Happy Mother's Day!

[tugofwar]

Wow, I really think you should step it up and report her lawyer to the society.
Lawyers are not suppose to do what this smuck seems to be and getting away with it and your money......
Im a lady, or at least most of the time..... what's up?

[JEC]

how long does it take to start trusting someone to share the rest of my life with?

does this fear of this happening again every really go away?

is it worth believing I will one day have a better relationship than I had?

I lead a simple life, work 50 hours a week, family has an island in the Parry Sound area, own a town house, I believe in marriage and all of it's joys and challenges. thought my ex did, actually believed she did, that is untill she got her inheritance 5 years ago ... $$$ changes people, sometimes not for the better.

JEC

[tugofwar]

I don't know what to tell you about trusting in someone again. Im not aware of my ex if he cheated on me or not but I will trust he didn't.
I think that it's going to be hard... Im into this process of divorce 1 year later and still having some ups and downs.
We should possibly start a new thread as this one is a happy mother's day one

[Mess]

I'm not a lady, but sometimes I am a gentleman.

It's not about trusting a new female friend. It is about trusting yourself, trusting in your own judgement. The only reason you will question someone else's honesty is if you've been snookered.

This lawyer that is trying to represent you both, and is copying your confidential legal emails to your wife, this is a breach of trust. But you at some point decided you could trust them, and now you find your instincts were wrong.

You sound like you trusted your wife and believed in your marriage, and your instincts were wrong there. So now you are beating yourself up because you got fooled and as you look around you, it isn't all the people you see that you can't trust anymore. What you can't trust is your own feelings and senses and instincts.

I've been there too. Here is the reality, we aren't perfect. You will go through life and make mistakes and miss seeing things, sometimes things that are obvious to everyone else. You will have faith, because faith is a natural human need, but you find that your faith is often misplaced. You will go through life and have the rug pulled out from under you. It will happen, time and again.

The defence is not to never trust, because if you choose that then you are damaging your life in countless other ways. You must trust and give people a chance to show you what they are made of. In some cases, that means giving them enough rope to hang themselves. That is still trust.

The defence is to keep a part of your life and your heart for yourself. Have your own time, your own friends, your own activities, your own savings and your own space. This isn't just a physical protection, it is an emotional one, because you aren't so completely invested in these people you trust. You have time and space to yourself so you can shake your head and see them clearly. You can have fresh perspective. And if things go wrong, there are parts of your life that are unaffected and you can retreat to those and bounce back that much quicker and easier.

[JEC]

for anyone that has taken a personality dimension course, I am a green (really really green) then orange, blue barely registers on my chart. that carries over into my 25 year marriage, I worked very hard at a phyisical job and basically deteriorated my body into no longer being able to do the job, and the very good pay that came with it. WSIB retrained me and I have since been working full time, at a much reduced wage, but still with the house and cars paid for I thought there were no money issues, specially since my wife received a large inheritance. In the 25 years of marriage I went to the bank less than 5 times, no need to, I believed the wife had everything under control. Since I am low on the totem pole I spend a lot of extra hours at work and failed to notice my wife not slowing down her spending. I was lead to believe the house renovations were being paid for by her inheritance. I now find out she ran up a large line of credit, and kept a great deal of money (which she is entitled to as it is her inheritance) but ran the family into financial ruin. She did tell me she was planning to leave me in 2006 which was when I found out that I could not return to my previous employment. I now have limited use of my arms and hands, and being that I have a green personalty I am finding more and more financial and relationship deceit over the years by her.

sorry for hijacking the thread ...

JEC

[dinkyface]

DD (almost 3yo) and I (Daddy) made cookies for Mummy! Sad to say, Mummy could not afford even a smile when DD enthusiastically presented the precious box on Mothers' Day morning at handover. "WHAT'S THIS?!!! HMPHHH! SNARL!"

[billiechic]

That is so sad! I got the same type of reaction when I handed my ex his christmas gift from our daughter..he tried to hand it back! I told him it was from her, not me!

When I was a kid my parents always made sure we bought birthday, Christmas and Mother's/Father's Day gifts for the other parent..and they were divorced. I just don't get it. Shouldn't we be encouraging good behaviour by helping our children show appreciation to their other parent??

[piggybanktoex]

While I agree that the kids shouldn't suffer for the actions of adults, it can be hard sometimes. If it is a trigger for strong emotions, it's sometimes hard to smile or even fake it.

I remember the last Xmas gift from my ex at the last all family Christmas.

I couldn't help but think TO MYSELF that I'm paying for that gift with my interim support. But what I said was "thank you" instead.

[JEC]

I remember our past Christmas I went shopping with the kids for mom after I bought her the gifts from me. what I got for Christmas from the ex was an apple "itouch". A nice gift true, but she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt ever since I worked for a short time with Microsoft, I could not be any more anti apple. she got me a gift she knew I would not like. The result was I gave the itouch to my son in law.

JEC

hind site is soooooo 20/20

[representingself]

The defence is to keep a part of your life and your heart for yourself. Have your own time, your own friends, your own activities, your own savings and your own space. This isn't just a physical protection, it is an emotional one, because you aren't so completely invested in these people you trust. You have time and space to yourself so you can shake your head and see them clearly. You can have fresh perspective. And if things go wrong, there are parts of your life that are unaffected and you can retreat to those and bounce back that much quicker and easier.

Every once in a while.... someone says something so true, that you have no choice but to feel it in your soul...

[blinkandimgone]

DD (almost 3yo) and I (Daddy) made cookies for Mummy! Sad to say, Mummy could not afford even a smile when DD enthusiastically presented the precious box on Mothers' Day morning at handover. "WHAT'S THIS?!!! HMPHHH! SNARL!"

And your reply was.....?

[dinkyface]

None required, after DD said "COOKIES! I MADE THE STARS!!!"

[billiechic]

Every once in a while.... someone says something so true, that you have no choice but to feel it in your soul...

I think this applies to everyone, not just those going through divorce and new relationships.

Wish I had known sooner. I always felt I owed it to him to give everything I had and all I was and saved nothing for myself. Saving a little piece of me was "selfish". Now I know that I was wrong, that loving someone isn't meant to be a selfless act. It won't happen again.

[JEC]

for me, I will give myself 100% just as I did for the past 25 years. At the altar I promised to, (well so did she really) but at the end of the day, I need to look in the mirror and say I held nothing back, then look in her eyes and say I held nothing back. then wake up the next morning and do it again.

the betrayed feeling is hard for me to cope with, particulalry since I was married to Christian (or so she called herself). I feel lied to right from the moment she said "I DO"

JEC

[billiechic]

By "saving a piece of myself" I mean keeping hold of who I was as a person. There is no doubt that the person in my future will get 100% commitment. I'm just saying that they won't define me. Make sense?