I had this same tendency for a while. One of my most serious girlfriends was a woman who had been raped a few years' prior to us getting together... her neighbor had snuck out on the roof of her apartment building, and watched her taking a bath. When she got out of the bath, he broke in and attacked her.

Needless to say, the result was terrible. In subsequent years, probably as a result of devastated self-esteem, she got involved in some really unfortunate relationships, with men who used and abused her. When I found her, she was an emotional ruin on several anti-depressant perscriptions. She put on a happy face, but it was superficial... she was miserable.

I had known her before the incident, we had worked together. When I ran into her later, I asked her out, we dated, and things began to get serious. I remember when she told me what happened to her... I had known something awful happened to her, but to have her tell me the story... damn.

I won't subject you to the boring details of our relationship, but the short version of the story is that I gave everything I had to help heal the wounds, and in the end, she was off medication, and relatively happy, her self-esteem greatly improved. That was probably why it was so easy for her to toss me aside, and pursue another man... who happened to be my best friend and roommate at the time... but that is a long, convoluted tale for another day.

The sad folly of trying to fix a broken woman with love is that there are two likely outcomes... one: you wil succeed, and she will become a confident woman who loves herself and is ready to begin living life, putting her unpleasant past behind her; or two: you will fail, and where there was one unhappy person, there will be two.

It takes profound decency and goodness to want to help someone heal their wounds, but it can also take profound sacrifice. But you succeeded my friend, and though it is a shit sandwich today, in the end you're a better person for having done it. The next thing to do, after a suitable healing time, is admit that you deserve to find someone that makes you deleriously happy-- not a charity case-- and go find her!

Sheesh. What a bunch of morose, wounded, and abused 'nice guys'. I can't help but wonder which of you is secretly a shallow womanizer.

C'mon. You can't all be decent people.


In all seriousness, UT, the only divorce I've watched has been my parents, from the outside. And neither of them have really opened up about it, so I couldn't say what they did good or bad, or provide any advice.

It doesn't seem like you're in desperate need of guidance at this point, anyway.

      It's sad that she was ever repulsed though. I know that I'd love to have a "couple of lesbian experiences" myself. Ah well, to each their own.
      Hey! This thread needed to lighten up a bit. Lemme alone. (Unless you can hook me up with that lesbian experience...)

      Feh, "meeting their needs" is most of the fun to me. Sounds like it'd be worth a try... or a dozen tries anyway...
      Whooo-hoooo! You are officially my hero! To use the colloquialism, you go girl!

Skunks, if it puts some perspective on things, I just spent the last half hour bawling like a baby. And I haven't made any plans for the next half hour.

I'm not saying that to get support. I know it's gonna be an emotional rollercoaster. And I'm the last one to go all needy on everyone, I'm not gonna do that. But you can bet that every single bit of support is meaningful and helpful and appreciated.

Even if somebody is saying Damn! That sucks Tone! That helps. In my most cynical of moments I couldn't imagine how it could help. But being here, I find it does help.

Uh...it is most of what I'd always heard. The rest would take practice, and perhaps some enhanced flexibility, both physically and mentally.

I can tell you this much...don't get involved in something like that if any one of the trio has self-confidence or jealousy issues...bad, bad, bad...

Lisa just drew my attention to this thread. Tony, please let me know if you'd like to come hang out with us for an evening; we live so close it'd be dumb not to. I'm PMing you my phone number

Tony, we all know that if one of us took a blow, you'd be right there offering help, so don't stress about coming off as needy. A person's only "needy" if they want to take more than they'd give.

I can send you my phone number if you need somebody to shoot the shit with, I'm up half the night every night anyway. I know that's not too helpful, but I'll do what I can.

Tony, perhaps if you told us more of the situation, how you feel, or what you're thinking about, we might be able to help you feel a little better? It certainly doesn't help to keep things bottled up, and it might help to talk about it.

lisa called me directly and we talked for a good hour... I am reconnecting to a lot of people.

Juju, I think now that this is just what happens in a divorce situation. I never understood it before; how can it be SO painful? Nobody dies, people are just trying to improve on life's situation.

But it's the emotional bonds that make it painful - take any non-marital breakup you've had, and multiply it by ten.

At the same time, I've written a longer version of the story to a few people, and I've told the longer version on the phone to about 6 people, and the big picture coalesces.

Practically every thought I've had for 11 years and in the 5 years before that when we were going out, has been with her involved in some way. What we're doing tomorrow, next week, next month is always with the other in mind. Now suddenly it's not, and everything around me is another little reminder that things are different now, and I'm confused. I sit in the chair she picked out, pet the dogs we raised, consider watching the show we were gonna watch.

Thr future we were going to have, that now only confuses me. Will I make it? Will it be incredibly painfully lonely? Maybe it won't! But it becomes more terrifying because of the confusion.

I don't see much of a response to this, and I write it because you asked and I think people may find it interesting. And maybe not a road accident sort of interesting. I just put it out there, there it is...

Y'know, maybe that's just it. Maybe I'm too cynical, unscarred, and naive to sympathize with, as I said, something I've only ever observed from a good bit of distance.

Give me a few years, alright?


Which isn't to say I don't see where you're coming from, either: I can dig that it sucks for you. I'm just having trouble with the magnitude, apparently.


<font size="-2">(...So, er, about those lesbians...?)</font>