The things that fuck with my head seem consistent across the gender.

I, for one, have enjoyed the weather of the past two months or so. Sure, slush and water on ice do suck, but it finally seems that spring is here. It's not warm, but there's almsot no ice or snow around. I don't have to wear combat boots anymore, I can go for a jog without fear or breaking my neck, I don't have to stretch the time between fridge resupplying to over a week, and yesterday I reached top gear on my bike, which I haven't done in about six months. In short, I have managed to revert back to being a human being again.

After the horror of a winter and the necessary evil of melting snow, I'm feeling elated. Life is good.

I hate that days are 24 hours instead of 48.. 8 hours is not enough time to beat all my games! i need more time!!! TIIIIIIME!!!

Don't buy any new ones!

While what you say is largely true, in a sense, there's ways to make that "not matter", unfortunately it means personal growth which, I for one, find kind of unpleasant at times (actually it sucks ass). Spend enough time with "yourself" working on your own happiness and growth and the external shit doesn't matter as much after awhile.

Anyone who knows me knows I wouldn't hold myself up as some kind of paragon for this kind of shit, others are far better people than I. It's just the way I've found to move past it (and keep my sanity).

Also, I find older women to not be like the 25-35 year olds, which seem to be a largely unhappy lot, watching their dreams be dashed while at the same time realizing the stuff everyone told them for years doesn't actually reflect reality so well (something for which I have a lot of empathy, actually). It must be unpleasant for them, regardless, they have no right to make you miserable over it.

Regardless, while I have a hard time expressing the reasons I'm saying she doesn't deserve you, the tenet largely holds true, and you've taken some kind of neat steps to doing something self actualizing (though generally it's a bad idea to be too focused on yourself - sometimes you have to spend a bit of time there, to figure out what actually makes you "tick" so to speak).

I actually almost don't want to post this cause part of my brain is cussing me the hell out for being "preachy". On the off chance you'll find this useful, I'll take the self abuse. If not, I'm very sorry to have pried and been nosy.

Actually, all the snow is the biggest reason I love our regular Christmas trips to Finland....

I had that period already. I was single for like 2 years and worked on myself, got more confident, went to college, etc. Then I thought I found my first healthy relationship, but it ends up she is exactly the same as the long one I had before.

Really frustrating.

Realized this while trying to come to terms with how best to respond to a situation I found myself in, early on in marriage.

Faced with an intransigent individual, who did not want to do anything other than eat, sleep, and screw, I found that I had few options past trying to reason with the person.

You could pop her, no, not something I really wanted to do, break your word, no, you are honor and duty bound to uphold your end of the contract unless it has been negated by a breach on the other end, and try to reason with her, nope, didn't work. I was at an impasse, and to further complicate matters, we had a son, and I damned sure owed it to him to try and do my best in not handing him a plate full of crap, because of us.

I examined in my mind what the agreement was, and there was a '..for better or worse' part, and damnit, this was some of what they meant by worse I guess. Now there was no fighting, no co-operation, no real partnership, at any time, but damned if I didn't still have my end of the contract to uphold; had to honor that, redefine my expectations, and find comfort and solace in the fact that I played a straight game, and did my job (the only things really under my control anyway.)

A bitter pill at the time, but learned that I could actually get more out of myself, than I had ever really gotten out of myself before. Of what use or value, I'm not sure, but when years down the road she, who was never forced to be responsible for anything, breached the contract on her end, I negated my obligation towards it, and raised my sons without ever looking back.

Sorry to hear that. At some point I had to just admit to myself that there was no way to could provide a good home for my daughter if I remained married. Ironically she was the one always threatening divorce but I was the one who actually did it...

It's strange, but seems no two situations are ever the same, and no magic bullets for fixing things at times either.

I just acted as if everything was as it should be, thinking that maybe she was 'broken' somehow, and would come around. Nope, didn't work that way, would have liked to have been able to provide the standard nuclear family, as I'm sure you would have too, but wasn't possible in my case either.

We can only do our best, with all parties considered, and past that, nothing really.

but sales!! sales!!!

Still unemployed! Probably going to get kicked out of the house soon.

Sales will always happen.

Hung out with the long-time ex the other day. Back story, high school->college relationship lasting almost seven years. Been a little over a year since we parted, earlier this year she said she wanted to get back together, but a long-distance issue had me saying we shouldn't.

Fast-forward to yesterday when just the sight of her had me happier than I've been since we parted. But I couldn't hold it together, I had to talk about how my feelings for her made it difficult for me to see her. If I hadn't, it would have been a nice catch-up chat with a couple long eye gazes thrown in, bittersweet reminiscence. It was a very unpleasant feeling I was left with afterword. Need to move on, but I feel some inherent loyalty to her when there is no reason left for me to have it. It prevents me making moves on anyone else and having a new partner. Or maybe I'm just making excuses for not having anyone else in my life currently.

Anyway, ended up more painful than I was expecting. We've seen each other more than just that time to catch up, but this one was rough. Perhaps it's still just too soon for me.

Just cutting things from what you posted makes things seem almost self-evident, but people oftentimes know more than what they say.

Bottom line is that only you know the answer.