Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

(To this day those flying monkeys still scare the hell out of me.)

I know how you feel. I get stress-induced fits of paranoia all the time. Why is it so easy to brush away one's successes and agonize over one's failures? I'm not sure exactly how one goes about de-stressing and feeling all happy and self-confident. I have a feeling that winning the lottery and buying a private island in the Pacific somewhere might lie in the answer somewhere. And my guess is that your successes are not flukes. Sure, there is always some amount of being in the right place and so on and so forth, but you can't be successful on luck and cosmic vibes alone.

Again, totally understand about the BF thing. We were stuck in the same ugly cycle of my wanting to KNOW, wanting to know where exactly are we going???? when he didn't know the answer. And when I look back I don't know why I kept asking, because the answer was not going to change just because I kept nagging him. He needed time, and once I finally backed off and respected that, things got a lot better, and we did end up getting engaged. I think what made me back off was suddenly wondering one day -- what if our positions were reversed? What if I wasn't 100% on this thing and he kept pushing me? I hate being pressured. No one does. And no matter how logically or nicely I presented the question, it was still pressure -- pressure to have an answer that he didn't have. It wasn't like he was deliberately toying with my feelings and trying to string me out as long as he could so he'd have someone to pay half the bills and wash his dirty socks.

I guess in a perfect world your significant other should always want to talk to you no matter what, but it just doesn't work out that way. When it's a discussion on a subject that always ends up with both of you unhappy, that's a little different, at least in my book. My husband is always there for me, but there are conversations we know by now that we can't have.

I guess when you get down to it -- men suck! They can't commit! Seriously, I think that they run on cycles, like they only consider marriage every 7 years or something. I almost threw in the towel more than once. But, I'm very glad I didn't. I can't speak for anyone else, though. It's so hard, especially when you have years invested and might end up thinking about "what if"s ... and yeah, that long-distance part sucks. I'm not sure what either of you have planned for staying in your respective cities, but it does make it tough to plan for the future when you don't know if you're going to be together.

--------------------
jen

"It's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle -- to get one's head cut off." -- LC

Print Remind Me Notify Moderator