he was going to take Joe off me. (I laughed even louder and told him NOT to forget to take his medication next time he visited.)

 

Joe is my Only kid, hence my first born son (the others didn't get born and were all girls).

 

Sarah comes back with, quote, Lol you are right this is getting spooky - yes my husband is Chris but guess what? My elder son is Joe! I am starting to think you are spying on me!!!

 

In my reply, I say, I SAID CHRIS AND JOE FIRST! So you're the one spying on ME! LOL...but - f***-...a-...ROUND!!! See what I mean?! I've said it before and I'll say it again - there is FAR more to reality than meets the human eye. FAR more!

 

Either I'm more gullible than I thought and (no offense, Sarah) Sarah's a cunning trickster with some past axe to grind against me, trying to set me up (highly unlikely unless real life is just like Dallas and Dynasty and my usual super-senses have deserted me, LOL), or someone/something's trying to tell us both something, because...

 

What...

were...

the...

CHANCES!!!???

 

 

I have a few strange stories of my own.

 

Good stuff... (albeit, maybe we should all relocate to sitting around some crackling fire in some dark woods somewhere?

 

For me I guess I have always felt an affinity with my paternal grandmother. I was named after her - she died when my dad was twelve. I have a picture of myself ages ten standing next to her gravestone - which has my name on it of course! Well anyway I do feel her presence in my life sometimes. My stories don't really have anything tangible like your wedding ring so could be pure go incidence - all in the mind etc but I like to think differently.

 

The first one was when I have birth to my first son. Lauren was 17 months so we had arranged to call my mum to come over when I needed to go into hospital. It was 3.30am when I woke up with a pain - not wanting to disturb everyone immediately I waited but by 4 am things ha swiftly progressed - I woke C and we were deciding what to do when my waters broke and I felt like the baby was gonna come. So we rang my parents and to their credit they got to us by 4.30am. By then I was about ready to push and in intense pain. My dad was very concerned (he had never seen a woman so far in labour - having been in the era of wait in the corridor dads). I was reassuring him that the pain was normal

 

Well C and I set off and my dad went home (he was just dropping mum at ours - she doesn't drive either). So we got to hospital at 5.05am and I had been tryi g desperately not to push. C had to get a parking ticket and get my bag and stuff and I was waiting by the hospital door and didn't have the strength to open the door as the pain was so intense ..

 

("Pain" is not the word, let's be honest. It's, "I must be dying... nobody, surely, can tolerate this amount of agony and survive!".)

 

I remember holding onto a lamppost and repeating over and over "please help me grandma - please don't let me have the baby here outside. Please help me to hold on please grandma be with me". Well once C had everything sorted we went in and Joe was born at 5.17am.

 

So when I got home I was talking to my dad. He said "I was so so worried about you after I dropped mum off. I went home to bed but I was really restless . I drifted off to sleep. I saw my mother in my mind and she said to me "don't worry, Sarah has had a baby boy and they are both fine". He said he then sat bolt upright and looked at the time and it was 5.17am. He told me this before I told him when Joe was born.

 

Ooh.

 

OOH.

 

*Speechless*

 

Ok could all be I our heads - but it spooked me out.

 

Course!

 

The psychological explanation - if one extrapolates based on everything one knows about how the mind works and how genetics work - might be.... that our minds are more powerful calculators than even the experts realise; that your father's inherited (genetic and subconsciously-stored) memory, collected during prior lives (repetitive experiences of all his genetic ancestors as became assimilated into said genetic blueprint) HAD been present during births before and thereby could unwittingly tell by the precise state you'd been in at 4.30am, how much further to go you had (according to labour times characteristic of your ancestors as well as gender patterns per personality/physique type), and his mind did all the math without realising it, until that 'tap on his mental shoulder' from his subconscious slightly into his consciousness as had him sitting bolt upright, thinking 'now!' and 'boy!' and 'but how do I know this?'. But here's the thing (which my own experience made me realise): maybe these things are beyond our reach of explanation and so we use a range of ways, depending on how we as individuals each understand the world, to explain them? Hence pragmatists will rely on the scientific realm of perceptivity and articulation and spiritualists will rely on the spiritual, yet the phenomenon itself stands REGARDLESS of how you choose to do so. (Make sense?) And I think that the REASON there is a spiritual explanation for every scientific one or vice versa, is actually rather simple: we each have TWO entities inside of us: the naked ape and the spiritual being, meaning each method of explanation is correct and it's merely that "truth is perception choice". There IS a Reality Number 1 aside from human perceptivity wavelength settings, however - hard facts of the universe that exist regardless of our existence and that lie BEYOND either method of human explanation and have their own, all-in-one explanation... but we're not intelligent enough to have struck on this one catch-all explanation as incorporates both animality and spirituality without posing as two conflictual concepts to the mere human mind. (Make sense?)

 

For example, one potential theory of mine is that another life form from whatever galaxy/universe lost their 'home' (physical bodies and planet) and went in search of a suitable replacement, saw this particular strain of ape, studied it and found it fitted the bill and 'body-snatched'...landed in them, if you like, and started to affect their scope of capabilities from then on (hence why we're so uniquely different from all other mere ape variants). This would be similar to how mitrochondrial DNA used to be a parasite but then got 'accepted' by our own DNA, and is now part and parcel of us, still serving a purpose in terms of enhancing our survival and propagation (hence it got kept). It also explains how we each seem literally to have two minds, hence HOW we can be constantly internally fighting and say things like, 'I was talking to myself' or 'I didn't mean that' (which doesn't make sense beyond argument unless it's one party talking to or blaming another party). It's the Earthly animal and the alien 'lodger', fighting for precedence according to each's own ideas of how best to act towards survival and prosperance towards each's own end agenda...and, possibly, Freud didn't think sufficiently out-of-the-box when he mistakenly divided the one earthly psyche into separate parts with separate agendas. This also explains why the animal dies whilst the 'spirit' merely vacates the decayable and now-dead 'housing' in search of another 'home' to lodge in.

 

The animal is still pretty base and stupid but it's being constantly influenced by pupeteering (which influence it constantly clashes with or outright rebels against) by a much higher intelligence that's taken up invisible residence inside us.

 

 

Tell your other story!

 

LOL, okay. (Has anyone got any marshmallows to roast?)

 

....So.... three months after saying Go-go-go... the separation deadline hasn't been rescinded BUT it's too damn obvious that despite all his firm and outraged denials, wasband's affair is still going strong and, even if it isn't, demands on my part as tally with marital betterment/phase 2 are being refused (dodged), meaning there IS no marriage to save (unless I wish to waste my life waiting for god knows how many years for when d**khead comes out of his crisis or gets his bad attitude to life therapied out of him). The idea of salvaging the marriage is beyond a joke. I don't bother telling Chris to forget it, though (f***'im, I owe him nothing and - taste of his own non-disclosures medicine). I simply go on MatchDotCom. I'm not worried because, having been a ladykiller/player, I know how to get a man and just how men fish there are in that sea. But very quickly - too quickly hence too lucky, say friends - I'm pursued by Simon. I'm aware he's not exactly in the right place to have a relationship and try to keep him back a bit but... he ain't havin' it and, anyway, when I meet him in the flesh, I realise (and not altogether unconsciously) that he's the perfect Chris Mark II... he'll be great as re-enactment material/Chris's stand-in. I still have lots of questions, you see, and C is a clam. It's no good knowing all the theory, even off by heart, you've got to have theory (which is mere 2nd-hand experience and understanding conveyed in print) AND first-hand practical experience (your own) to know-know-KNOW something as an indisputable fact - because we have a theoretical hemisphere and practical hemisphere to our mind and both must be in agreement and synch before any Knowledge can be worthy of that label. But I don't fully register it or it will get in the way of the experiment, a component of which has to be genuine lust and love.

 

We take off!... Three weeks in, Simon telling me a bit about his schooldays....I ask him, has he got any photos and memorabilia from his childhood? He says they're still all in an unopened box that his (late) mother had put together for him before she died of cancer, but that he'll get it out just for me (ooh, matron!) and bring it over on our next scheduled date two days on from there.

 

I haven't told him that my father had switched careers when he hit middle age, to being a self-employed tennis coaching school, contracts including certain private schools in our county.

 

In the interim between that date and the next, I was having doubts about dating him or anyone... so again (because it had worked the first time), I 'asked' dad, what did he think I should do - keep the relationship or enjoy being alone and single for however long (I'm like Greta Garbot - I LUFF beink alon with only my own company more than the avg person)?

 

Next night, Simon's brought some photos and also two editions of his school magazine (over 20 years old, well prior to my dad and mum having moved to Spain). "I dunno WHY my mum put TWO of them in', he says, '... I didn't even want ONE - I hated that school and she knew I did... Strange.... But anyway, there's a school photo with me in it in there somewhere...".

 

He hands me one. I don't speed-flick from back to front like normal. I open the first page following the Contents, and what do I see in the headmaster's welcome statement?...his very first sentance? This (not verbatim but knowing my elephantine memory, probably almost): "This Summer term I have pleasure in newly welcoming Mr ****** **** [my dad!!!!!] of the [his name] School of Tennis as our daily-visiting, semi-professional coach to all pupils and especially to the school's representative team, tutoring them on every weekday afternoon to a very high standard, which I'm sure pupils and parents alike will be greatly inspired to hear." And that paragraph is printed, for some reason, in BOLD, whereas nothing on the rest of the page is in Normal. Not only that but, aside from the heading 'Summer Term', IT'S THE VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH ON THE VERY FIRST PAGE!

 

You should have seen me jump up and down, garbling at Simon unintelligibly at the rate of knotts! Poor b*gger didn't know WHAT was going on! And he still didn't QUITE grasp it in terms of its full impact because I hadn't told him that I had discovered this 'hot line' to him. So it's mainly me who's going, 'Oh, my god, oh, my god, OH, MY GOD-ah, it's happening AGAIN, ***?!!!'

 

So my interpretation was, I had my answer: "Yes.. stick with this relationship"..................... And now I am *here* (which I doubt I would be had I changed course at that point).

 

 

Anyone else got any SHPOOKAYYS?

 

xoxo

[Nattersmatter]

Ps how did you meet your new husband?

 

 

Pps - I hope some of what the woman told me comes true - I quite like the idea of an Italian man!!!

 

My husband is actually half Italian (father's side) and half French (mother). (!!!)

 

I'll tell you how we met later/tomorrow - got to get on with supper now.

 

xoxo

[Nattersmatter]

So I saw the solicitor - she was really good. She put my mind at ease about the kids. I don't qualify for legal aid though

 

Damnit!

 

She said I could get a divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. She said the full divorce would cost me £800.

 

She recommended mediation.

 

That was all really.

 

F*** mediation. It's become code for, Not enough dosh in the pot/fee not big enough to make this worth my while.

 

Seek another consultation, find someone who will represent you for the sake of the principle over the fee. They exist... they're just people and some people are vocational as well as have to earn a living. It's about priorities. Alternatively, think about mediation but go in ARMED. Buy the Which? guide to divorce or any other with great reviews, and study up beforehand so that you know exactly what he's allowed to get away with or not, and can't try anything on, let alone do you out of your rights.

 

Shall I ring my solicitor tomorrow? If you PM me with which county you're in, I can ask her who she knows and recommends in your area?

 

xoxo

[Supersarahp]

Wow to the poem and what you went through - just woah - I don't know what else to say! I feel so sad that you were put through that. Nothing bad has ever happened to me in my life. Seriously the worst thing was my brother in law dying but that did not even happen TO ME. I have been very very fortunate thus far. Ok you could say this thing now is bad but I view it more as a monumental pain in the behind than truly bad.

 

The story with Simon is proper spooky too - wow some things do go beyond reasonable explanation.

 

Not sure what I think about the whole 'alien in my brain' theory but it is definitely food for thought. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I'm in two minds"!!

 

Yeah not sure what to do about the whole divorce thing. I will pm you my location for sure - thanks. We really don't have any real assets. I do want to get divorced now though - the solicitor today helped me decide. I am sure I want that now. I might just go for it. I honestly don't think C would agree to mediation anyway. Sigh - will research it a bit I guess.

 

Balls to it all! Nothing is ever straightforward is it? Maybe I should try to convince him to divorce me??? Maybe he is planning to anyway??? Maybe I could just go ahead and push him off a cliff?? Then I would get widows benefit - wooo hoo! (Joking)

 

Oh yes - latest instalment in the @$$hole saga. So the past 3 or 4 weeks C has come over on tues at 7am for the kids - kept them overnight and brought them home weds evening. This suits me cos I work tues and weds (my mum and mil have been covering the Mondays). Well he has not said he wants to do that ongoing or what and I want something concrete cos I need to know where I am from one week to the next. So I thought I would ask him . So I text him today asking him if he is going to do the same every week. No response. So this evening I text again saying "I need to know of you are having the kids on tues and weds. If you don't tell me then I will have to make alternative arrangements so please do me the courtesy of responding"

 

No response as of yet - he is such a tosspot - I mean seriously??? How hard is it to work out a bloody schedule?

 

I hate not knowing what I am doing from one week to the next.

 

Anyway enough about stupid idiots.

 

 

*****oh hold up - we have a newsflash - he replied and said he is able to do this tues and weds*****

 

I replied asking if that was gonna be ongoing - bet I won't get a response to that one!

 

I have another slightly spooky story although it isn't that much and it happened to my sister not me but it does involve my grandmother again.

 

Basically my sister was a new mum. Her son was a few months old. Well he was really sick one night with a fever and stuff and she was worried about him. She had been to the doctors and everything but it was the middle of the night and she couldn't sleep for worrying. She looked over at his cot and there was a woman leaning over it. She should have been alarmed but she wasn't - she felt completely calm and at peace. She says she knew it was our grandmother. In the morning her son was completely fine - but she says he really had been too ill to recover that quickly but who knows?

 

 

Oh yes and there is the whole story of my birth which my dad claims is a miracle in itself.

[Nattersmatter]

It was pretty Woah at the time but there's zero point to feeling sad - myself or anyone on my behalf - because, given life and every single move you choose out of however many being like being a current on a circuit board and getting shunted from one 'track' to another, logic dictates I wouldn't/couldn't be where I am today, which is happier and more loved-up - STILL - than I ever imagined was possible in this life. All I'd ever experienced or witnessed were 'bog standard' relationships whereby after the first year or so you start to 'settle down',...take each other for granted,...find it more and more difficult to get excited about them (both under and out of the covers)...and generally end up with a brother-sister or housemates type of relationship. A bit bored, basically. Not so this one. We're both constantly surprised at how our love, interest and affection for each other is just getting stronger and more intense and the sex more and more unreal. It's all growing, not ceasing and settling, and at a palpably fast rate... every single little aspect of it. And neither of us has felt like dropping any effort when it comes to the big and little things we feel like doing for each other. It's 'I'll do it for you/No, you sit down and take it easy, I'll do it' and half the time we end up having to do it together, LOL.

 

Saturday was a prime example: Davi (pronounced Dah-vee, short for David/"Dah-veed") had never cooked a proper meal before. The most he'd ever done was grill chicken breasts and microwave instant noodles. Yet on Saturday, to where we'd moved our Valentine's Day (because Joe was here with us Thursday and we wanted to be alone to celebrate it), Davi went out and bought all the ingredients for Lobster Fetuccini with roasted Asparagus, Squash and Courgette. It was a major venture - something only an experienced cook should attempt - loads of preparation and 3 or more elements cooking simultaneously (asparagus baking, courgette and squash frying, separate lobster & tomato/garlic sauce, lobster x 3 being grilled (wait, that's four elements, LOL)...two to sit whole in the pasta and one used in the sauce (NOT cheap!).... poor sod didn't even have a proper recipe, just "Lobster pasta by Davis" or someone (some bloke giving a demonstration on YouTube), which meant he had to keep stopping and rewinding every 5 minutes as he was trying to cook, without quite knowing where the bit he wanted to see again was located.... He was in that kitchen for about 3 hours straight and I'm sure he came out a Stone lighter, LOL! I was hearing 'Ah, putain!' (oh, for f***'s sake!) about every 10 minutes and yet he wouldn't let me help one iota.

 

It was ucking fantastic! I'm talking taste and presentation to high class restaurant standard! I even took a photo of it. (Think I married an unwitting chef!) And he'd decorated the dining room with candles galore, etc., etc... soft music playing. I sat down, massive grin on my face and then promptly caught myself unawares by bursting into tears. (I don't do that! But since I got with him I'm turning into a mushy, soppy 'nana, blubbing my face off (always in surprised delight and overwhelmment). He'd also bought me a huge and very expensive box of Belgian chocolates and a bottle of my fave perfume, and inside his card he'd written (which he'd obviously practised in draft form because there were zero mistakes and crossings-out): "I am thankful for every moment that I spend with you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I only hope that I can make you as happy as you've made me. You are the butter to my bread, the breath to my life. Yours always and forever. Happy Valentine's Day my love. Davi xoxoxoxoxo" (Phoo-eeerrr...gulp!)

 

Don't know whether that's his Italian or French side because both are known for being die-hard genuine romantics but I do know without a shadow of a doubt (which is definitely Italian as I'd dated lots before now) I come top by miles over every single thing or person in his life and that he's VERY intense and passionate (yet also cute and funny) and doesn't hold back a jot! I know everything there is to know, past, present and future...EXACTLY where I stand. And he's not at all chauvenistic like too many French men have a reputation for, just traditionalist but happy to stick on an apron and get stuck in wherever there's any need. Scary whenever you break a rule or taboo, but then I can't talk (he says I'm just as alarming as him in that situation).

 

I'm the exact same with and about him, though. He's me with a willy/I'm him with boobs. In my opinion, he's utterly, utterly perfect even despite he isn't, i.e. I don't find any of his so-called faults, faults. And he is the best and most likeable, impressive friend I've ever, ever had! So although I'm sad for that bubster, I'm not sad for myself due to where it led. Not. a. JOT!

 

So, anyway, yeah, let's hope your future bloke IS Italian and that you finally find out what it feels like to be with your best-ever, possibly one and only genuine soulmate! You won't know whether to kick yourselfat having married C or to hug yourself for having experienced that as an unavoidable and vital pathway.

 

True and complete love is a mindf*** of the positive, truly inspirational, "I am finding it very hard to continue to believe there's no highest-of-high intelligent entity out there" variety... There are no other words to describe it. And it's not just me. People I know who've been through the same developmental milestones are experiencing the same thing (my elder sister, for one)...a truly fairytale-like love story.

 

Sad....? Sad my arse. LOL ;-)

 

 

Meanwhile, back over to your ranch.....

[Nattersmatter]

Not sure what I think about the whole 'alien in my brain' theory but it is definitely food for thought. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I'm in two minds"!!

 

Exactly! And as we know, Freud explained it by concluding that the human animal's mind itself has separate parts all negotiating and vying to get their own way, whereas, to me, especially lately, it makes more sense if you have the two beings sharing a space in the same live carcass, one the owner-landlord, the other the permanent lodger.

 

Yeah not sure what to do about the whole divorce thing. I will pm you my location for sure - thanks. We really don't have any real assets. I do want to get divorced now though - the solicitor today helped me decide. I am sure I want that now. I might just go for it. I honestly don't think C would agree to mediation anyway. Sigh - will research it a bit I guess.

 

Okay, I'll look out for that.

 

Why do you think C wouldn't agree to mediation when it'd save him a shed-load of money? Surely if he isn't keen that just supports my suspicion of him having been secretly squirelling away money - not just lately but all through your marriage - aided by the ruse of earning a lower amount than he actually did?

 

Balls to it all! Nothing is ever straightforward is it?

 

As I know for a fact - the greater the rough, the greater the subsequent smooth; the greater the pain, the greater the subsequent gain. So it's GOOD if it's no easy ride!

 

Maybe I should try to convince him to divorce me??? Maybe he is planning to anyway??? Maybe I could just go ahead and push him off a cliff?? Then I would get widows benefit - wooo hoo! (Joking)

 

It'd make no difference. Costs are shared 50/50, anyway. I don't agree with that (and nor do most solicitors) but our divorce laws are seriously out of date (70s was the last updating, ridiculously enough).

 

Oh yes - latest instalment in the @$$hole saga. So the past 3 or 4 weeks C has come over on tues at 7am for the kids - kept them overnight and brought them home weds evening. This suits me cos I work tues and weds (my mum and mil have been covering the Mondays). Well he has not said he wants to do that ongoing or what and I want something concrete cos I need to know where I am from one week to the next. So I thought I would ask him . So I text him today asking him if he is going to do the same every week. No response. So this evening I text again saying "I need to know of you are having the kids on tues and weds. If you don't tell me then I will have to make alternative arrangements so please do me the courtesy of responding"

 

No response as of yet - he is such a tosspot - I mean seriously??? How hard is it to work out a bloody schedule?

 

I hate not knowing what I am doing from one week to the next.

 

Anyway enough about stupid idiots.

 

 

*****oh hold up - we have a newsflash - he replied and said he is able to do this tues and weds*****

 

I replied asking if that was gonna be ongoing - bet I won't get a response to that one!

 

Be very careful about showing him any need of yours or it'll be like a Red rag to a vindictive, petty bull; he'll deliberately refuse to cooperate just to make things difficult for you. You have to couch everything as if the gain is all his, meaning - more like this: "I suppose going by what seems to be becoming a routine that you would find it less than desirable if I were to want to change our Tues/Wed to any other days?". If he should surprise you by coming back with, it wouldn't bother him, you can always make out there isn't any actual call at the moment and you were simply exploring future room for manoeuvre 'in case' because you were thinking of joining some club or other.

 

(I'll comment to the spooky story in a separate post)

 

xoxo

[Nattersmatter]

I have another slightly spooky story although it isn't that much and it happened to my sister not me but it does involve my grandmother again.

 

Basically my sister was a new mum. Her son was a few months old. Well he was really sick one night with a fever and stuff and she was worried about him. She had been to the doctors and everything but it was the middle of the night and she couldn't sleep for worrying. She looked over at his cot and there was a woman leaning over it. She should have been alarmed but she wasn't - she felt completely calm and at peace. She says she knew it was our grandmother. In the morning her son was completely fine - but she says he really had been too ill to recover that quickly but who knows?

 

Unfortunately, that one CAN be explained: normal new mum exhaustion greatly compounded by his illness and her anxiety, her 'sleeping and dreaming whilst awake' with her mind showing her, using a symbol of a wise, trusted, reassuring figure, that son was well on the mend.

 

Oh yes and there is the whole story of my birth which my dad claims is a miracle in itself.

 

Go on?

 

xoxo

[Supersarahp]

Wow - I hope I find the kind of love you have with your husband one day!!!

 

With my birth - well my dad says it was a miracle but it wasn't really. It isn't really a spooky story or anything like that. Basically my mum was 40 and already had 5 children when she became pregnant with me. At her midwife / hospital appointments they were concerned. They told my mum, in her words that her womb was "full of holes". They told her that there was absolutely no chance that she would carry me to term. They told her that either she would die, I would die or we would both die. They strongly recommended a termination.

 

My parents are staunch Catholics - this was not an option they would entertain and they told te doctors this. Still the doctor urged them to reconsider. I have seen the report with the termination recommendations on it - it is pretty sobering to read something like that knowing it is about you.

 

Well a week before my due date my mum had to be rushed in for an emergency Caesarian (not sure exactly why - I must ask her). 12 hours she was in theatre with my dad pacing the corridor. After it was done a midwife came out to talk to my dad. She told him it was the worst birth she had ever seen. She told him she had no idea how both myself and my mum survived. She was shell shocked. She kept saying to him "I don't know how they survived that - there is no way they should have been able to come through that."

 

My dad just looked at her and said "ye of little faith" (which I thought was a bit arrogant but hey ho).

 

I spent 2 days in an incubator with jaundice but aside from that was completely healthy. My mum was fine. She had a hysterectomy shortly afterwards but on the whole she was fine. Now fair enough it isn't supernatural or a miracle or anything and we must have had bloody good doctors but we defied the odds.

 

It is only really since I had my own children that I have started to imagine myself in my mothers shoes. 5 children already, a husband who has recently quit drinking after years as an alcoholic and the doctors telling you if you proceed with this pregnancy you are very likely to die. Woah - would I continue with the pregnancy? - possibly not, probably not. She must have been bloody terrified the whole time. I did ask her about it recently - I said "you must have been really scared" she said she was.

 

So yeah I guess I shouldn't really even be alive statistically but here I am! I am so grateful to my parents for standing up for what they believed in and going against medical advice (even though it was pretty foolish). I guess we are the lucky ones and for our one successful case there are many more that were unsuccessful . It was 33 years ago so I guess the success rate of such situations would be higher now.

 

I don't know - I guess I just appreciate my life because I may not have had it. My dad I always looking at my kids and saying things like "If we had listened to those doctors we wouldn't have these 3 beautiful children in our lives" .

 

So that's it really - nothing major but still a nice story I think.

[Nattersmatter]

Wow - I hope I find the kind of love you have with your husband one day!!!

 

There is nothing to stop you (one) but you and your negative thoughts in combo with unwittingly yet deliberately choosing the wrong candidate in order to self-sabotage any chance of success. If you really, really want it, you'll be head-held-high fussy and hold out for your diamond Yang, and BECAUSE he's your DY, you won't even have to give him the benefit of the doubt when things seem to get negative between you or life throws in negativity from outside of you both; you'll find trusting him and his intentions comes automatically and, through that, just KNOW that he's dropped the ball only by accident. There ARE no such things as accidents, of course, but you'll know his reasons for dropping that ball momentarily aren't to do with him not being fruit loopy over you enough to keep him wanting to stay with you forever-Amen, so, not taking it personally in the first place, you won't rise to what isn't even bait. Even if YOU drop that ball by TAKING it personally, he'll recognise that and immediately do what it takes to reassure you (and vice versa).... for the simple reason that you DON'T leave a suitcase containing a million pounds unattended where it can get stolen, and you DON'T play catch with a crystal vase or not keep a careful two-handed grip on it and watch where you're walking as you carry it from one place to another and thereby risk it smashing or even chipping.

 

You don't even have to make any conscious concertion of effort TO take this level of care, the pair of you; it comes naturally, the care is taken as thoroughly and deeply subconsciously as you care to imagine. And this is precisely what people describe when they say, 'When it's right, it all just happens naturally and smoothly'. No, it doesn't go smoothly all by itself. It's YOU doing it...you're just relaxed about it enough to let your inner animal do the job with very little interference from you. And that relaxed state is caused by EASY TRUST which is caused by AUTOMATIC, NO-BRAINER UNDERSTANDING which is caused by you and he having hailed genetically from the same gene pool way-way-way back when - now reunnited - meaning minds that work very similarly. NOT so close genetically that child defects would result, just the critical, perfect amount of similarity.... your you with a willy/his himself with **** and to about 95% (the other 5% acting to create that all important, not friction but frisson).

 

Choose the right candidate and nothing can go wrong and everything only go right...and more right...and yet more right. (...Ad infinitum from what I'm first-hand gathering.) Who you each pick/accept is absolutely... utterly... EVERYTHING. It's the very terra firma, without which there IS no foundation and IS no house and IS no street and IS no village and IS no town and-and-and.

 

 

With my birth - well my dad says it was a miracle but it wasn't really. It isn't really a spooky story or anything like that. Basically my mum was 40 and already had 5 children when she became pregnant with me. At her midwife / hospital appointments they were concerned. They told my mum, in her words that her womb was "full of holes". They told her that there was absolutely no chance that she would carry me to term. They told her that either she would die, I would die or we would both die. They strongly recommended a termination.

 

Unless the hospital personnel were slapshods who didn't examine deeply enough, how's that not a miracle?

 

My parents are staunch Catholics - this was not an option they would entertain and they told te doctors this. Still the doctor urged them to reconsider. I have seen the report with the termination recommendations on it - it is pretty sobering to read something like that knowing it is about you.

 

I can imagine!

 

Well a week before my due date my mum had to be rushed in for an emergency Caesarian (not sure exactly why - I must ask her). 12 hours she was in theatre with my dad pacing the corridor. After it was done a midwife came out to talk to my dad. She told him it was the worst birth she had ever seen. She told him she had no idea how both myself and my mum survived. She was shell shocked. She kept saying to him "I don't know how they survived that - there is no way they should have been able to come through that."

 

My dad just looked at her and said "ye of little faith" (which I thought was a bit arrogant but hey ho).

 

No, I get what he meant. Maybe faith - REGARDLESS of what denomination or what mis-identifying of the higher power or entity's 'face' - can somehow connect you to the successful circuit route? Or maybe it's a case of mind over matter (the mind willing and affecting both another part of itself and the body)? Or both.

 

I spent 2 days in an incubator with jaundice but aside from that was completely healthy. My mum was fine. She had a hysterectomy shortly afterwards but on the whole she was fine. Now fair enough it isn't supernatural or a miracle or anything and we must have had bloody good doctors but we defied the odds.

 

But these shpookays ARE about defying all the odds and likelihoods, aren't they?...albeit it COULD have been down to inadequate initial diagnosis and prognosis. But considering their having faith is precisely what made them FAIL to act (terminate) despite the overwhelming pressure, as well as to act (continue with the pregnancy), that in itself is still a case of, 'What were the chances!'.

 

It is only really since I had my own children that I have started to imagine myself in my mothers shoes. 5 children already, a husband who has recently quit drinking after years as an alcoholic and the doctors telling you if you proceed with this pregnancy you are very likely to die. Woah - would I continue with the pregnancy? - possibly not, probably not.

 

I would. If I wanted another kid that much I would. Who gives a sh*t about death when that's the easiest part to life AND you get to experience what might lie beyond?

 

She must have been bloody terrified the whole time. I did ask her about it recently - I said "you must have been really scared" she said she was.

 

Feeling the fear but doing it anyway because faith is so great it trumps thus sits on the chest of Fear, moreover paralysing it.

 

So yeah I guess I shouldn't really even be alive statistically but here I am! I am so grateful to my parents for standing up for what they believed in and going against medical advice (even though it was pretty foolish). I guess we are the lucky ones and for our one successful case there are many more that were unsuccessful . It was 33 years ago so I guess the success rate of such situations would be higher now.

 

Which is the chicken and which is the egg? Have the advances in medical expertise increased faith and the ability to feel the fear but do it anyway or has what is a tangible talisman for increasing faith and the ability to feel the fear but do it anyway produced success which the medical industry take all the credit for? Zat iz ze question...

 

I don't know - I guess I just appreciate my life because I may not have had it. My dad I always looking at my kids and saying things like "If we had listened to those doctors we wouldn't have these 3 beautiful children in our lives" .

 

As long as they don't conclude that they should never again listen to doctors? Because the key to life is BALANCE which is the same as *Sometimes* (depending on any understanding through having used your powers of judgement or instinct).

 

So that's it really - nothing major but still a nice story I think.

 

Nothing major, she says, LOL...... Here - you let all the cold in! (Insert NEW answer here: ____________________)

 

xoxo

[Supersarahp]

So I guess it comes down to attitude? Like how I have been thinking that if any man is willing to have a relationship with me when I have 3 kids then I should be grateful kind of thing. This is the wrong attitude to have. I should know that a man who is right for me will want to be with me whether it is just me or whether I have 200 kids and having children is not something I should see as a hurdle or something I should be apologetic over. I don't know - I guess this perfect man at the moment feels like a mythical being to me. Still fate is fate and if I am meant to fid love again then I guess I will.

 

Here you let all the cold in! .....

 

Hmmm another answer is hard to think of! Everything I come up with seems to me to be sarcastic or caustic or horrible or overly defensive.

 

Hmmmmm. Maybe just

 

"Yes it's freezing isn't it?" Would have been ok ?

[Nattersmatter]

Grateful?? And 'despite' you have kids?

 

Let's pretend you're a fashionable business suit. Designer. But you have the quite unusual addition of 5 extra pockets. There are going to be men who because of their own particular needs, have always wished all suits came with an extra 5 pockets. So who should be grateful? The suit because it got bought by someone who'd value and take good care of it? Or the man who's always dreamed of a suit with five extra pockets to place value onto and take care of his own needs?

 

In fact, you don't strictly speaking want grateful, you want appreciative whereby it so equals gratitude it feels indistinguishable. Grateful indicates your wishes have been granted beyond what you deserve. Knowing what you deserve, you're appreciative when you get it. Getting what you didn't know you deserved, you're grateful. If, however, you get given what you deserve AND A HUGE PORTION EXTRA, NOW you're talking grateful as well as appreciative. Diff/all the diff.

 

Your kids stand every chance of being that huge portion extra. My yet-to-be-married mate Eddie (who can't have kids) was here a week ago and told me and Davs he stayed far longer with his ex than he should have purely because he enjoyed the relationship he'd built with her son, and that it took him surprisingly that bit longer to get over Charlie than it had his mum. He hadn't even realised at the start what a bonus it was - not consciously, anyway (so who cares!). He knows it now, though. Some men know it consciously, some just find it "strangely" not off-putting and "even more strangely" appealing.

 

You've got NO worries if you don't subscribe to other people's mere common fears.

 

Yes, it's freezing isn't it, is fine. That one is a complete ignoring jobbie. Me, I can't resist hiding a telling-off or piss-take in the comeback (see Nookie's thread), LOL. Depends on the tone, whether I can tell they're just parrotting a standard small-talk phrase meaninglessly or whether they're in that blame-seeking mindset and trying to get me to take it off them. Sometimes, I'll just freeze on the spot like musical statues and give them a questioning look.

 

Why, what were your sarcastic and caustic reponses?

 

xoxo

[Supersarahp]

Am feeling really down all of a sudden - really low. I have had a really good week - not had this feeling at all. Sure I have had some anger towards C but haven't had this low feeling and now it is back. Grrrrr - just gotta ride it through I suppose (the contractions analogy really helped). So annoying though - had a nice day too - really chilled. Oh well one day at a time.