Hi John,

So the first item on your list is to be confident and strong. So say you wake up and see the moon, full and bright, and it reminds you of your ex, and you start feeling regretful, weak and sad. Take out your list, which should always be nearby like in your pocket, and read item 1: I am confident and strong. This is who you are because each person gets to decide who he/she is. You want to be confident and strong and you’re the CEO of you, so you decide, and that’s who you are. It’s that simple. This means that anyone or anything that tries to sabotage your confidence and strength won’t be successful because you’re in charge. As the CEO of you, you’re smart enough to see what’s happening: a thought tried to pull you in AND YOU LET IT! You saw the moon, thought of your ex and got pulled in, then started to feel regretful, weak and sad. As CEO, you don’t have to do what anyone/anything tells you to do! You don’t have to get pulled in. You get to make the decisions! You can let the thought pass without weakening your confidence and strength. At first it’s difficult to do this, so don’t get discouraged. Over time it gets easier. I’m not saying you need to control your thoughts — that’s too hard to do. It’s much easier to control their effects on you. When a thought pops in you head, recognize that it’s only a thought, acknowledge it, you can even say aloud “you’re only a thought”, and then let it pass. Don’t identify with it. Don’t get pulled in. You’re confident and strong; you get to decide what happens once the thought pops into your head. You’ll get better and better at this if you keep trying.

Make your list. Read it before you get out of bed in the morning and then over and over again throughout the day.

John, once you are able to let these ridiculous, annoying thoughts pass without pulling you in, other things in your life will become clearer, like this other relationship you’re in.

Last thing: At the beginning of your last post you wrote I just can’t turn it off in my head. So stop trying to turn it off! Let the thoughts come if they want to come. Who cares if they come?? You don’t because you will let them go before getting pulled in. What you’ll see is that over time the thoughts will start to give up. They’ll start to recognize who’s in charge.

B

Hi Pain,

You are not dumb, that’s for sure. You write far too intelligently to be dumb. And your social skills are better than you think they are. For example, when you wrote this:

I didn’t mean to be rude or offensive in my earlier reply. I was tired when I wrote that and maybe was too direct. You tried to help and I appreciate that

you were demonstrating an awareness of the tone of your post. That’s a social skill! Very well done!

I wish you would continue to write here.

B

Well, what you’ve been going through the past decade or so is hardly conducive to maintaining friendships, so don’t be too hard on yourself. It’ll be easier to make a couple friends once the dust settles. Make it a goal of yours. Joining a running group is one way to meet some people. The closest friends I have in my life are the ones I’ve regularly run/trained with, without a doubt. Also, quality is far more important than quantity….I know, duh….but seriously people are totally mixed up about that one. -B

Neil – The above worst case scenario which I realize is unlikely to occur was not meant to get you to change your mind but instead to develop a healthy coping strategy and solid action plan to fall back on in case it does. I do believe that being nearer to your daughter is a very good choice. -B

Hi Neil,

I understand better now. What’s most clear to me and I believe to anyone who read your post is that you are a decent and honest person. In my humble opinion, the most important quality in a parent is honesty and you got it.

It’s almost impossible not to deprive your children of the same things you were deprived of as a kid. As parents we tell ourselves in the beginning that we won’t repeat our parents’ mistakes, but we can’t help it. It may be unavoidable. Maybe it has  something to do with the wiring of our brains during our own development. I don’t know.

You couldn’t have predicted that any of your choices would have affected your daughter the way they did. Marriages fail every day, people re-marry, start over. Each kid is affected differently. Some do much better once their parents are apart; other don’t. Most of us parents are just as wounded as we were when we were 10, and just as we did on the playground back then, we search out others to help us feel better about ourselves, help us believe we actually have things somewhat together, that we’re succeeding in life. All of your left turns have been about that, don’t you think? No matter what the age, we humans are motivated to get our un-met needs met, even as parents. You have only been doing what you as a human being is innately motivated to do. I’m not trying to convince you that you did all the right things. I’m just saying that anybody, including a really good person, could find themselves in your exact situation. So when you say I turned her whole world upside down and will have inflicted on her views of the world, relationships, parenting, love and god knows what that her innocent mind did not have to be corrupted by, I say Oh yeah, Neil? Ok, then I’m guilty of all those things too. And so is every other parent. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is a TV show, Neil. (Did they have that show in the UK? If not, google it.) The reality is that every single day we parents are in the trenches fighting to not screw our kids up any more than we already have, and any more than our parents screwed us up.

When you were describing your dad in an earlier post, that’s the way I see my own dad. Exactly. And your mom, well, guess what…yep, exactly. If my mom had sat me down when I was 16 years old and honestly explained what was going on with her, I don’t know for sure but I think it would have made a very big difference in our relationship and my life. Instead I was confused and angry. If you explain what’s been going on with you to your daughter, apologize, and then be the best dad you can be every single day going forward, you’ll be healing wounds, both yours and hers. You’ll still make mistakes going forward but remember: every day is a new opportunity to do better than the day before, so keep at it, and admire yourself for doing just that. Those are always the best kinds of people, the ones who keep trying to improve, to be better people, and who never give up.

Oh and the other thing I’ll say is don’t expect things to go smoothly. You’re dealing with teenagers after all and you’re going to get hammered. No matter how many knocks you take, keep reminding yourself of your long-term objective. It’s the relationship’s overall trend, not the daily volatility, that you’re interested in, so don’t get distracted by the spikes and dips. Think stock market, Neil.

Are you considering walking away from this other relationship (the ‘pain’ part of your journey) because you feel your focus needs to be 100% on your daughters now?

B

Damn! Are you sure you’re not an English PhD? 🙂

So let’s break it down: 1) Currently you are physically safe, right? I mean you have a roof over your head, food and water, no one is threatening or harming you, right?  2) Currently your daughters are safe too, right? I mean they are not being harmed in any way?  If these are both true, then the enormous urgency to take this first scary step right now is that you can’t bear the torture that’s going on between your ears a second longer, nothing more, right? But we already determined that making a life-changing decision from an unhealthy mental state isn’t a wise move, didn’t we?

You may say, No,  that’s not quite accurate. The real urgency is that my daughters have been without their dad for too long and I need to fix that right now, and my answer to that would be No, if they are safe both physically and emotionally, then this decision can wait a little longer until your mental state is healthy.

Look, you and I are strangers typing on keyboards from two different continents, and through the exchange of only a handful of messages I can tell that you’re a very smart guy. You’ve been looking for various ways to escape your suffering for many years but every choice you’ve made has only increased your agony. So what if you just chilled out for a second, relaxed, took a deep breath, and took the time to understand real well exactly what it is you’re trying to escape. What if you stopped drinking, started exercising again, and focused real hard on stepping outside the chaos in your head and looking at your situation from an objective standpoint. What if you took, say, one month or 6 weeks to do these things religiously before deciding whether or not to take that first scary step? And what if during this time you looked down for a way out instead of up (as Peter suggested)?

Have you ever considered that the choices you made may have been crappy ones for you but the right ones for your girls? In other words, is it possible that your being away from them the past 3 years could have actually been better than the alternative for their wellbeing? The truth is that you may not have as much to feel guilty about as you think you do.

So back to what Peter said: Sometimes the way out isn’t up but down, and you may say: I’ve done that already and it hasn’t worked! Okay, fair enough. So let’s talk about that. What exactly have you done other than self-help books, audios, you-tube clips, inspirational quotes, and a few meds?

B

Hi Neil,

I can’t possibly know all you’re going through, but I know it’s very difficult. Remember: every morning is a new opportunity to try your best. Keep doing that and see what happens.

As a parent to teenagers, I know what it’s like to feel powerless. Sometimes the right decision is to comfort and care for ourselves first. After all, who ever said that we’re supposed to be experts at this job anyway? We are only human.

Hey Neil — don’t ever feel any pressure to post here. 🙂

Today I’m running all my Saturday errands that don’t get done during the work week. I live on the west coast.

I hope you have a nice day too!

B

Very well put, Peter. I’ll need to read your post a few more times before it all sinks in.

Neil,

You are right. I never gave much thought to the difference between regret and guilt so I guess those things I listed would be considered regrets…but then each was also a choice I made that directly hurt someone too… so I don’t know. I don’t dwell on them and each has served me well, that is, left me with that important nugget of truth, so I’m okay with it all. Many people say that when they die they’ll have “no regrets” — I’m just not one of them! 🙂

Regarding parenting, I think I’m a pretty good mom. No, the truth is I know I’m a great mom. The traps I fall into as a parent are what disappoint me. And there are many. Take the cell phone trap, for example. My husband and I were both leary of cell phones back in the beginning. For the longest time we held out, but you start feeling bad that your kids are missing out on those “crucial” group text messages their friends are sending each other.  So then the rationalizing starts: Well, if they were ever stranded on a diserted highway…so you give in, and then one day you realize your mistake.  That’s the trap!

I totally understand the frustration you’d have by not being guided academically as a kid. I’m thinking your mom’s depression affected you more than you let on — am I wrong? Are you on good terms with your sister and other brother?  (You don’t have to answer these, btw. Also, anita had posted earlier asking you a couple questions that I am so curious about too.)

B

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Brandy.