Tag Archives: therapy

Secret Ingredients

Posted on by
Reply

Swine Flu Anyone?
Photo by Ben ChauCW hasn’t been very well and for once it isn’t something she got from me.  Oh, and for the dirty minded amongst you, I mean she has a cold…or swine flu, possibly..nothing else.

I have been trying to do the caring boyfriend bit…you know guys, trying to persuade her to have a sleep to feel better…thus leaving you free to do your thang without running around all day (j/k CW).  However, there appears to be another way, one guaranteed to make someone feel better, at least there is according to my youngest, Brandon.

Brandon: “Make her some hot chocolate Dad, that always makes you better”

Me: “I would son, but I don’t have any in the apartment”

Brandon: “So go to the shop and get some Dad”

Me: “I am in Germany and it is Sunday…all the shops are closed”

Brandon: “Were the shops open yesterday?”

Me: “Yes, all the shops are open on a Saturday”

Brandon: “So why didn’t you get some Hot Chocolate then?”

Me: “Umm, well, CW wasn’t ill yesterday, so I didn’t know I needed some”

Brandon: *sighs* “Well, you can make your own you know…and it will make her better”

Me: “I can?  Great, how do I do that then?”

Brandon: “Ok, you need to get some coffee, tea bags, milk, sugar, flour and chocolate”

Me: “Riiiight…and what do I have to do then?”

Brandon: “You put the coffee and the tea and the flour together with some sugar and mix it all together.  Then put milk in all the way to the top, and then put it in the microwave for 10 minutes”

Me: “10 minutes?  Really?  That seems like a long time”

Brandon: “Not really, put it in the microwave and count to 10″

Me: “10 seconds, gotcha..then what?”

Brandon: “You gotta stir it, then put more sugar in and stir it again and put some chocolate in”

Me: “Ok, anything else?”

Brandon: “No, she just needs to drink it and she will feel better”

Now, I have to say that I can’t recommend this particular homemade Hot Chocolate enough…as soon as I told CW what I was going to make her, she started feeling a little better…imagine how much better she would have felt if I had been able to make it before she fell asleep.

Still, good to know for the future….and something tells me that CW may not get sick for a while Wink

Anyone else got any interesting recipes from their kids?

Feelings

Posted on by
2

So another day, another passworded post.  I was going to remove the last one, and in fact I did for a short while.  But then I thought, screw it…noone can read it so it doesn’t matter.  Then I went through some stuff last night and lo and behold…another one pops out this morning.

Feelings are strange things aren’t they?  They totally screw with your mind and often the minds of those around you that you care about.  When it’s the latter, it is often too late when you realise what you are doing.

I have been quite selfish for some time…could be that I needed to be, but when realisation hits and things are too late to deal with, I wish I had stayed how I was…ignorant and avoiding admittance.

Now I feel zoned out and in limbo.  Nothing seems to be moving and with how tired I am at the moment, I just want to sleep.  I apologise if this is a bit of a depressing post, but as I have said before, my blog my rules.

Did you ever sit down and reflect on yourself over the last few years and actually be able to spot where things should have been done differently?  I know I have and I am left with feelings of regret and an uneasiness I am not used to.

20/20 hindsight is wonderful, but completely useless I guess.

Now I have to try and look forward and to be honest, I just don’t know if I have the energy… or desire… to bother.

All I would say is, think, think long and hard about your decisions before you make them.  They almost certainly will come back and bite you in the arse at some point, and you have to be prepared to live with them and sleep at night…something I have failed to do for the last 2 nights running.

I don’t think you can make it through life without some regrets…just try everything you can to make them small and trivial.

That’s what I will aim for from now on….if possible anyway.

D.

Scared much?

Posted on by
2

!!So we have already established my fear of public speaking, and it got me thinking about other things and situations that keep me rooted to the spot. 

How do you define a phobia?  Wikipedia says “A phobia (from Greek: ????Î?Î???, phobos, “fear”), is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or persons. The main symptom of this disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject.”

Now, other than public speaking, I don’t have any phobias….according to Wikipedia anyway.   Clearly, my aversion to things as large as my head that have more legs than me is completely rational.  There is nothing irrational about screeching like a 1950s woman that has just seen a mouse when one of these evil monstrosities roams the apartment..is there?

That reminds me, I need to buy a broom.  A military grade one, preferably supplied by the guy that gives Bond his gadgets…

I don’t know the official name…but I do have another irrational fear, the fear of looking like an idiot.  Quite an ironic one though, as I probably do this a lot without even realising…but that’s the key isn’t it, the not realising it.  I try to be funny but avoid being moronic, I deliberately avoid putting myself in situations where I can look foolish.  Which is funny really as a lot of my humour centers around taking the piss out of other people, therefore putting myself “in the line of fire”, so to speak.

I knew someone sometime ago that would become rooted to the spot and end up in a gibbering wreck when birds were flapping their wings anywhere near her.  Sarah used to become almost paralysed with fear whenever she was forced to look down from a height…something I very delicately and considerately dealt with by getting her to go on the biggest, baddest rollercoasters and fairground rides that I could find…oh and I made her go up to the top of the revolving telecomms tower in Berlin….See, aren’t I considerate Twisted

I personally am terrified of paralysis…a lot of people will relate to this I am sure, but the concept of being trapped inside my own body really gives me the heebies..

So what am I scared of now?  I don’t know really, my career seems to have stalled..I am 35 in a couple of days, I see my kids via webcam or talk to them by phone and I live alone.  I should probably be scared of myself if I am honest.  I seem to hurt people close to me and push them away.  I have even done this to my family over the years (albeit mainly when I was younger…some things are best left unblogged).  All I know is that I am tired.  Not tired in a “you should be worried about my state of mind” kind of way.  More tired in a self-absorbed, drained kind of way.  There feels like some sort of malais afflicting me, who knows though, this is probably normal for someone approaching 35.  Ageing has never bothered me before though, so I can’t (with any honesty) blame that.

Maybe I will look to new horizons, maybe.

Or maybe I should just buy a sports car, get liposuction and hair implants and rock it with 18 year old nymphomaniac contortionist porn star triplets…

Is senility contagious?

Posted on by
2

The Man Who Didn't Know About RunningI hope not, although recently I seem to have caught an accute case of it. I had a great idea for a blog post on Saturday, but between having the idea and screwing my ankle (AGAIN!!!), by the time I got home I had forgotten it.

This is happening with monotonous regularity at the moment too. I have recently taken to walking out of my living room (the real one, not the bar downstairs) and into the kitchen…only to instantly forget why I had done it.

And what is it with that nagging feeling you get, like you have forgotten soething or need to be somewhere….only to remember….JUST AFTER IT IS TOO BLOODY LATE!!!??!!! Damnit.

I would like to attribute this to something interesting like drug abuse or at least a frontal lobotomy. Unfortunately though, I can only really attribute it to age.

Dear Mind

I am only 34 years old, please stop screwing with me and allow me to remember my name, address and if I am hungry or not.

Please stop hiding my keys and forcing me to write shopping lists for anything more than 3 items.  Help me remember phone numbers like I used to, or at least to remember my own phone number for more than a couple of days.

When I login to my online banking to see my account, please don’t make me login a 2nd time 1 second after logging out, just to check what the balance actually was.

It would be nice if I could leave my apartment, with the keys in my hand, and not have to stare at my hand for a full minute before plucking up the courage to close the door.

2 years ago I didn’t even need a notebook in meetings, now I have to write the meeting room number and location ON my bloody notebook so I remember which room when I get there.  If you could sort that out I would be grateful.

And finally, I would like very much to … ummm … sod it … you get the point.

Kind regards in advance of your co-operation

Dave

I don’t know if I will get a reply or not, but it has to be worth a go.

Confidence is a tricky thing

Posted on by
3

So, with some of the stories you have read on here, and certainly for some people that know me…you may think me to be a reasonably confident individual in all situations.

Not so, I have never been confident with public speaking or speaking with the ladies.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have managed to overcome these things to a degree, but I become rooted to the spot, I get very hot and my throat gets dry. It’s weird, I find it a lot easier to overcome this deficiency at work than I do in my personal life.

For example, in my job I am regularly called upon to give presentations or training or take meetings etc…Inside I am going mental, but normally manage to overcome it and do a good job. Outside of work, the fear washes over me and I struggle.

Now, you put me in a situation with friends in an informal setting and I can hold my own at the center of any conversation. You stick me on a stage with the EXACT same group of people in front of me and I freeze.

Which is why my wedding speech consisted of almost passing out before it was due, trying to put it off as “Everyone is enjoying themselves”, an inability to eat and possibly too much beer. Culminating in my award winning “Thanks for coming….Lets get pissed” speech. Yes, I am proud of that myself Oops!

I don’t know what it is that makes people confident or not. When put in a pressure situation, or if I am pissed off…no problem. I guess that is down to distracting myself from what is actually happening.

Now in the past, with the ladies….I have had to find other methods that overcome this hideous fear of rejection. Including trying to employ a small measure of psychology, which surprised me by being reasonably successful when I was a lad. Of course, back then I didn’t have the Uncle Fester thing going on and was fairly popular anyway…so it could have just been that I guess Oops! Still, I put it down to my amazing techniques….and I would share them with you now, but I probably couldn’t handle the ridicule, plus if any of you tried them and failed you would no doubt seek me out and beat me for spreading misinformation and humiliation.

Of course, confidence can kick you in the arse too, and by that I am obviously referring to over-confidence. We get a lot of it at work, NNES (Non-Native English Speakers) that have been working in English for years feel confident in correcting my documentation and have actually argued with me on the correct useage of English words. I wouldn’t mind if they were occasionally right, but having to find a dictionary or real life example to demonstrate that I am correct is beyond belief. I can’t give specific example…or I would have to kill you, or make this thing self-destruct at least……and frankly it had enough of that a few weeks back.

Speaking of over confidence, especially in ones own ability – Have you seen Britains Got Talent, X-Factor, Big Brother or any of these type of reality shows. It may even go back to my last post…how can parents seriously encourage some of these people. They can’t seriously believe that this…

…is talented? Unless the talent is to induce vomiting and blood loss through the ears as some sort of WMD for future wars. Somebody somewhere must have helped this delusion along. Ok, I will admit, if I had been involved in the “development” of this “talent”, I would have been evil and twisted enough to want to get them on a show like this for a laugh.

Gotta love him

Maybe this is where my confidence could be best used, whilst the police and armed forces are looking for

chemical weapons and nukes, I could smuggle William Hung into any country and hold them to ransom….

Pay me 50,000,000 immediately or he starts singing

Genius

Nan & Grandad

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been thinking about my Nan and Grandad a lot just recently. I miss them, they had such a huge impact on my life. So much in fact, that I turned down jobs abroad to make sure I stayed in the area so I could be there if they needed me.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss them in a sad, feeling sorry for myself kind of a way.

They were both amazing and generous people who would never turn their back on family or even friends.  And, they had a great sense of humour.

We were living in Newark and I was just about old enough to go to the park on my own….I say just about, which kind of translates to: I legged it to the park at any given opportunity.  After the panic of my disappearance, Nan started looking around for me and eventually found me at the park.  It was raining and I refused to go home with her, to the point where I sprinted to a climbing frame that was essentially a huge stepladder curved into an arch, and climbed to the highest point and proceeded to taunt her.   It was like the top left one in the pic below.

Climbing Frames

What I didn’t expect, was the turn of speed my nan was capable of displaying, and she shot up the climbing frame at a rapid rate of knots and grabbed me.  I demonstrated the kind of caring child I was by yelling “I hate you nanna” repeatedly.  This was interspersed by my nan responding with “I hate you too”, followed by a slap of my arse.  This continued all the way home, until I was grounded Frown

My Grandad was known to perform amazing tricks like, stopping in the middle of a crossroads because the lights on the other side turned red as he was going.  He would laugh hysterically as we would look for a change of underwear.

I blame my nan for my current size (unlike most people who blame bone structure or water retention).  My nan was like Mrs Doyle on speed, but instead of cups of tea it was food.  I will blame her, I always have…she loved it really.  This was really down to her generosity though more than a need to feed people to bursting.  She would also order stuff that was too big, or that they wouldn’t want, just to be able to give it to members of the family.  They took this to the extreme once when I needed a washing machine.  My nan convinced grandad that they needed a new washer as it didn’t “fit” with the look of the kitchen.  A week later I had their perfect condition, 1 year old washing machine.

They had their little foibles too though, both of them would go nuts if anyone touched my grandads grandfather clock or stereo equipment.  It had to be me and only me.  Someone else tried to change the time on the clock once, got it wrong and was almost exiled from the family.  I was called immediately after they left to sort it out.  Same thing with the stereo equipment, my grandad had 2 stereos and swapped them from time to time so as to keep them from wearing out.  Quite why he couldn’t have bought one and used it until he needed to buy another one was something that always escaped me.

There are hundreds of stories of how they affected my life in a positive way, how they never stopped believing in me, eventually I even started to believe in myself, and for that I am eternally grateful.  I have still never managed to forgive myself for not being strong enough with my boss to leave work when my grandad was dying, I blamed my boss, but in reality my lack of strength resulted in my grandad passing literally as I pulled up in my car.  Something I have most definately addressed since that day, so thankyou Grandad.  I have to say though, Sarah was there when he passed and said something which I now see as a nice thing.  She said that they all heard my car and that either Sarah or my mum said “Davids here”, and my Grandad smiled and passed away right then and there.  She says that he did this because I was there to take care of everyone and be strong for him.  To start with, that just hurt me more, but over the years I have come to take some solace in that whenever I look back.

My nan passed a couple of years ago and I made sure that I was there, I called the family together when people were unsure if it was the right thing to do…basically the strength I got following my Grandads passing helped me through it.  Nan was fading in and out, but I recall a very lucid moment about a day before she finally (and peacefully) passed.  She called all the family together, like the veritable matriarch and gave every single one of us some information that she felt important, something a lot of people don’t get the time to either give or recieve so we were all grateful to that.

The information she gave me?

“Get to Germany David, don’t let anything stop you, there is nothing holding you here”

Thanks Nan and Grandad…. I love you both

xx

And so it begins again…

Posted on by
1

So, I should be getting my internet this week sometime (sound familiar?).  I don’t know if the engineer will bother turning up this time, but I hope so.

I always knew that the internet was vital to my life, but I hadn’t realised just how much until now.  The blog is a small part of it, but becoming more important.  But it is things like my VoIP phone, contacting friends and family, emails, my websites, entertainment.

Pretty much everything I do involves the internet in some way.  This past few weeks has been like losing an arm.  Sad but true.

I am not the most social person some times, I know that.  I lock myself away in my apartment quite often and only surface if invited.  I enjoy watching the football and having a couple of beers.  I enjoy going out and getting wrecked sometimes, but more often than not I would rather be at home.

Since splitting from Sarah, I haven’t been able to retreat to the sanctity of the apartment completely, as my online life isn’t available to me.  I think it is causing me to become more stressed and (god forbid) more insular.  I have no interest in relationships, a lack of interest in socialising and things at work are causing more stress for me than they realistically should.  I am pretty sure that this is directly attributable to the fact that I don’t have my normal outlet for entertainment and relaxation.

I am rapidly running out of shows to watch that I downloaded before I left the old apartment, the money I was expecting to send to Sarah and the kids from the apartment deposit, doesn’t look like it will end up in my pocket.  A number of things at work are really aggravating me to the point of distraction and if I have to use the shitty PCs at the internet cafe much more I will probably go postal.

Still, it’s not all bad.  I have formed a bond with my cats !?!  You see on films the crazy cat lady – I am well on my way to being crazy cat guy.  I talk to them ffs, regularly, I even ask questions and am more than a little surprised when they offer nothing beyond a purr.

Dammit T-Com, don’t you see what you are doing to me here?

On the plus side, the stress (self inflicted or otherwise) has allowed me to lose some weight….which is nice.  I am kind of able to satiate my net needs at work and the internet cafe, but  I kind of feel like the lead character of Moonlight.  A vampire that survives on pre-packed blood instead of the fresh stuff.  Sure, he can survive on it, but when he is out in the desert and needs to feed, it is a bit shit to miss out on the good stuff….

Where am I going with this post?  I have no idea…and neither will anyone reading this.  I can’t even dredge any humour out of the situation at the moment.

Sorry internet, I am sure I will be ecstatic and mildly humourous when you return to me….hopefully this week.

Tired and back…sort of

Posted on by
1

sleepy raverWell, I am back home and should be back online around the 16th of this month, a little while after they originally said, but not too bad I guess. It will give me the opportunity to get my apartment in order I suppose.

I had a hell of a week, but it was very enjoyable…I got to see the kids, me and Sarah had fun, I saw my family and friends. All was good.

I did NOT enjoy the drives though Frown

Let me break down my travelling, in a form of therapy it may help me understand why my body feels like Mike Tyson has done a number on me.

Tuesday 1st April/Wednesday 2nd April:

06:30 Wake up, get ready etc
07:20 Head to work
16:30 Leave work, wait 30 mins for Lesley to pick me up and go collect the van
17:00 Collect van, head to old apartment to collect last few bits
18:00 Head to new apartment to unload van and collect last bits to go to UK (Forget mirror…sorry Sarah)
18:30 Head to Angelas
19:00 Begin loading van
21:30 Finish loading van – Eat Pizza
22:30 Realise that I need postcode for delivery of Angelas stuff…Angela makes some calls
23:00 Go to bed
00:00 Woke up by Lesley on the phone who…can’t find my fridge…….it’s in a cupboard lol
02:00 Wake up, coffee and ciggy
02:30 Start the drive to Calais
09:00 Arrive at Calais, get asked if I want to get straight on the train – I do Smile
12:00 Arrive in Pagham, unload Angelas stuff
15:00 Arrive in Bournemouth
01:00 Goto bed

Total time awake: 42.5 hours (less 3ish hours sleep)

Thursday -> Sunday

Enjoy time with kids, spend time with family and friends – A few journeys to various places

Monday 7th April/Tuesday 8th April:

07:00 Wake up, have breakfast with kids
08:30 Take kids to school
09:00 Little bit of shopping with Sarah
13:00 Arrive back at Sarahs house
13:30 Build last couple of bits of furniture, setup entertainment units and connect all devices to internet
16:00 Collect kids from school
17:00 Have dinner with kids and Sarah
17:30 Say bye to kids and Sarah, wend my merry way back to Germany
21:30 Arrive at Eurotunnel
22:50 Get on train
06:30 Arrive in Frankfurt
07:00 Hand in van, pay, head home
08:30 Sleep
16:30 Wake up, potter around
20:30 Watch Liverpool batter Arsenal Wink
00:30 Bed

Total time without sleep: 25.5 hours

Sheesh, no wonder I just almost fell asleep in a meeting Confused

It was funny on the way to the UK though, I swear that customs were going to search the van – That is of course until they opened the back door and saw just how full it was…..they quickly decided to let me through. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to cover a 32″ Widescreen TV with an old blanket and put it on the passenger seat of the van – That took some explaining.

Also, I may or may not have forgotten to pack a case for my week away until I had been in bed 2 hours on Monday night. I may or may not have forgotten to get any British currency, and then panicked when the machine in the UK wouldn’t accept my card as it was broken.

Ah well, normal service should be resumed shortly….my apartment looks like someones garage right now, stuff just piled in there Frown

The list

Posted on by
Reply

018 // 365 (old)When I separated from Lorrin, I moved back to Ollerton and moved in with my Grandparents for a while. I was a bit of a mess after the breakup if I am honest and was glad of the support from my family.I got back in contact with old friends and slowly started building up a circle of friends and began enjoying life. I adjusted to not seeing the kids on a daily basis. I found a new job and things were looking up.

It was around this time that I discovered that wonderul “New guy in town” status. It is this amazing thing, where women are instantly interested in you as you are new and different to everyone else that they know and see every day. It is wondrous, but you have to act fast. You only have a window of a few months to take advantage of this new found celebrity.

It is possible to increase this window though, something I managed by taking a job that kept me in a different city through the week, meaning my mystery increased as I was only available on weekends….good eh?

Every Friday night, about 15-20 of us would head to the clubs, we never arrived before midnight and a great night was almost certainly had by all.

Now, say what you like about blokes, but we are not all a stupid as you ladies would believe. The guys in the group, realising my “celebrity” status, took it upon themselves to let me in on the group sexual dynamic. It went a little like this :

OK Dave, so…you can’t go with Amanda as Brian has been after her for ages

Oh, and Sarah, Col and her are almost together, so don’t fuck that up please

Tina is a no go, her and Marc were a thing until recently, and they may get back together

Tracey and Darren may be getting together, so avoid her aswell

and so on….

And so “The List” was born. I ended up looking like I swung the other way at one point, as I would move away from any of the women on “The List” for fear of breaking the code as delivered by the blokes.

Lists and codes – blokes lead a complicated life you know…

It’s quite funny looking back, as at some point I ended up going with Amanda, Tina and Sarah (not at once though). Noone believes that I didn’t get with Tracey, but I didn’t. I didn’t set out to break the code, but it was getting too complicated to bloody remember and the guys were clearly way off base when they thought that the girls were interested in them. The only exception was Marc/Tina – It was Marc that wasn’t bothered, which was good.

During this time I forged an amazing friendship with Sarah, rented a house with her and Bongo (Ali – A chef) and generally lived life to the full. We eventually became lovers, but not until after “Craig” was on (and then rapidly off) the scene.

We had recently watched Lee Evans on video, where he refers to guys called Craig that can just wander up to women and pull them without effort. So it had to happen that Sarah was outside the club, waiting for a taxi (I think we were at Salmonella Sids – The local burger van….never eat the mystery meat people!) when a chivalrous gentlemen gave his jacket to a shivery Sarah. His name….Craig.

We took the piss out of her for quite a while, especially when she had a date with him a week or so later, but couldn’t remember what he looked like. So smitten was Craig, he took to practically stalking her, until that fateful day.

I am not sure exactly why he ended up calling my mobile, I know he knew that Sarah and I were good friends…and maybe she was avoiding him. Anyway, call me he did and asked me if we were all going to the club. I said that we were and he started talking to me about Sarah and how much he liked her etc. It was cute, but a little weird that he would tell me all this, and then he ended the call by asking me to tell her that he loved her.

Eek! I mean, what the fuck???

I promised him I would and then hung up. I all but sprinted into the pub where everyone was sat and decided that news this big needed an audience. So I announced his undying love to Sarah in front of the whole pub. She may have been a little embarrassed, I can’t be sure though, the bruises only faded a couple weeks ago.

I think it may have been at that moment that their (3-4 week) relationship was over. Such a shame, clearly he had marriage on the cards.

A few weeks later, Sarah and I got together and we stayed together for the last 10 years. Even though I ended the relationship, I am still sad that it is over. I don’t regret a second of the time we spent together and I hope we can manage to stay friends as we have been since the break-up. I know that is asking a lot, and given time she is bound to resent me for a while at least. I just hope that any resentment doesn’t turn into hate.

I think I would regret losing that friendship more than anything else in the world. Like I say, a lot to ask, but people always tell me, if you don’t ask you don’t get.

I. Am. A. Bastard

Maybe

Why am I here?

Posted on by
1

Woah… sounds like a profound statement.  Trust me it’s not.

I have spent long and varied hours reading through other peoples blogs, mainly for distraction and definately for the funnies, and it strikes me as a good way to get things off your chest and maybe….just maybe create a modicum of entertainment for some other brain fried soul that needs a pick me up.

  • Do I think I can achieve this….no
  • Do I think anyone will ever see this (me telling them about it doesn’t count)….no
  • Times I have quit this page thinking it is a stupid idea….4

Which brings me back to title of the post I guess.   Well, much as it pains me to admit, my therapist thought it would be the perfect place to work my own personal shit out.  That’s right, I said therapist and yes they have apparently heard about all this new fangled technology stuff.

“Why a therapist?” I hear you cry.  Ok, maybe I don’t – Or if I do that might give an explanation right there.  Well, I am something of a paradox right now.  I believe myself to be a nice guy, decently overweight and with a freakish passing resemblence to Uncle Fester (more on the reason for that in future posts).  The paradox is that I have recently been responsible for fucking up someones life after she pretty much dedicated 10 years of her life to trying to make me happy.

Feel free to skip ahead to another blog at this point.  I can highly recommend the blogroll as they tend to be actually funny and a real distraction from….let’s face it, the work you are supposed to be doing right now.

NB: The names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

I met Sarah 10 years ago, just after I separated from my (now) ex-wife.  She is funny, beautiful and has a lust for life that cannot be denied.  We started off as friends, then housemates and eventually lovers.  We now have 2 amazing kids (Zak and Brandon-Lee) and spent many a happy year together.  I don’t fully know what happened, and yes I am aware about how pathetic that sounds.  We moved to Germany together (a long-held desire of mine since I was a kid) and all seemed well.  We had the usual bickering of any couple that have been together that long, we had financial issues that we, for the most part, got through.

Looking back from where I sit today, I still can’t put my finger on it.  My feelings changed, I no longer feel the love that has been there from very early on in our relationship – Not love at first sight, no nothing that corny, but love after about 3 months – Which is still pretty impressive when you come to think of it.

We were a fit…. we enjoyed each others company, made each other laugh, were fortunate to be able to generate mutual friendships, and in the *ahem* physical aspect we knew just what the other wanted and enjoyed.

So far, so inexplicable then. 

 10 years after getting together, I feel like I am not the same person.  I am still attracted to her, can still make her laugh, she can do the same to me, the physical thing was as good as ever (albeit less frequent – my fault), I just don’t feel the love.

Crazy isn’t it. 

The only thing I can reasonably come up with is that, if it is possible (and uncontrollable) to fall “in” love with someone, then the reverse must also be true.  That’s it….that’s all I have to explain throwing away a 10 year relationship with an amazing woman that, truth be told, I probably never fully deserved.  I miss my kids, I miss our conversations and closeness, but even with that, I still don’t feel like the decision is the wrong one.

One fucked up individual ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Dave.  Clearly, someone that follows orders from a German therapist that speaks only slightly more English than I do German (not a lot), is a definate head case.  Still, it makes the sessions interesting and the misunderstandings generally end in him reaching for the “Put this man in a padded cell” prescription pad….or something.

 I will try to avoid the self-obsessed, depression enducing posts, but I make no guarantee.  It IS my blog after all..