Changing Times…Changing Lives..The Search for self.

A very close and wonderful friend of mine (Angela) started me on a path to discovery awhile back that in the last two weeks has born magnificent fruit. But in the process has caused some incredible pain and will probably cost me my current relationship…

It began with a massive knock-down-drag-out-screaming match argument that ended with the possibility that it was not she that was (only) nuts, but that I might be as well and that I “didn’t know how to love someone”. It has long been an argument that I am an emotionless null because I don’t get upset at things I probably should. I’ve never felt that way. Things I couldn’t control just didn’t really affect me all that much.
If it was something I could control and didn’t I couldn’t get angry because it was my own fault. Things I felt i could control I generally did.

So I started to see a counselor after a month or so and have seen them several times now. In this time we have looked at some of my past relationships, my current relationship and how I deal with people in general.

Herein lies part of the revelation of my problems (some of them anyways).

In past relationships i usually seem to fall for those ladies who are in some kind of need, that I can help out of some sort of situation or situations. This makes me feel good as I am very much a helper personality and an Alpha Male. The problem is that I do not seem to seek out ladies who can help me. So I take in a partner that really isn’t a partner. They begin to need and want me and I only want them. I used to think this was more important than needing someone. I think I’ve found this is not true. I am able to meet their needs, but they cannot meet mine in return and eventually the relationship fizzles and blows up in my face hideously and I lose the ladies, friends, gain new enemies and generally the world is not a happy place for awhile. Until the next person comes along that needs my help and sees me as her Knight in slightly tarnished armor. No more.

My most pressing current financial, emotional, maniacal problems stem from my marriage and my ex-wife: things I did to myself, things that were done to me, and things that I allowed to happen. This part of the revelation came out this week and finally pulled its way into coherency this weekend.

a bit more than ten years ago (wow!) I moved into my townhouse. A wonderful place that many of you who take the time to read this will remember. All was good in my life. The last soured relationship left behind, a great job, a new home, and plans to get my act together and finally get out of Lexington and maybe head for Colorado (a place I dearly love, and have not been back to since that spring). Everything was wonderful until my housewarming party. I hooked up with my ex-wife for the first time at one o the last of the truly great Corsair Bashes and life was good. Unfortunately something happened that took us a few months to get past, but we seemed to and she and her wonderful son moved into my life. At which point in time to pay both of our bills I stopped paying rent..luckily my landlord was my father and he let it slide because he saw a good thing here and he got a great grandson out of the deal.

Time moved on and we eventually planned to get married. We had some major communication issue going on and a number of fights over a wide range of topics. One of the biggest was having another child. I didn’t want one under any circumstances and she continued to try to convince me that I would eventually want one. Funny thing.. a month after I threatened to get a vasectomy she told me she was pregnant. On the way to her office christmas party. So I had to play nice-nice all evening and act as if nothing was up. I went basically catatonic for several days and wouldn’t talk about it. I finally came around to a grim acceptance of the situation. I found her birth control pill box later on and found pills taken out almost randomly. To the day i die I’ll never know if she truly did not take them every day on purpose or if she really was that stupid and just forgot.

The end result of course is that I have a wonderful daughter whom I love very much and would not trade for anything on the planet. Itry to be as good a dad as I can, but I am human and do fall down now and again. I love that I get her every other week at a time for 7 days or more every other week and I miss her terribly when she is not around.

To continue: We tried to see a counselor before we got married but she never really did follow through on it and I let it drop as well and we got married anyways. I started to work for myself and was fairly successful and wanted to expand the business and opened a store front downtown. In the same month we bought a new house and moved both the house and my office in the same month of December, with christmas coming along. stress? no?? We went from not affording the rent at one place to paying a collective 3 1/2 times our original rent at two places. And we did it damnit! For awhiles. Money got tighter, things between us worsened, Laura got fired from the bank and we spiraled end. Lying, cheating, fighting, arguing, money issues, we had it all. And so I left and after a number of months of counseling and continued lying and cheating we started the divorce process. wheeeeeeee! At the beginning I had both my kids for 7 days a week, heir mom got them the next five, and the following weekend Keaton usually went to his dad’s and Rhianna stayed with her mom.

Across the next few years I fought to keep the business open, went through a number of friends and employees, all of whom I lost in the end badly. Put myself into some major financial and tax troubles that still carry over to today, but are finally attempting to be resolved. I’ve also lost access to my step-son because “my family was a complication in his life”. I love that kid unbelievably and now he’s falling for it and doesn’t really want to see me either. All I can really hope for is that he is happy and that someday he’ll remember he has a step-dad that loves him.

Anger. Rage. Despair. Disgust. Lying. Cheating. Pettiness. hell go through the list of the seven deadly sins and I’m sure this period of my life had them all. And I never really dealt with any of it. I boxed it away, moved past it, let it lie and moved on.

So what did I learn of all of this?

I don’t want the control without help. When I have help I put my trust in it and seem to always get screwed in the end. Either because I do not carry my side of things or they do not carry theirs. I like it when things are not controllable, then they can’t tear me apart like I can be when I am overwhelmed by two many things I should control but can’t. I got put into so many situations I really did not want to be in and let them happen to me. Husband, Father, HomeOwner, Business Owner, Corporate Tax Payer, etc. I didn’t really want to grow up. And still don’t for that matter. I am a very young 39 because of it. Unfortunately, it’s time to grow up and become a real adult. I even had my furniture insulted today and was told when I move next as a part of the deal I have to get new furniture.

Due to everything above I’ve had major issues with contemplating another marriage and the possibility of additional children (beyond the fact that I’m close to 40 now…EEEEK!). How do I know I’ll get it right the next time since I Eff’d it up so badly the last round. and my relationships since then have not been real winners either. Wonderful ladies all, just not right for me or I was not right for them. I have been hurt by them and have hurt some of them in return. You know who you are if you read this and I’m sorry for all the pain, but can look happily on the good memories we made together and forgive what pain and anguish you may have caused me.

If the current love of my life chooses the other path and I am to wander alone for awhile again i will be looking for somebody very different than I have spent time with in the past. Someone who can fulfill my needs as well as i can fulfill theirs. I doubt seriously that I will ever live with anyone again that I do not first marry, nor do I really think I’ll ever get married again. Catch-22. damn. Still have things to work on.

What do I need? This one is still truly evolving in my head as I had never really looked at it this way. I need someone who can stand beside me and truly take on half the load. Who can get me to do the things I need to do in my own life that I tend to ignore and to even suggest or help me deal with my own problems. Who is interested in my projects and can help me but has their own life, hobbies and ideals. Its a hard find. The list is still gelling in my mind. I know who I need to avoid now, but it will be hard.

I may have finally found one, but our time wasn’t right. or maybe we both needed to do a little evolving. Regardless of where things go from here i will forever be in my current? lady’s debt for opening my mind to these thoughts.

In an argument I’m extremely rarely the first one to raise my voice or yell. I have a real problem with staying cool with someone I am close to when they are yelling at me. I its a stranger I have no issues whatsoever. No emotional involvement so it doesn’t affect me. But when its someone I;m close to that I care about, I start yelling back and give as much anger as is thrown at me in return. Once this happens, the cold, logical, hurtful side of me comes out and generally what is said is not what should be said or how. It’s vengeful, hateful, and hurtful, fueled directly by anger and rage that I cannot block out from the other person.

Long have I been fraught with problems of rage. An anger so bad that I can only get rid of it by walking away or by lashing out and hitting something: trees, doors, posts, fences, and most notably walls & windshields. Never people (well, okay twice, once was almost tragic the other almost comedic). Of late when it happens I’ve begun to actually hurt myself in the process (sprained wrists, fingers, hands). i let little things slip by without being bothered by them, but enough little things build up into a powder keg that eventually goes off. I feel like all the rage is gone now. For the first time in a long while I am without anger of any kind that I know of. I hope this lasts or that i really do have a handle on it finally.

When Angela and I have fought in the past we just keep taking the argument up a notch until we are both ready to explode and nothing is accomplished. I finally got it through to here that I just need to walk away for a bit. This is totally opposite of what she needs though and we are stuck at an impasse. the most logical thing would be to not let either one of us get to this point. We’re getting much better at this I think, but unfortunately the results have become more catastrophic.

For those of you who have known me for eon on end and knew all of this about me but never said anything to me about it :

WHY the F*** NOT!!!!!

WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST BEAT ME OVER THE HEAD AND TELL ME I WAS A WHACK JOB LONG AGO!!!

Maybe some of you did come to think of it. I just wasn’t ready to hear it yet.