Got a lot of confusion now, wife and I are prolly going to divorce in the near future. Maybe this is not the place for emotional support, but I am new here, and I need to vent. I cant believe it! We are still nice to each other, but there is just nothing there anymore. I am on a natural kick, flying kites, vegan, camping, family time lifestyle, and she is surfer queen(internet), writing and being so completely absorbed in writing fiction that she doenst even eat dinner with the kids and me anymore.... Wherw!! I am close to tears, but what can I do! She knows how I feel, and I cant wait my whole life waiting to set out on my path for her to change to what I need. SO, I will prolly get divorced for the second time. What a failure!! What a loser! I cant be that f*ked up, can I? Postal Service sings Phil Collins song: Against All Odds. So painfully acurate! I have been a cold person, but I feel like I was forced to! She couldnt deal with my problems(of which there are many!) and I am running out of patience for hers! 31, 2 kids from 2 different wives, and I will end up with custody of both. Long story, may as well go on, right? Married to high school sweetie at 18, with child. Divorced by 21, ex passed away. Remarried at 24, and never really had a chance to heal before having to try to help new wife deal with a sh1tty childhood. SOAP OPERA!! which, btw, I cannot stand!! So big changes in my life, now vegan, next month divorce, then solo parenting! Trying to be optimistic, really!

The preceding paragraph is more than I have been able to express in years. Maybe I should start a blog? "Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn. Vera! Vera! What has become of you Does anybody else in here Feel the way I do?"

rant over, going to meditate on life, love and peace.

Good night.

Sean

Hmm, I don't have much personal experience with this kind of stuff, but I do know from reading about relationships alot on the internet that, as a general rule, people who were abused as children bring their problems with them to adult relationships, such as the "soap opera" you mention. You said very little about what sorts of problems you had in the newest marriage, but if I had to guess from the "sh1tty childhood" and "soap opera", it sounds like she might have Histrionic Personality Disorder.

If my hypothesis is correct, then there's little you can do to "fix" her, other than recommending counselling. HPD is frequently described as a very well hidden disease, because the person with it has been spending years learning how to fake a normal personality. In such a case, you should accept the following: it's not your fault at all, there's little or nothing you can do to help your partner, best thing you can do is try to emotionally protect yourself and especially your kids, because emotional stress on your kids has the potential to create exactly the same kinds of mental problems your partner might have already.

Edit: two things I realized I should've mentioned are as follows: Given what you've said, it's more or less equally possible that your former wife might've instead had Borderline Personality Disorder. Second, if your second wife did have HPD, then it's also possible you might have what's called a dependent personality, because dependent personalities tend to be strongly attached to HPD people. As with before, you haven't really given much information for me to work with so this is all quite tentative, but you should look into it and see if the symptoms match up; it would greatly assist your healing process to know this stuff.

i'm sorry to hear that you're struggling.

i recommend two things:

1. if you have lots of problems, why not seek councelling? learning how to manage most problems on your own, and only seek support in that work from family and friends, is a much healthier mechanism. coucelling will help you learn how to do this.

2. there's nothing wrong with getting a divorce. Before divorce, have you considered couple's councelling? that may help a lot, and you may not need a divorce.

3. if you do get a divorce, it's not a failure. sometimes, it's the best, most positive step a person can take. it takes courage to do it--mostly becvause so many people think of it as a 'failure' when it really isn't. changing yoru mindset in this regard might help.

4. take care of those kids!

good luck to you all!

Daral and Zoebird,
THank you both very much for your words! I am rarely that down. I am 3 days into a cold turkey vegan diet, and may be adjusting to it, physically and emotionally! I am much more stable now, and ready to tackle anything! Thank you both again!!!

Sean

I'd be interested to hear how accurate my hypothesis is, but if you don't want to talk about it, I understand.

Zoebird: Thanks for the advice! I have seriously considered counseling, either solo, or as a couple, but she is really opposed to it. May try it alone, maybe. I will wait and see what comes of it. As for the kids, we are almost always civil, and there are very rarely raised voices, never thrown objects or other violence around, so I feel that while her involvement may be lacking, there is no abuse to worry about.

Daral: My first wife was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a fairly young age. She rarely took her medication, tho. It may be worth noting that she took her own life after our divorce, tho ther were additional health problems complicating her life. I really feel this may be the reason I jumped into my current marriage, trying to help another with emotional problems. Hindsight is 20/20!

My current wife does have social problems, but hides them well when she has to; ie family gatherings.

You are very correct in your guess that I may have a dependant personality! I recognize this as probable but dont know what to do about it. I am almost always pretty rational, and would be open to reading suggestions on self help for these things! Mostly, I am ready to be free of other peoples emotional burdens. There may have been some felings of validation or something there for a while. This may not be a healthy attitude, but I really need to stand on my own for a while and get things sorted. So you are pretty right-on in your assessment of my life. Any suggetions?

Thanks!!

Sean

Daral: My first wife was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a fairly young age. She rarely took her medication, tho. It may be worth noting that she took her own life after our divorce, tho ther were additional health problems complicating her life. I really feel this may be the reason I jumped into my current marriage, trying to help another with emotional problems. Hindsight is 20/20!

My current wife does have social problems, but hides them well when she has to; ie family gatherings.

You are very correct in your guess that I may have a dependant personality! I recognize this as probable but dont know what to do about it. I am almost always pretty rational, and would be open to reading suggestions on self help for these things! Mostly, I am ready to be free of other peoples emotional burdens. There may have been some felings of validation or something there for a while. This may not be a healthy attitude, but I really need to stand on my own for a while and get things sorted. So you are pretty right-on in your assessment of my life. Any suggetions?

Thanks!!

Sean

Well I'm happy to say that, using one other case of this I've ran across as a benchmark, I definitely see a lot of positives. In a severe case of dependent personality, the individual virtually never discusses him/herself, his/her own feelings, etc. He/she will tend to only discuss the opinions, problems, or feelings of others. However, your post clearly shows a lot of "I"s, which is good.

Anyway, the fact that your most recent wife hides her social problems in large gatherings is actually pretty typical of HPD, which is leading me to believe that it is a likely issue.

As for what you can do to help yourself, all I can say is to find a psychiatrist and go discuss the situation with him/her. All I really know about what you should do is "be more assertive", etc, which is impossible to just "tell" someone to do

Therefore, the best thing I can tell you to do is see a professional. Remember, these types of issues have a strong tendency to propegate down into children, and the last thing you want is your kids to have this kind of crap when they grow up.

It doesn't have to be long-term psychiatric help, but given your less than perfect pattern of success so far, I think a few visits would be extremely helpful for you.

There may have been some felings of validation or something there for a while. This may not be a healthy attitude

Validation is one HUGE, HUGE reason people get into relationships, whether for the better or not. In general though, the best thing you can do to become a healthy person is to be complete and happy WITHOUT a validating relationship; if you aren't a complete person on your own, you aren't a complete person in a relationship, even if you feel like it. As such, getting into a new relationship only served to hide your problems, which are now surfacing in full force, now that your relationship has ended.

In terms of conquering your relationship issues, I Strongly recommend going to this website:

http://www.jbspencer.com/djb/

It has massive loads of information about how and why to control your relationships with other people, and I suspect you will find it useful. It's where I learned all this stuff about dependent personalities, HPD, etc. You should try to see a psychologist before you try getting into another relationship though; with a dependent personality, you run the risk of forming a dependent relationship on another abusive individual if you don't try to fix yourself before becoming involved with someone else. It's much harder to break a relationship than never start one.

I have to note that I have experience with the website mentioned above. I'm not so sure I can agree with much of the stuff there. In fact, they have some forums which got into a forum war with another forum I visit whose members actually give really, really good relationship advice. http://www.datingadviceforums.com/

Daral has found the site useful, so decide for yourself.
j4w- I hope you can get through this a stronger person with a better knowledge of yourself.

Daral and Thalia,
I will take alook around both sites soon. Thanks to you both for your goodwill! It really menas a lot to me!

Sean

>>Hmm, I don't have much personal experience with this kind of stuff, but I do know from reading about relationships alot on the internet that, as a general rule, people who were abused as children bring their problems with them to adult relationships, such as the "soap opera" you mention. You said very little about what sorts of problems you had in the newest marriage, but if I had to guess from the "sh1tty childhood" and "soap opera", it sounds like she might have Histrionic Personality Disorder.>>

Hmmm...I just have to say it.
It is irresponsible to attempt to diagnose psychopathology on the internet, based only on a couple lines of text...especially considering the stigma that mental disorders carry in our culture.

ebola

GC, As a person who posts about his life and wants advice from the internet, I will take full responsibility for my actions, weather it be trying self diagnosis and treatment, or full blown shrink sessions. I was asking for advice, and got some. I really dont think of that as a diagnosis, and will take it for what it is: Advice given on the internet and based on a few lines of text. THanks for your interest!

Sean

i think it's always a good idea to seek professional help, if you recognize that you have some kind of problem (even if it doesn't have a diagnosis per se) and you have figured out that you can't quite figure out how to get out of the particular behavoiral pattern. councelling can help with this, so i think it's a great thing.

my life is pretty much a mess. everyone hates each other. i'm kind of with a guy who is possibly lying to me (long story). people are trying to control my life. i'm being used.

i realise that there are people ALOT worse off than myself.

hugs to everyone. remember...to have great days you have to have not so great ones too.

remember...to have great days you have to have not so great ones too.

Great line!! So true, with out the bad, how would we know what the good is? THe bottom line is to be nice and keep smiling!! :D

sean