Something different

Something different is not black and white. It’s just different. Whatever that is!
I have spent most of my adult life trying to be selfless for everyone else because the whole world needs help. I have tried to raise our children right. I tried not to burden anyone with my own stress when our children were babies, even tho I thought that was going to kill me the first year. But I took them to church, alone, because either my hubby was working or he just simply did not want to go. I have tried to be there for everyone else including my parents, grandparents, his parents, our grandchildren, siblings and extended family. I raised our granddaughter for the first 3 of the last 4 years. Then when our son had two boys back to back, I felt overwhelmed because I just knew history was about to repeat itself and honestly, as much as I love them, I didn’t want to do it. I never burdened Hubby’s mother and I don’t feel guilty for not allowing myself to be burdened by my daughter-in-laws stressful situation. She was living a fantasy when she got pregnant because she thought I would step up and do all the hard stuff when it became too much for her. I’m more shallow than that these days. When we lost Cambrie in February I realized I had nothing standing between me and what I want to do. I love our grandchildren but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life changing shitty diapers and cleaning up vomit from our bed.
It’s different for men. You all get create the life you want without answering to a higher authority. (That’s your choice) Women don’t get that choice unless they go to college and get a degree in a field that pays well. I am thankful that we (Hubby) gave Charli the opportunity to have that advantage. And that is my point. I have spent years listening to children tell me it’s not me doing anything. It’s Hubby, because he pays for everything, which has left me with an empty feeling more than once. Especially when there is no physical or mental effort involved in shelling out cash for whatever event I didn’t want to participate in any more than Hubby did, other than the stress it causes when he would see that money disappear.
I don’t know how many days or years I have left but I have no intention of giving our children, who have created their own lives now, the pleasure of taking even one more minute from me unless I choose to give it to them. I want to feel accomplished because raising children is apparently not an accomplishment.

If your kids are adults, and it sounds like they are, you owe them nothing now. I got nothing from my parents. Let them sink or swim as they are able.

That’s easy for you to say, Reg. You have no children.

My husband wasn’t given anything either. But when you have children and a mother sees a son being spoiled with every motorized vehicle (15 by the age of 16? I may be exaggerating that number but I don’t really think so), while a daughter, who is like a sponge, continuously gets passed over, it becomes annoying and a mother starts keeping score and fighting for everything a daughter wants every time a son is given a new 1 of about 7 motorcycles, 4 or 5 4-wheelers, a couple of go-carts or 1 of numerous automobiles.
And when a mother doesn’t feel like she is being heard, she will reward her daughter with a new car when she becomes Valedictorian just as I did. By this point, we have created little entitled monsters in them. Letting them sink is not an option when you fail to teach them to swim first.
But I know my bitterness toward Hubby for the attention he gave our son is what caused it and I probably should have let hubby do it his selfish way. But it hurt me for Charli because she already had a problem making friends and she saw very early in life how different they were treated. The first time she voiced her hurt to me was when they were just 3 years old and she couldn’t understand why her brother had 2 motorized vehicles but she couldn’t have a Barbie car. BECAUSE A BOY CANNOT RIDE IN A BARBIE CAR BUT A GIRL CAN RIDE IN A SPIDER-MAN CAR. When you can’t afford both, you buy the boy a toy and he can take his sister for a ride. That broke my heart for her and from that moment forward I watched everything our son was given and I began fighting for everything she wanted including a very expensive college education. I couldn’t buy her friends but I could buy her material objects and by the time she got in high school I was dressing her from The Buckle but the monster in them had already started growing.
So I see the mistake I made and I accept that I failed them. But we are giving them swimming lessons. Thanks for the sound advice!

When you have time, come visit me Reg. I need to ask you some things.

Ok Let’s try this a different way. In the 18+ years since we first met online, have you ever noticed a change in my behavior and if so, when?

Also, do you think the method Will used to create higher communication skills in me was successful?

Do you feel I have, at times, been forward with you?

I am sorry! I know my behavior has been unacceptable with sporadic meltdowns and turning your site into a chaotic crime scene but I think you have tried your best to be the perfect gentleman you have always been and I am sorry I have put you through this. I respect our friendship more than that. I do think you have tried to help me.

Of course. Everyone changes. When I first met you, you were very flirty. You liked attention and the net was young and we weren’t used to online attention back then. There was another girl even more flirty than you were (Jane something or other?) who egged you on, or you egged her on as the case may be. I remember hearing you both on an ancient and long-gone site called hearme.com in the 90s. This was long before Skype and all the modern alternatives so it was revolutionary to be able to talk online in a group. We weren’t the jaded kids you see today where every 13 year old has friends all over the world and has already seen all imaginable (and some unimaginable) perversions.

Then a few years later you became very religious, but you were still not very political. My guess is that came from your realization that happiness and fulfilment couldn’t be had in chat rooms online, a lesson all of us took years to learn back then. You made changes in your life, dropped most of your online activity, and tried to find happiness in the Bible, or at least the way the Bible describes happiness for women. Some people aspire to that state in life but it is rarely fulfilling. Sitting at home reading the Psalms and planning lunch for the kids is no life.

Now you are extremely political but not rational. No offense. That’s just my take, which you asked for. You have chosen your horse and you don’t care much about the race anymore, you’re sticking with your horse. It’s clear to me you are unhappy with your life, and my guess is you don’t know how to change it at this point.

All of these things are just my guesses. I don’t pretend to know you closely.

One point of clarity: I haven’t tried to help you. I let people say what they want here, even if it’s stupid and self destructive, and I think every single person here has said stupid and self-destructive things occasionally. I know I have.

By the way, my own life mirrors yours in some ways. In the 90s, I tried to find happiness in my career and with a woman from the Zone. I failed totally on both fronts. When my career in medical software and my relationship both came crashing down at roughly the same time, I started a data center on credit thinking that would finally be the lifestyle I wanted. It wasn’t. It was torture. Hard work 24/7/365, online wars where we would be attacked at all hours of day and night, and endless financial pressure because I had found myself in a business where, for every new order, I had to put thousands of dollars up front that wouldn’t be recovered for years. It was the first and hopefully last time I experienced truly crushing debt. I also couldn’t make a relationship work in those years despite trying desperately. Finally, I sold the data center (when it became clear that if I didn’t, I would eventually go bankrupt), made a few dollars and moved to Colombia where I finally, after 50 years, found peace and happiness.

Hopefully you will find your peace, too.

Thank you, Reg! I appreciate you opening up for once. That was the longest personal post I believe I have had the pleasure of reading.

I would like to share something with you as well.

Back in the summer, I was outside in the dark, posting something here when my hubby walked up and startled me. I showed him the post because he was acting like he was sneaking up on me doing something wrong and I didn’t like him making me feel like I was hiding something. So I wanted him to know where I was hanging out online.
I’m not sure when that was but when I read that book, things changed in me and I went from feeling baptized in the Holy Spirit to demon possessed. The last time I opened my Bible was August 31.

I tested you years ago.
I knew how you would behave if I made advances toward you. I was never worried about it because I felt like I knew you, at least, well enough to know you wouldn’t participate. I wanted him to see that so he would feel secure knowing I wasn’t doing anything wrong. And I wanted Hubby to know he had nothing to be concerned about. I just wanted to be able to communicate with people without being made to feel guilty just becuse those people are men.
Then Will began provoking me to anger and everything started changing. I wanted to learn from him because I trusted Will and I believed him when he told he wanted to help me reach a higher level of communication. I just didn’t know what that was or what it meant. And it is painfully difficult to face. I am sorry for all the drama I have caused here. I am NOT sorry for anything I’ve said to Will. I do want to stretch his lower lip up over his head and diaper pen it to his ears but I am thankful to you for everything.

You have an odd way of showing your thankfulness. Not sure why you would be thankful to me.

Not sure why you would be thinking I am thankful to you for anything, ever.

Because of this?

Hmmm, I don’t know how that got there. I think you are just trying to put words in my mouth.

Putting your own words back in your mouth. Are you still skulking about in the dark to post here?

Does it look like I’m skulking about?

Is that a complete sentence? It doesn’t seem lucid this morning.

It is grammatically correct. You are the subject. Skulking about in the dark to post here is the predicate.

It’s been an interesting day. Even uncomfortable at times. All I can think about is how can I protect myself from that situation in the future and yet I’ve already committed myself to be subjected to it again on Tuesday.

What situation, Michele?

Verbal comments that have a double meaning.

Your husband is making these comments?