Ever get to the end of your rope? What do you do?

[AmeliaApple]

I feel like I'm getting to the end of my rope...my emotional rope at least. I find myself becoming very apathetic about things lately, even things that I use to love. Every night I come home and just sit alone, smoke (I just re-started), and wait for the night. It seems to be the only time that I feel moderate relief. Like I'm off the hook from things. I've realized that I don't even enjoy being around people that I use to enjoy. I have little to no emotional response to them.

 

I feel like I'm getting close to just giving up. I have a great job that I love, thank goodness, but this uncertainty in my marriage is very close to pushing me over the edge. I keep reading that you (in the proverbial sense) should not settle for less than you need. I think I have a greater handle on what I need, but I also think that I have a strange ability to live without it if I allow myself to compartmentalize to the fullest extent.

 

How do you weigh the pros and cons? I am so prepared to handle situations at work, but I feel completely lost on this.

[AVR1962]

I sure do feel your pain, I have been feeling the same way. I have put so much of myself into my marriage and my family for so many years that I feel exhausted and at times over-whelmed. I have a wonderful career but I feel partly depressed and kind of don't know which way to turn myself right now. Hang in there, I think time will give you answers, at least that's what I am hoping for myself.

[carhill]

Fortunately, the end of my rope closely coincided in time with stbx suggesting marriage counseling so I found myself open to that possibility, explored it and turned the corner. The M didn't survive but that period appears to have helped us both so my feelings are positive about it. Interestingly, some of that positive energy seems to have rubbed off on friends who have supported me during this difficult time. I find them using some of the tools I learned (and talked about) in their own M's.

 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. The marriage you save might be your own

[AmeliaApple]

It's funny how we can have so much in common and still feel so lonely. Perhaps there really is never going to be a time when we are connected with our partners the way we wish to be. It seems to me that the relationships with the most important people in our lives so easily become inconsiderate and taken for granted. Have you ever noticed that we tend to be more open and respectful with people we don't even know? Or with people we work with (particularly the respectful thing).

 

I think this is what makes relationships, particularly romantic relationships, so difficult. We spend so much time in our regular day being polite/respectful with people. We work to communicate effectively with them. All of this takes a good deal of energy that, perhaps, when we get home, to the place where we are suppose to just "be ourselves", we simply neglect to give those relationships the same consideration because we are "too tired". We tend to give consideration and respect and "work" to those relationships/individuals that we have not vowed to spend the rest of our lives with.

 

Just a thought. Perhaps an agreement to work just as much, if not more, on our "partnerships" as we do in our professional/regular lives is the thing that we forget to agree upon prior to making commitments