Lost.......

[Afterthestorm]

I came here looking to post about how much it hurts to be going through a breakup. But I'm not sure that this is what it's all about, so I'm going to just speak my mind for a bit and maybe someone could offer some words. I could use a friend right at the moment.

 

I was with a girl that I did everything for and she said she knows i'm a good person and a good man. She got me cards that said she loves me and made a memories book with our name on it. Some good things. But in the first two months she told me she still thinks about her ex who is a drug user, but said it's only because he is her youngest child's father and had the "I need my baby's daddy to be with his son, so stay together." syndrome. She said she quickly realized that I was better for her AND her son.

 

Then she broke up with me about four months after that saying we weren't compatible. This was after she made me the memories book. In the week we weren't together she contacted another man for drinks. From what I understand she never ended up going for the drinks and we were together again. Then 3 months later she mentioned wanting to go out with someone she knew from a long time ago. That he had come into her work for his car to be looked at. She said he was a customer there and she didn't know until he came in. In the end she said that she still thinks about her ex (baby's daddy) again, but that she hates him and will never be with him.

 

She gave the "maybe in the future but right now I want to try dating other people. She wants us to stay friends and said she doesn't want to lose me from her life. She says I'm good for her son because I'm a good man and will teach him how to grow up into a good person who treats women properly and to be nice, etc. Her daughter loves me and her son loves me.

 

She has called me every name in the book, has gotten upset because I went for coffee with a girl during the week we 'broke up' and she asked someone to drinks, etc.....

 

Look...it was a whole cluster ****. Getting into details will not make this better for me here and staying trying to get us back together will end horribly, more for me I'm sure, so i don't want to go there and just share a sob story.

 

I think it comes down to the fact that she's a little off, and she's just not that into me. She has said before that she keeps waiting for a feeling to show up that just isn't showing up. End of story.

 

I'm here to ask about this:

 

I'm 38 and you'd think that getting over someone would be something you get 'better' at, but it always hurts the same. You KNOW that time will ease the longing, pain, hurt, etc. You KNOW you have to accept that it came down to simply being incompatible or being with someone who was mean, or crazy, or unhealthy, or whatever it was that caused things to go bad.

 

I'm someone who more than a few women have said that they screwed up and that they lost a good man. But they still don't want to be with me. Maybe it's they're suffering from "bad boy" syndrome, or as another post here alluded to "greener grass" syndrome. You KNOW that the sooner you move on, the sooner the you will heal and get your esteem and insecurities back in check. You KNOW everything that comes during the bad times of a relationship and the emotional repercussions once you've lost someone.

 

But I'm tired this time. I've given all my time and energy into 4 women in 10 years and tried my best for all of them and here I am, again, alone and being told I'm awesome, but they don't want to be with me.

 

My esteem is shot. I KNOW I have to make time for myself, go be happy with a crowd of one, put myself in positive situations, let time take it's course, blah blah. But you know what? I realize that the last ten years I've not been happy with what I do for a living, and recently lost my job. It pays well and it's what i'm licensed for, but I don't want to even do that for a living. So I'm unemployed, my girlfriend is gone, I have no desire to get back into the field I was in, and I have too much student loan debt to go back to school. My life is going to **** very fast and I'm pushing 40.

 

I realize that I didn't give myself the respect to build a life FOR ME because I was busy trying to build a life for two. I'm at a point where I'm so frustrated because I tried so hard for something that never materialized and all the while my own personal life went to ****. I've put in a solid 10 years and have nothing to show for it. I put in another 11 years before THESE LAST ten years with my ex-wife that i've since been divorced from.

 

I realize that at this point it's a matter of having no esteem and being down constantly that causes someone to not be attracted. I've always been someone who can't seem to be alone. No matter what. Everyone says be alone and try to get better. I took a year between two different relationships and it helped a little, but I was insanely alone and I had gotten a better paying job so that was mostly why I felt better, but I lost that job now and I'm in the worst scenario of my life. I understand that I'm a whiny little bitch living in canada where I have employment insurance and I'll be fine and get back to work at some point doing something.

 

But my problem is this.....i don't know who I am or what I want to do with my life. I always thought I would just have some little job and live in a little house with a good person and we could just do the everyday stuff and make plans together, whatever they may be. I just always believed that the only thing that mattered was love and family. In a world full of things you HAVE to do, you try to have something at home that you WANT to do. So, I "grew up" without the concept of living my life for me. I'm lost. Completely lost. I can't afford schooling to change my career. Without education I'm doomed to retail or manual labour. I don't have any money to start a business and I have no interest in doing so anyway.

 

Ok...blah blah. I need help. I know this isn't just about a girl. It's about wasting time and only having one life. It's my lack of a few traits right now that are causing all this crap. My esteem and self-respect. We all know the cliche statements about staying positive, looking at the good things, etc. And we all know they are the last thing you want to hear at a time like this. But I just don't know what to do with ME at this point, let alone a relationship. I'm rambling because I can't even put my finger on what's wrong or what to do. I am so lost. So tired. So fed up. So exhausted. So miserable. I feel so hurt and let down and thrown away and beaten and insignificant. I wasn't always like this. 21 years of trying. I spent over half my life being a 'good man' and here i sit, thrown away.

 

I don't know what to do....

[Philosoraptor]

Sorry you're going through this. She was rebounding and used you to prop herself up.

 

You're attracting the women you're attracting because you have such a low self esteem. They don't see you as forever, but as something that will make them feel better about themselves. You are attracting vulnerable women who are looking to escape their pain.

 

So what is stopping you from achieving your personal goals? Work goals can be achieved with persistence and effort. There are plenty of people in my office alone who do not have a higher education and have worked hard to obtain their position. On the relationship front you need to figure out what you want out of a partner and not settle for things. You also need to not accept the "I miss my ex" statements that your current partner is making. You needn't settle for whomever will take you. You make yourself more attractive my having standards and not accepting less.

 

You need to figure out what you want out of life and do what it takes to achieve those goals.

[Afterthestorm]

Thanks for replying so fast. I see what you mean about them seeing me as an easing of their pain. They all have done the same thing. You're right to say I'm attracting what I in fact think of myself. Low self-esteem attracts low self esteem.

 

Life goals? My whole life I've hated the idea of working and buying things that become next years landfill. I was raised on a lake in jean shorts until I was 13. Being in cities and working for someone else that wants money and falling for the "we need to increase sales and help the customer" thing makes me sick to my stomach. I've never liked money and never will. If I had my way I would grab a backpack and just travel the world. But I have kids that I have to think about, but at what cost? It's like the saying "if you're in a bad relationship and there are kids involved....the question becomes 'are they better off with parents that are miserable together or happy apart?' ". I don't know if I'm going to be any good to them as long as I keep living my life this way. In other words, are they better off with a dad that is doing something he hates with his life and is miserable with them when he has them, or are they better off with a dad that is trying to live the way he wants to...which unfortunately means being a leather tramp and sending postcards and making phone calls and coming back this way every now and then.

 

I get it....not a plan. I do. But I don't know how to find a happy medium. I went to school. I have all kinds of different experience. I'm first to give my shirt to anyone. Those that know me love me. I'm not a jerk to anyone. I love my kids. I have a car, I have food, I have a good friend that I can go to when I'm in need of someone to vent to, but he's unfortunately horrible when it comes to talking back. Nothing against him at all of course.

 

As long as I'm in a position to have to go work somewhere to make money to buy things I don't really want, then I will never be living my authentic self. But I'm scared. I was in university 10 years ago to become a clinical neuro-psychologist. I was 'on track' to ten times the student loan debt that I currently have. 10 years ago....i lost everything. I had a house in a small town, a corner lot, across from the park, a double swing on the front porch, my sons, my wife, my university, my workshop and beer fridge and tools and 'grunt grunt' guy stuff with beer and classic rock on the radio as I tinkered. I wasn't happy.

 

Then I decided to renovate the house. I told my ex that I didn't want to be together anymore during this time. She went to live in her dad's house (he had taken his own life a year before this and the house was empty). I was on student loan money at this time and living in the house alone trying to accomplish full-time school and renovate the house to get it to market, sell it, split the money and move close to the city where I was attending university. I lost my house to the bank and ended up owing $2800.00.

 

My car decided to blow up on the weekend before my final exams on a particular semester, so I found another one in a junk yard and put that in over the weekend instead of studying. It blew up a week later...turned out they gave me a lemon engine and I was running out of time. At that point my ex's aunt took the plates from the car for my ex-wife, things were still bitter with me and the family, so I didn't argue with her about taking them, but now I couldn't drive anywhere. And it was 45 mins between where I lived and where I went to school by car. I had an old k-car that I had from my toronto days so I put some plates I had in my shop on the car and drove it for 30 days which was all I needed the car for until I was at school. I got into the accident on the 28th day. I was moving the next day and parking the car.

 

The plates weren't registered and not insured. Cost me $9000.00 in total. I was thrown into my backseat because my seatbelt ripped and i was laying there in my car crying with glass all over my face and bleeding. I gave up. I collapsed. I didn't want to live anymore. I had lost my wife, my kids, my house, my car, my job and now almost my life. My father in law hung himself. I lost my academic career, and I now had nowhere to live and no way to get my things from where I lived to where I was going. I lost everything I owned. I ended up staying with my ex's mother and sister until I found work, so for 6 months I slept in a mildew basement in a lazy-boy with nothing to my name but a bag of clothes. They hated me and asked me to do work around the house in order to stay there. I had nothing.

 

I've changed and not for the good. I ended up getting a job, then an apartment, then a better job and a better place. I met a few girls, one who lied the whole time I was with her but I didn't find out until I found her making out with the guy she said she could never be with but was just friends with. Another girl turned out to be married and told me they weren't together anymore and she was moving out, but never did, until she slept with her husband's best friend (which I heard about a year after we weren't together anymore). Another went back to the baby's daddy and they split up two months after they got back together, and the latest one said the same thing, but she's not a good person, so good luck to her with that. Then my car was broken into, and the engine in this car decided to break down. I owed and still owe $23000.00 in student loans. I have child support to pay. I have no money.

 

I have full obligation to everyone....to be everything for everyone....and I can't breathe so I can even sit and figure out who I am or what I want. I'm so upset, pissed off, lonely, down and scared to death that I don't know what will happen next.

 

The thing is, everyone who meets me thinks I'm a great guy and that I'm all smart and attractive and a ladies man and got it going on...but I'm one more event from jumping off a cliff. I now sit in my apartment waiting for winter to end collecting unemployment and having zero motivation to go get 'a job' that I will hate to just put myself back to where I don't want to be. I'm completely ****ed at this point and I don't see myself getting out. At my age I feel like i've done what I could to get to that 'home/family/love/content' stage but that that ship has sailed. I don't want to be that gross old guy drinking isopropyl alcohol at the end of the bar in some dive town because he lost everything. But man does it feel like that's where I'm going.

 

I'm tired. How much more can go wrong. And the thing that is in my head the most.......all these things that happened......I let them happen. I let everything fall.....and I didn't even care. I don't understand why I don't ever care about anything. I have either had low esteem my whole life or something else is wrong. I went to see a cognitive behavioural therapist and he found that i had nothing wrong chemically, but that it was all situational, to which I replied "that belongs in the 'no ****' category". I was diagnosed borderline genius by a mental health person who put me through a series of tests for IQ, memory, all that at the request of the CBT guy.

 

I don't know what is going on with me, but something has to give or I'm going to completely go insane. How do you make life happier when you don't even want anything anymore?

[Chi townD]

Yep, you definitely sound like a dude that doesn't love himself or isn't deserving of love. Your self esteem and self confidence are in the toilet and your philosophies in life are kind of hippie-ish (which there's nothing wrong with that, it's kind of refreshing).

 

You would rather just get a backpack and travel the world. Well, that's what I did and still continue to do. Not all at once, but over a period of time.

 

You say you hate money and you don't like the fact that you have to save money in order to get things that will probably end up in a landfill next year. Then don't save for materialistic things. Save for travels. Save for adventures. Whitewater rafting in West Virginia, hiking the Appalachian mountains, Climb Mt. Rainer. Or backpack through the Bask county of Northern Spain, or go see the Great Wall of China, or the art works of Vatican City! Those are things that you won't find in a landfill at the end of the year. Those are experiences that will be with you forever.

 

Unfortunately for you, you need money to do those things. So, make sure your kids are taken care of first, then set aside a little money at a time to save for your next adventure. I'm a world traveler. I have a Wanderlust that probably will never be satisfied. In my opinion, traveling is very therapeutic and it is the best time to get to know yourself. Plus, you're meeting people along the way from different cultures and different backgrounds. And you'll never know who you'll meet along the way.

[mtnbiker3000]

OP - We're close to the same age and it sounds like you have recently come to realize (like me) that your most current BU was merely a symptom of much larger issues going on in your life. Some possibly for many, many years. I believe this is somewhat common for men in their late 30's / early 40's. Kind of a mid-life crises if you want to call it that. So, I'm going to go against the grain here and recommend something I found of value as it addresses all of the things listed in my signature below.

 

Check out David DeAngelo's 'Deep Inner Game'. He is a well known PUA, but this material is actually presented by a PhD, named Dr Paul and David really doesn't say anything. He just kind of sits there and interjects some stupid comments every few minutes. But the material is good.

 

Now many people will immediately bash this and maybe they have good reason to, but I've found the message right on target and think it helped me realize some of my issues. So, take it for what its worth and if it speaks to you, great. And if not, oh well...

 

I can supply you with a copy if you PM me. Or email me at my screen name @gmail.com...

 

Best of luck