I would personally stay far away from shrinks. Those are among the most fked up people on earth. If you need a place to talk, we are always here. :)

You are under the assumption that seeing everything in black and white is a bad thing.

No offense meant Bill, but I think your position is utterly and completely wrong on this subject. While this is an excellent venue for discussion, it simply cannot compare to what a qualified professional therapist can do to help you. I will grant that a lot of head shrinkers are pretty messed up, but they can provide insight that you are not going to get here. Human beings are social animals. You put yourself in a vulnerable position in a serious relationship, but with that risk there is the potential for great reward. I will confess that I would not piss on my ex-wife if she were on fire, but from that union came a son and daughter that made the ordeal that marriage was worth it. You protect yourself from being hurt by avoiding or denying love, but you are missing so much. That great risk-great reward thing is for real/

Yup.

Seriously Superman, you need to sit down with some kind of head shrinker. A lot of people think it is a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but this is as dangerous as the crushing chest pain you see in a heart attack, the ticking time bomb is an apt metaphor.

I may pitch you a large ration of sh-t here from time to time, but this can be a life threatening type of deal. In the last six months, two different people that I went to grade school and middle school with committed suicide. I am not saying that is your fate, but please take this as seriously as is warranted.

Toby

+1.

All due respect to Tobra, but i am seriously allergic to shrinks. Every one of them i have ever known on a personal level was an absolute loon. I had a date with a psychologist one time and she ended up knocking herself out cold in a fit of rage. CRAAAZY.

I'm a big fan of therapy to sort stuff out. The challenge is finding a good one that you can work with. The other downside I've seen is some people get "addicted" to therapy and never stop. A good psychologist is actually working to lose your business at some point.

Supe, I imagine you explained yourself as well as you could to this woman... if you opened up to her as much as you did to us, she will get past the pain of the breakup a lot sooner than if you hadn't even tried to explain.

BTDT... on both sides of the equation, and can say for sure that it does help the dumpee to know that they didn't cause the breakup.

Best wishes... and I echo those who say that it would be a good idea to search out a good psychiatrist. Confide this in some close friends and ask for some recommendations.

I'm with Snipe on this one. I have pretty much the same attitude.. Not that I couldn't fall in love, but life is so much simpler without it.. I wake up happy pretty much every day of my life..

I will put in that almost every head shrinker I have met is totally whacked. They get into the biz because they see the need or they simply might be stark raving mad? Who knows. Bottom line is that there are some AMAZING therapists. I use a growth coach for work. Two women. One is business. One is a head shrinker. I wouldn't have gone had I known that there was a head shrinker. After 2.5 months, I am seeing significant improvements in my performance. The shrinker is a huge part of this.

On a very personal note, my uncle killed himself about 2 years ago. You know, the guy I bonded with because my Dad and I don't get along? The guy who turned me on to fly fishing? Porsches? Sales? Just about everything in my life?

I take this very seriously folks. Yes the Head docs are loons. But they are very helpful loons.

I am more than happy to give you a pep talk if you need it. PM me for more.

Larry

Same here. Dueller or anyone else, i am always here to offer my unconventional brand of "wisdom." ;)

Hey Super, sorry to read about your dilema, truly. I hope you find some relief in your peeps posts here? I'm not sure we can relate with each other, but I can tell you that I've been a student of life my whole life and I'm constantly searching for the 'answer'.

Just before I hit 30 I realized that I needed to make my marriage work, so I did and I always will, that's who I am now and its not going to change. So we're different there. But I have discovered a secret to life that I'm currently enjoying playing with.......

We create happiness within by the realization of new and worthwhile dreams and goals; beit relationships, stuff, what have you. Most of our dreams and goals come from seeds of understanding what we don't want, the challenges in our lives. These challenges create new desires.

The 'sweet spot' of life comes from the realization that you are accomplishing one of these personal goals, at the moment that you realize you've won the game...... sweet victory. It may last only a moment, a day, month or year; but it never lasts. From the sweet spot of life we must dive into the challenges head first to determine our new dreams and desires; then work towards those new desires and when we hit the sweet spot again, ohhhhh, that's life.

Somewhere along the line people get conformed, they lose hope, they quit searching, they get complacent or they defer their desires. Go ahead, start over, but get a dream and hold onto it, its the essence of life imo.

Sounds to me like you let a good women go? I'm not sure why, but maybe its because there is no sweet spot left in the relationship? Relationships take work, you get out what you put in. I hope you feel better ;)

Supe-

I'm considerably younger than you, but here are my thoughts:

You mention that you had a major issue a few years ago and you are worried about a relapse. In my experience, you won't relapse for the simple reason that you've been down that road before, and you are already recognizing it. It's hard to mess up twice.

Take care of yourself first. This sounds dumb to some people, but get physically active right away. Go for a long walk every day, or for a run. Go to the gym, whatever, Just get your body physically tired- this is better than any drug you can get. It helps me to feel physically good, and allows me to separate my body and mind to better handle the bigger issues in life. Give this a try for a few days- I bet ANYTHING it helps. I was in a very bad place about 6 years ago, and this was a tremendous help to me.

As for the woman, only you truly know how to handle it. Get yourself feeling sorted, and then worry about it. I think things like women have to come without effort- if it is meant to be, it will happen. If not, so be it.

Keep your head up.

The honesty is strong here. And bravery. Some things I learned: Be kind to strangers; they are locked in battle. We all struggle; most survive. Regret kills.

+1,000,000

99.99% of them go into psych to try to figure out why they're so fked up. In the case of psychs the bad apples are the norm.

Supe, I have no advice for you. But I personally am going to be staying away from PARF, politics in general, the news, and anything not related to my immediate community. It's fking toxic.

I go in phases. I won't go onto PARF for months at a time, then i jump in with 2 feet to get myself covered in poo every once in a while. ;)

Super, I would imagine some of our earlier background is very similar. I married the wrong woman and didn't get out for over 20 years because of kids, screwed up religious upbringing, low self esteem, not wanting to be the bad guy and +1,000 other reasons. It took me a few tries to find a therapist I could connect with but once I did it was a great experience. We spent quite a bit of time talking about why I couldn't feel anything or identify my emotional state.

It's a process and there are many ways to tackle it but don't discount good professional help.

I met a woman who was the opposite of my ex. A great and warm intimate relationship ensued but I couldn't commit to her long term for a variety of reasons and was up front about that. Still, if things in her life had been different we'd still be together and I'm talking about the more rationale stuff. Her kids were a mess, etc. and I wasn't willing to be the one to rescue her. I'm now in a relationship with a great woman and both the physical and rationale sides work well but there are times, days, weeks where I wonder if I wouldn't be better off alone. I think I suffer from the "grass is always greener" syndrome where I assume sometimes what I don't have will be better than what I do.

I check in with my shrink every so often but I agree with Nostatic, it's something that has to have an end in sight, not a life long conversation. Best of luck.

Supe,

I thought about PM'ing you but decided to roll the dice. Please take any comments I make with a pillar of salt. I have said it before and I'll say it again, you're on my bucket list of bubbas to meet: you are a unique mix, in the most positive sense. That and I've see your rather pale ale, if you know what I mean.

There are more cliches' describing life's roils than grains of sand; more notions on how to improve than actual improvement.

So, pick one, or don't. It is that easy since there are no new revelations. You get to decide whether you get in touch with your lost youth or your lost friend, you get to ride the horse or stay in the stable, shoveling manure. Choices mean responsibility, commitment. Opt in or opt out. Your call. That is the essence and beauty of life...you get to make the call.

My Dad, the engineer, told me that life resembles a sinusoidal wave (he ready did), and that it is best to take a steady pull, dampen the troughs and the highs, understand the immutable laws of life: sometimes you're the bat, sometimes your're the ball.

One last thing, as trite and time honored a navy cliche' as has ever been written: Don't steer by the wake.

I wish you all the best.

Crystal ball reading.

You can't commit because she is too nice, too easy. You need someone that you can make love you, so that you can prove that you are lovable. Someone in your past didn't give you what you needed. Of course I am making this all up, but there are only about twelve explanations for your story, and I just picked one. Of course it is always safer to avoid getting close to someone, as you will never have to risk the experience of loss again.

Depression should be treated as a serious thing. Getting help is a good thing, as it may get you onto some sort of medication, or at least in touch with your feelings. Don't do it for yourself. Do it for your children. That would be a good reason, wouldn't it ?

Ramm, that is so insightful. And true. You recognize your flaws, mistakes and you hopefully face them. What is hard to deal with is that a lot of people, including me, keep dreaming about those failings when they sleep. With a few of you that I have met when I got to "lubricated", I've shared some of my personal history. Well-to-do upbringing, fell down BIG, BIG time in my late teens (in ways that would open most of you would never have imagined, and I'm not going to post here) , got back up, put myself through undergraduate and graduate school at huge personal effort, and am doing very well at age 55. All I can do is say "I am what I am" and I look in the mirror and have no one to praise or blame but who I see. I don't want this to sound petty or contrite, but Supe, you can definitely get through this. You're apparently active, health and employed. You are in a better financial and security conditon than about 90% of the World population. After what I've seen in the world, you are a prince among men, relatively speaking.

;)i went to a therapist service thru the university years ago, and i was a great naysayer.

my girlfriend dragged me in as she was seeing them too, and knew i was a bit f****d up. (deservedly) i was amazed! it was great.

something that gal friend said echoes in my head a lot. one day she said " I wasn't the one who hurt you, was I?"

that woke me up. no more pity parties.

i did not continue in class therapy, but became proactive. If such a wonderful woman saw so much in me, why didn't I see it??

, but i was among a lot of very positive people, Mark Victor Hansen (chicken soup for the fill in the blank) and such motovational persons, and friends, who helped me, but i did have to change my way of thinking, and let go of some anger.

i also did a lot of reading of good therapists books, and relationship books.

The Dance trilogies by Harriet Lerhner, Gary Smalley , etc, pretty much every self help and relationship book i had ever heard of, and many that i just picked up and skimmed thru.

i think that i reprogrammed myself. ive spent nearly 15 years roaming around and learning, and enjoying being alone since my divorce. i think i am ready, but finding that person is requiring me to go out of my selfish box.

another friend , whose wife can be VERY trying, when I asked him how he could stay with her replied simply with a smile, and said, "ya just gotta love them" he recently turned me on to a website out of here (kansas city area) that he is currently working with. a relationship site. will try to find it and send you a link.

a primary point i feel is important is ya gotta like yourself a lot first before you can ever love and understand anyone else.

i know that you know how to fix this. So start!!

Thanks for making my eyes leak, Supe.

still dealing....