Hi John,

I’m wondering if this girl came into your life when you were especially sad, lost, lonely, and needy, and that all those feelings made you desperate to have her move in with you so you’d have someone with you 24/7 to help take away your pain. So although she knew she was giving up a great living situation to move in with you, the promises you made to her back then convinced her to do it anyway. Both of you believed back then that there was a bright future ahead of you together. You now know that it’s not meant to be, now realizing your mistake, and you feel guilty about what you need to do to fix this mistake.

I could be totally wrong but if this is what happened I understand completely how you feel. This happens all the time. Couples move in together, give up nice homes to build one together thinking it’s going to work out fine, but it doesn’t much of the time. Your mistake was making a life-changing decision that affects you, your kids, your gf, and her kids, all when you were struggling emotionally, not thinking clearly. People do this all the time. It doesn’t make you a bad person.

B

Hi dreaming715,

This is how it is in my house too only it also involves my sons (1 in college, 1 in high school). They are obsessed with the NBA. (My husband is mostly obsessed with hockey and college basketball/football.) Not only do my sons know every stat on every player on our local NBA team, but they also know stats for most of the players on ALL the teams. They can talk to each other for hours debating what a particular trade will mean for the two teams involved. During basketball season, everything revolves around basketball. If we go out to eat, we go to a restaurant that will be showing the game they want to watch.

I know this is different from your situation as my husband isn’t quite as obsessed with the NBA as my sons (he used to be when he was younger), but don’t get me wrong, he’s obsessed with his teams too!

I see this situation differently than you do. I’m happy with it. It brings the guys in my family so much joy. It’s their passion.

So here’s my advice: Learn everything you can about the Bucks. Learn personal things about each player like which ones are married, have kids, if/where they went to college, what were their childhoods like, etc. There’s a show on TV called “Before the Bigs” which is a documentary that profiles professional athletes, tells their life story before they entered the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc. This show is amazing — it turned me into an NBA fan! Google it. Watch it and the games with your fiancé. Share his passion with him. This is what I did and now the guys in my family actually ask me my opinion on a certain trades, etc. I’m an active participant now, not a frustrated bystander. And the funny thing is I now look forward to the games and the conversation. I’m interested. I want to see what happens.

I think sports is a healthy obsession, so much healthier than so many other things.

B

Fair enough, Ramsey. We do need to agree to disagree because I will always lean toward capitalism and away from socialism, but I am hoping that others who have opinions that are more congruent to yours will share them with you here on your thread.

I’m impressed with you, Ramsey. You’re a much deeper thinker than I was when I had recently graduated from college. I like that you and I can espouse opposing political philosophies and still treat each other with respect.

Happy new year!

B

Hi Ramsey,

I understand that you’re not interested in how only one person can improve his/her own work life; you’re more interested in the big picture. I only shared that with you because I wanted you to know that the career that’s ahead of you doesn’t have to be torture. It can be rewarding. It can be great.

Yes, the picking of vegetables and hunting for food for survival sounds pretty peaceful, I agree. Say we lived in a society like that and you became an expert fly fisherman, ate delicious fresh fish you caught every day but you had no idea how to build shelter for yourself. Say a neighbor who lived an acre away became an expert builder but didn’t know how to fly fish effectively. What would you do? Would you consider fishing overtime in order to provide plenty of fresh fish for him and his family while he built you a nice home? Or would you continue to live in your cold tent because you are dead-set against having to sell your time and labor in order to survive? You might say oh he can teach me how to build and I can teach him how to fish. We can cooperate with each other. Maybe he’ll agree to do that; maybe he won’t. I think that in a society like this people will inevitably develop skills that will become valuable to others who are willing to “pay” for them. You may say but I have a choice in the matter. I can fish overtime for this guy or I can decide not to and stay in my tent. What if you have another neighbor who doesn’t have that choice? Say he’s physically unable to build or fish but knows everything there is to know about calculus, astronomy, and physics and has written books about each subject. What would you do then? Would you provide fish to him for free, trade fish for his knowledge, or let him starve? You may say no, no, no, this isn’t what I’m saying. I’m saying that in today’s world we shouldn’t have to be concerned with survival. What does that mean? Does that mean the government provides each of us with shelter? How does that look exactly? Apartments for everyone or does everyone get a house on an acre of land? And who builds these structures? And then there’s the question of how to keep someone from breaking into your home and stealing all of the fresh fish that you caught for yourself. Who is going to protect you and your family? Whoever does it will want to get paid for it, maybe in fish.

I realize this may be a ridiculous example. I know what you’re saying. There’s massive greed and unfairness in the world. I agree completely. But getting a job and working hard doesn’t mean you have to buy into the b.s. You don’t have to compromise your character and integrity in order to be successful. And it’s possible to be content, happy and fulfilled within this current system. Don’t believe everything you read about what it’s like in the workforce. Decide what you want, the person you want to be. What do you want? What’s exactly is your utopia?

If you became the CEO of Nike you wouldn’t have to use your money to exploit people. Who says you have to do that? You wouldn’t have to be that a-hole. You could use your money to make big changes in the world. Positive changes that affect a lot of people positively.

B

Hi John,

I just now read your last post and it made so much sense to me. You seem to have a much clearer picture of what motivates your ex. The mixed feelings you’re having seem so reasonable to me. Continue to trust your instincts because they are good!

Hope you have a great weekend with your gf!

B

Hi Shelby,

I just now realized that the question you really want answered here is how to accept something that’s hard to accept, not why you’re in the situation of having to do it in the first place, and I’m also realizing that your kindness may be keeping you from posting “Yo Brandy, you’re giving me advice I didn’t ask for!!!”….lol. I’m so sorry! So to get your thread back on track I’ll summarize my advice for how with 1. practicing acceptance which I described earlier on this thread, 2. practicing mindfulness which I think is part of acceptance (or vice versa) and I described that on your other thread I think, and I’ll add a #3 which is that I think a little boost in your self-esteem will help too and your therapist should be able to help you with that. That’s really all I’ve got to answer your specific question. If you have any other questions for me, just let me know!

B 🙂

Hi Shelby,

1. Okay, thanks, I understand now.

2. So the way you see it, this man is your only chance for a husband and family. Without him, you don’t see any of that in your future. Why do you think that? Is it because you can’t see yourself ever being as attracted to another man as you are to him?…or do you not believe in your ability to attract another good man?

What initially attracted you to him anyway, and him to you? And what did you love most about him, and he about you, the years you were together?

3. I think a lot of the crappy things we go through will ultimately make us stronger people but I also think that rejection isn’t necessarily one of those things. Maybe for some rejection actually does the opposite, chips away at our self-esteem, and the more we experience it the harder it is to recover from it. I wonder if this, in part, is why you’re having an especially difficult time trusting that you’ll eventually find a path out of your pain.

B